Photo: Jay Willett/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley held an emergency roundtable meeting with local union leaders Friday about the ongoing federal government shutdown.
The shutdown started Wednesday after Congress failed to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government funded. While Republicans and Democrats in Washington D.C. remain at an impasse, the Trump Administration is threatening mass layoffs of government workers.
"What we know is that by each day that goes on, there’s more possibilities of more agencies closing," said Roxana Rivera, Assistant to the President of 32BJ SEIU, the union that represents nearly 25,000 cleaners, security officers, higher education workers, and airport workers throughout New England. For those workers, Rivera noted, the shutdown means daily emails and uncertainty.
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"They could be asked to work without being paid. They could be furloughed altogether. They could [have] reduced hours. So all of that we know is going to happen, it’s all about where," Rivera said.
Lilly Simmons, President of AFGE Local 3428, which represents Environmental Protection Agency employees in New England, also attended the roundtable.
"Typically, in a lapse of appropriations, we get an email that says, Go home and wait and watch the news," Simmons told WBZ NewsRadio. "Wait and watch the news to find out if you’re coming back to the office. That is ridiculous."
Simmons said the New England branch of the EPA has lost 20 percent of its workforce since February; not from layoffs, but from people leaving amid harassment and project pauses.
"The next paycheck, we don’t know if that’s gonna come on time," Simmons said.
During the meeting, Pressley heard the union leadership's concerns about the shutdown, and reintroduced a bill to ensure back pay for third-party contract workers for the federal government.
"Our bill would help ensure these folks are made whole," Pressley said.
WBZ's Jay Willett reports.