By Mark Gruenberg
Photos: People’s World\YouTube Screenshots
WASHINGTON—A partial government shutdown, idling up to 840,000 federal workers, began at 12:01 am on Oct. 1, as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans refused to budge on Democratic demands that the GOP’s health care cuts and insurance premium price hikes be taken off the table.
In a new development in the struggle, two big unions, the Government Employees (AFGE) and AFSCME, marched into U.S. District Court in San Francisco the day before to stop the mass firings of federal workers that Trump wants.
The unions, aided by the pro bono lawyers group Democracy Forward, seek an injunction against the Trump regime’s plans to use the shutdown as an excuse for mass firings—called in bureaucratese “reductions in force” or RIFs—of federal workers both during and after the shutdown.
Many federal workers’ groups and their allies say the shutdown happening now actually got underway on day one of the Trump administration, when he and Elon Musk started firing tens of thousands of the workers who perform the public services that Americans rely on every day.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., attended a rally with fired federal workers on the eve of the shutdown, where she held up a sign declaring, “Trump’s Shutdown Started with DOGE Firing Workers,” referring to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Meanwhile, unions and workers started reporting the practical impact of the shutdown—everything from suffering hospital patients in Asheville, N.C., to closure of the Federal Aviation Administration’s school in Oklahoma City which trains aspiring air traffic controllers….READ MORE
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