You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Federal Employees and Contractors Demand End to Government Shutdown

HeadlineJan 17, 2019

Meanwhile, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history—now in its 27th day—continues to punish more than 800,000 federal employees who’ve gone without a paycheck since December 22. Workers rallied in airports in Sacramento, California, and Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday, building on similar protests warning that the shutdown is threatening aviation security. There are reports of skyrocketing absences among federal employees forced to work without pay. On Capitol Hill, federal contractors held a protest outside the offices of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans, saying the shutdown threatens to deprive some 4 million contract workers of hundreds of millions of dollars in expected payments. On Wednesday, President Trump signed legislation that will grant back pay to federal workers once the shutdown is resolved, but there’s no indication that will come anytime soon, and will not apply to federal contractors.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top