As we enter the dog days of summer, AFGE is busy on Capitol Hill encouraging lawmakers to avoid another disastrous government shutdown at the end of September and restore collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal workers.
Short-Term Spending Bill Likely Needed to Avoid Shutdown
With barely two months to go before the current fiscal year ends, there are no concrete signs that Congress will pass the 12 appropriations bills needed to fund most government operations starting Oct. 1 or that President Trump will sign the funding bills into law.
The Senate and House are scheduled to go into recess for the month of August, so the main question is whether members will set aside their policy and political differences when they return to work in September and pass a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government operating at current funding levels beyond Sept. 30.
AFGE’s Legislative Department is urging Congress to put politics aside and fund the government either by passing regular appropriations bills or a CR. As federal workers recall all too well, Congress’ failure last September to pass either regular appropriations bills or a CR led to the record 43-day governmentwide funding lapse that ended in mid-November and the subsequent 76-day funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security that ended in April.
Those funding lapses resulted in most federal employees missing weeks or months of take-home pay – causing them personal hardships and undermining their work on behalf of the American public.
To avoid a repeat scenario, AFGE is urging Congress to pass the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act (S. 4632, H.R. 5870), which was introduced in May by Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) in the Senate and Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) in the House. This legislation would implement automatic continuing resolutions every two weeks in the event that budgets are not approved by the start of the fiscal year. This would prevent funding lapses, ensure all federal workers continue to be paid, and allow critical services and operations to continue without interruption.
