AFGE

“AFGE is preparing immediate legal action and will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks.”

Everett B. Kelly, national president of AFGE, argued that Congress, in the name of preventing a shutdown, would be cosigning an ongoing assault on the federal government, noting that the Trump administration recently announced its intent to "effectively destroy" the Department of Education without the consent of lawmakers.

Those senior workers would not only lose collective bargaining rights laid out in the law, but the change would eviscerate “the apolitical, merit-based system we have today” and replace it with “a corrupt spoils system,” Jacque Simon, AFGE’s public policy director, said in a union publication.

Johnny J. Jones, secretary-treasurer of the TSA workers unit within the AFGE, said even a temporary loss in pay is a massive disruption for government workers who live paycheck to paycheck.

LaPointe, a mother of four who is also a union leader for 30,000 Social Security workers through AFGE, said a shutdown would be “a catastrophe” personally.