Top labor groups break with federal union's demand to end shutdown

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News

November 1, 2025, 12:25 PM


The largest federal workers' union this week threw its support behind a Republican government funding bill, ratcheting up pressure on Democrats. But many of the top labor unions told ABC News that they continue to back the strategy taken up by Democrats, breaking with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers losing out on pay and staring down the threat of layoffs.

Many labor unions, a key bloc within the Democratic Party, support the push for an extension of Obamacare subsidies and remain eager to fight a president they view as an adversary of workers, some labor analysts and union officials said. Jaime Contreras, an executive vice president at the 185,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, said he sympathized with the challenges faced by federal workers but he disagreed with AFGE's approach.

"They have to do what they have to do for their members," Contreras told ABC News. But, he added: "It's a false choice in my opinion to say we need to give up affordable healthcare for millions and millions of Americans in order to bring federal workers back to work." SEIU 32BJ represents about 2,400 federal contractors who work as security officers, food-services workers and other employees, meaning they run the risk of missing out on backpay when the government reopens, Contreras said. "These workers are bearing the brunt of this shutdown," Contreras said, later adding: "We're urging our Democratic friends to hold the line."

The stay-the-course approach maintained by key labor organizations has likely eased the pressure faced by Democratic lawmakers in the aftermath of the AFGE announcement, some labor analysts told ABC News. "The federal unions aren't the biggest players," Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who leads the nation’s largest labor federation, made up of unions representing nearly 15 million members, faulted President Donald Trump for what she considers an attempt to divide workers.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-labor-groups-break-federal-unions-demand-end/story?id=127055562

[popsdenver]

1. 2400 misc contractors

who only care about their own hides, and screw everyone else in other unions and the rest of the U.S..........??????????

Who are these people??????????? They must be a teenie little groups of contractors, and probably a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party...............

Since Reagan did PATCO Union Busting, the Republican Party has worked hard to destroy Unions, by working on splitting them up......

[BumRushDaShow]

3. The federal building screening/security and food services staff ARE contract employees

as are the federal building custodial maintenance and janitorial services staff, most of whom are POC.

THAT is who SEIU Local Local 32BJ is representing.

I think the issue here is weighing a "short term" goal versus the "long term" goal and SEIU is disagreeing with AFGE's approach.

We are here today because Schumer caved in March when the GOP does nothing but "Lucy and the football" lying with their "promises" after we support them.

[mdbl]

2. They are too stupid to recognize the divide and conquer strategy that will be their demise

United they stand, divided they will fall.