As we enter the dog days of summer, AFGE is busy on Capitol Hill encouraging lawmakers to avoid another disastrous government shutdown at the end of September and restore collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal workers. Here’s the latest on both of these efforts:
Short-Term Spending Bill Likely Needed to Avoid Shutdown
With barely two months to go before the current fiscal year ends, there are no concrete signs that Congress will pass the 12 appropriations bills needed to fund most government operations starting Oct. 1 or that President Trump will sign the funding bills into law.
The Senate and House are scheduled to go into recess for the month of August, so the main question is whether members will set aside their policy and political differences when they return to work in September and pass a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government operating at current funding levels beyond Sept. 30.
AFGE’s Legislative Department is urging Congress to put politics aside and fund the government either by passing regular appropriations bills or a CR. As federal workers recall all too well, Congress’ failure last September to pass either regular appropriations bills or a CR led to the record 43-day governmentwide funding lapse that ended in mid-November and the subsequent 76-day funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security that ended in April.
Those funding lapses resulted in most federal employees missing weeks or months of take-home pay – causing them personal hardships and undermining their work on behalf of the American public.
To avoid a repeat scenario, AFGE is urging Congress to pass the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act (S. 4632, H.R. 5870), which was introduced in May by Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) in the Senate and Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) and Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) in the House. This legislation would implement automatic continuing resolutions every two weeks in the event that budgets are not approved by the start of the fiscal year. This would prevent funding lapses, ensure all federal workers continue to be paid, and allow critical services and operations to continue without interruption.
With the House and Senate unable to agree on even basic commonsense goals like funding government operations in an orderly and reliable manner, passage of the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act this year will be difficult. But AFGE is nevertheless championing the measure because if there is a funding lapse on Oct. 1, Congress needs to know that the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act is the only ready-made option for maintaining basic government services until such time as Congress can agree on a full-year funding compromise.
What you can do: Urge your lawmakers in the Senate and House to pass a clean continuing resolution that funds all agencies and departments through the midterm elections. Members also should urge their legislators to endorse the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which would ensure that federal workers continue to be paid on time and in full in the event of future funding lapses by triggering automatic continuing resolutions.
Hill Allies Work to Restore Collective Bargaining at DoD as Larger Effort Stalls in Senate
AFGE continues to urge Congress to override President Trump’s March 2025 executive order eliminating collective bargaining at most federal agencies. This order, which AFGE continues to fight in federal court, represents the broadest and single most aggressive action taken by the federal government against organized labor in history – dwarfing any previous action against public- or private-sector working Americans.
The agencies covered by the executive order employ almost 70% of the federal workforce, and the order affects about 75% of federal workers who are voluntary members of unions, including civilian employees at the Defense, State, Veterans Affairs, Justice, and Energy departments, and most employees at the Homeland Security, Treasury, Health and Human Services, Interior, and Agriculture departments.
Shortly after the EO was issued, AFGE partnered with Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) to push H.R. 2550, which would nullify the assault on federal collective bargaining. Because House Republicans leaders led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused to allow the House to consider the bill, AFGE worked with Reps. Golden and Fitzpatrick to encourage House members to sign a discharge petition that would require consideration of the bill, even over the objections of Republic leadership.
Despite the unwavering opposition of House leadership and the prolonged government shutdown that delayed securing the 218 signatures needed to compel a vote, the discharge petition succeeded in forcing the House to consider H.R. 2550 in December. In a rare act of bipartisanship, H.R. 2550 passed the House in December by a vote of 231-195.
H.R. 2550 now awaits consideration in the Senate. The Republican majority has used every tool at its disposal to thwart consideration of the bill this year. Given the opposition, AFGE does not expect the Republican-led Senate to consider, much less pass, H.R. 2550 as a free-standing bill this year.
As an alternative strategy, AFGE has been working closely with our friends on Capitol Hill – especially Rep. Don Norcross (D-N.J.) – to restore collective bargaining rights for civilian employees at the Department of Defense in the must-pass FY27 National Defense Authorization Act.
In June, Rep. Norcross took a crucial first step toward advancing this strategy by successfully offering such an amendment to the FY27 NDAA during committee markup. If this amendment survives GOP efforts to strip it out of the NDAA when the full House considers the bill, we will fight to make sure it remains in the final bill when it comes to a vote after the midterm elections in November while continuing our efforts to restore collective bargaining rights to employees at all federal agencies.
What you can do: Urge your lawmakers in the Senate and House to protect the Norcross provision in the House version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would restore collective bargaining at the Defense Department. This provision is AFGE’s best shot this year at pushing back on the Trump administration’s assault on collective bargaining rights in the federal workforce. Victory at the Defense Department would represent a decisive first step to restoring collective bargaining across the federal government.
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