Top labor groups break with federal union's demand to end shutdown [View all]

Source: ABC News

November 1, 2025, 12:25 PM


The largest federal workers' union this week threw its support behind a Republican government funding bill, ratcheting up pressure on Democrats. But many of the top labor unions told ABC News that they continue to back the strategy taken up by Democrats, breaking with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers losing out on pay and staring down the threat of layoffs.

Many labor unions, a key bloc within the Democratic Party, support the push for an extension of Obamacare subsidies and remain eager to fight a president they view as an adversary of workers, some labor analysts and union officials said. Jaime Contreras, an executive vice president at the 185,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, said he sympathized with the challenges faced by federal workers but he disagreed with AFGE's approach.

"They have to do what they have to do for their members," Contreras told ABC News. But, he added: "It's a false choice in my opinion to say we need to give up affordable healthcare for millions and millions of Americans in order to bring federal workers back to work." SEIU 32BJ represents about 2,400 federal contractors who work as security officers, food-services workers and other employees, meaning they run the risk of missing out on backpay when the government reopens, Contreras said. "These workers are bearing the brunt of this shutdown," Contreras said, later adding: "We're urging our Democratic friends to hold the line."

The stay-the-course approach maintained by key labor organizations has likely eased the pressure faced by Democratic lawmakers in the aftermath of the AFGE announcement, some labor analysts told ABC News. "The federal unions aren't the biggest players," Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who leads the nation’s largest labor federation, made up of unions representing nearly 15 million members, faulted President Donald Trump for what she considers an attempt to divide workers.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-labor-groups-break-federal-unions-demand-end/story?id=127055562