Families, educators, food shelves brace for SNAP cutoff: ‘This is a policy choice’

October 31, 2025 by

Matteo Halbesleben speaks at a press conference outside a St. Paul food shelf.

Matteo Halbesleben of Minneapolis is among 42 million people nationwide, including 440,000 in Minnesota, who will see food assistance from the federal government, known as SNAP, disappear tomorrow.

Benny Roberts is executive director of the Hallie Q. Brown Food Shelf in St. Paul, where demand already has doubled this week, prompting staff to put out a call for donations – money, food, clothes, toiletries and volunteer help.

Devina Moore teaches at nearby Benjamin E. Mays elementary school, where over half of students qualify for free or reduced school lunch. She and other educators are trying to keep things “as consistent as possible” for children – 150,000 of whom rely on SNAP in Minnesota – while scrambling to connect families with other resources.

As they brace for the impacts on their families and their community, Halbesleben, Roberts, Moore and others are also calling out the driving force behind the SNAP cutoff and ongoing federal government shutdown.

“Greed,” Roberts said during a press conference outside his food shelf in the city’s Rondo neighborhood, arranged by unions, faith groups and progressive organizations.

“This isn’t a charity issue,” St. Paul school board member Erica Valliant added. “This is a policy choice.”

Sitting on $5 billion

The motive behind that choice, union leaders say, is especially callous – an attempt by President Donald Trump and Republicans to use hunger as political leverage. Why else would the administration refuse to release more than $5 billion in SNAP contingency funds?

The AFL-CIO and 26 labor unions today sent a letter demanding Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins release the contingency funding. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said Trump is “deliberately inflicting pain on workers by cutting jobs, slashing food assistance and ripping away livelihoods.”

“The administration could continue SNAP without a hitch,” she added. “Instead, it’s inflicting cruelty on people and treating this crisis as some sick political game.”

SNAP cuts will only add to the pain inflicted on workers during the shutdown.

The administration has forced 730,000 federal workers to do their jobs without pay, locked 670,000 federal workers out of their jobs, threatened to destroy 130,000 health care jobs and sidelined hundreds of thousands of workers in construction, transportation and energy by canceling infrastructure projects.

Pain spreads

As the shutdown enters a second month, more Minnesotans, like Halbesleben, will feel the pain.

He began accessing SNAP benefits several years ago, after a string of health crises – skin cancer, reconstructive surgery and a car accident – left him unable to work. Halbesleben is now able to work part time, but still cannot stand for more than four hours without needing to lie down for a physical-therapy exercise that resets his rib cage.

“My story is my own, but there are other stories out there – people who have families who are trying to keep their kids fed, elderly (people) who can’t work anymore and whose retirement doesn’t pay enough for them to (buy) food.”

He said SNAP benefits allow him to put money he does earn toward keeping his home. He already lost the home where lived at the beginning of his health troubles.

Valliant and Moore said they worry that losing SNAP benefits will create a similar snowball effect for SPPS families, making it even harder to afford housing, transportation, energy and other costs.

“It’s overwhelming to see what our families are already going through, the needs that they already have,” Moore said. “Our youngest citizens are being affected the most, and they can’t do for themselves.”

‘We need community’

Valliant noted that Minnesota students will continue to have access to free breakfast and lunch on school days, and Gov. Tim Walz and some counties have tapped emergency funds to help prepare local food shelves like Hallie Q. Brown for a surge in demand.

But it won’t replace SNAP.

“For every meal a food shelf provides, SNAP provides nine,” Valliant said. “We’d be hard pressed to replace that with donations and good will alone, and we should not have to.”

Roberts agreed, calling the shutdown a continuation of “overt and covert practices that pick on the vulnerable for the profit of the comfortable” – a nod to the political fight behind the government shutdown, which pits tax cuts for the wealthy against funding that keeps clinics open and health insurance affordable.

“We’re going to brace for harm – in community,” Roberts said. “We’re going to support each other – in community. We’re going to do our best, but we need community.”

Looking to access food, donate or volunteer with a local food shelf? Click here for a map of locations across Minnesota.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Unions decry Trump shutdown, urge health care fix

October 21, 2025 by

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Tametria Johnson worries about the impact that cuts to Medicaid and expiring ACA subsidies will have on her family.

Using public-service workers as political pawns, President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress allowed the federal government to shut down Oct. 1 rather than negotiate with Senate Democrats over a mounting health care crisis.

As the shutdown extends into a fourth week, over 750,000 federal workers are locked out, furloughed or working without pay.

Trump and administration officials have made no attempt to hide their intent to use federal workers as leverage in the standoff. The president called it an “unprecedented opportunity” to slash payroll, and thousands of workers across multiple federal agencies had received reduction-in-force notices by mid-October.

The administration also floated a memo arguing furloughed workers were not entitled to back pay, flouting a law passed after the government shut down for 35 days in 2019.

Unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), swiftly challenged both the firings and the memo, winning a temporary restraining order to block the reductions in force and threatening another lawsuit if the administration withholds back pay.

Still, the strain on federal workers and their families increases with each day the shutdown drags on, AFGE District 8 Vice President Ruark Hotopp said. District 8 represents over 19,000 federal workers in Minnesota and four other states.

“To be used as political footballs, to shut down the government and hold us hostage while many of our members are going without a paycheck – in many cases while they still perform their work – it’s just frustrating and maddening,” Hotopp, an immigration officer on leave while he works for his union, said. “People are feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty.

“But it’s par for the course with what we’ve been dealing with since January, with DOGE and (Office of Management and Budget Director) Russ Vought and Elon Musk, and agencies refusing to recognize our union contracts.”

Holding out for health care fix

While AFGE and other federal workers’ unions are calling for an immediate end to the shutdown, other labor unions have ramped up pressure on Trump and Republicans to negotiate a health-care fix with Senate Democrats as part of a spending bill.

Already, hospitals are bracing for a $900 billion cut to Medicaid coverage in the tax and spending bill Trump signed into law July 4, which will force providers to absorb billions in unpaid care costs.

Adding to the crisis, Trump and Republicans are set on allowing some tax credits that help people afford insurance through the Affordable Care Act expire Dec. 31. Over 22 million Americans, access the credits to make their health coverage more affordable.

MNsure, Minnesota’s ACA exchange, noted the impact of the expiring credits as it released rates and coverage options in advance of open enrollment beginning Nov. 1. Nearly 90,000 Minnesotans will pay more for coverage – on average, about $177 more each month – and another 20,000 will lose all financial assistance.

“These cuts would be a snowball that would be awful for so many families,” home care worker Tametria Johnson said during a press conference called by her union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, on Day 1 of the shutdown.

Johnson works as a caregiver for her developmentally disabled adult daughter, a service reimbursed by Medicaid funding, but she gets her own health coverage through the ACA exchange. She worries her family’s Medicaid benefits are in jeopardy at a time when her premiums are set to increase by over 20%.

“Many of us live paycheck to paycheck,” Johnson said. “When costs go up … something has to go – groceries, medicine, gas to go to work or appointments, utilities, cell phone. It’s very scary.”

Make a deal or take a stand?

Labor leaders and Senate Democrats have acknowledged the tension between fighting to lower health care costs for union members like Johnson and getting federal workers back on the job. But they agree that the blame lands squarely on the White House.

“Our livelihoods should not be used as pawns or bargaining chips, whether it is threatening one set of workers after another, canceling construction projects, or jacking up electricity prices on top of higher health insurance premiums,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler wrote in a letter to Trump sent Oct. 7.

“We implore you to meet with the leaders of the House and Senate to find a solution that funds the government, fixes the health care crisis and puts working people first.”

One thing AFGE’s Hotopp is sure of, he said, is that the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers won’t end when the government reopens. He recalled the argument that convinced enough Senate Democrats to sign off on a Republican budget the last time Congress reached the brink of a shutdown, in March.

“What we heard then was, ‘We had to make a deal to save your jobs,’” Hotopp said. “Then we watched DOGE rip through our staffing, watched agencies rip away our unions. It didn’t save any jobs.

“To insinuate that if there weren’t a shutdown that they wouldn’t terminate people? That’s simply not the truth.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Union members at No Kings: ‘We have to show solidarity’

October 20, 2025 by

Union members gather outside the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis before walking together to “No Kings.”

At “No Kings” demonstrations across the state Saturday, Minnesotans turned their individual anger over the alarming, anti-democratic trajectory of President Donald Trump’s second term into a collective display of strength, unity and hope.

Many labor unions endorsed “No Kings” events both here and across all 50 states.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, teamed with three other groups to organize the peaceful march in Minneapolis that saw thousands clog downtown streets for several blocks Saturday afternoon.

Union members who joined the march cited a wide range of motivating factors. But they agreed that “No Kings” was an opportunity to leverage the power of solidarity against Trump’s far-reaching attacks – on federal workers and their unions, on democracy and the rule of law, on immigrants, on public services, on the LGBTQ+ community and more.

“I could keep going and going,” Education Minnesota Local 2209 member Beth Kowski laughed after beginning to list the concerns that inspired her to march Saturday.

Beth Kowski (L) and Education Minnesota retiree Marsh Jarvela.

Kowski, and educator in Intermediate District 287, joined a pre-march meetup for union members at the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis. After a brief rally, union members walked to “No Kings” together, forming a labor contingent of about 200.

“Unions have a collective power and voice that is crucial at this juncture,” Kowski said. “We have to be together and be firm in our conviction. Silence is complicity.”

AFSCME Local 2864 President Amanda Gustafson, who marched with fellow Hennepin County employees, agreed.

“We have to show solidarity with people who are seeing everything fall apart right now,” Gustafson said. “We see all of the communities that are being attacked, and many of us (in unions) are people who are members of those communities as well.”

That includes union members in the federal workforce. Trump has been attacking their jobs, their union rights and the services they deliver since January.

For Miranda Kiwelu, a program support assistant at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, seeing so many people reject Trump’s agenda at “No Kings” felt “amazing.”

“We definitely have support, but I don’t know that federal employees feel that way now because it’s been nonstop attacks left and right,” said Kiwelu, a member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1969 who serves as a young-worker coordinator for AFGE District 8.

Union members cross the Third Street bridge together on their way to “No Kings” in Minneapolis.

“No Kings” took place on the 18th day of a government shutdown, which the Trump administration has used as an excuse to continue its attempts – illegally, according to AFGE and several courts – to slash federal payrolls, redirect spending authorized by Congress and inflict pain on Kiwelu and other federal employees.

“By the time this is done, we’re going to have 1.3 million federal employees out of a job or impacted,” she said.

But in extending the shutdown, Trump and Republicans who control Congress are also refusing to address steep cuts to Medicaid and to subsidies that keep health coverage affordable on public exchanges like MNsure.

Health care workers like SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Viktor Solberg said they were marching at “No Kings” for themselves and the people who rely on them for care.

“It’s not just our jobs, it’s the ability of our clients to live their lives,” said Solberg, who provides in-home care funded by Medicaid.

“Health care is being cut by billions, and we can’t stand for that,” pharmacy tech Kyle Johnson, also an SEIU member, added. “We’re standing up for our profession and the community at large.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

McCollum, Craig hear workers’ shutdown stories – and safety concerns

January 19, 2019 by

U.S. Reps. Angie Craig (L) and Betty McCollum meet with federal workers at the St. Paul Labor Center.

Eventually, the federal government shutdown will reach a tipping point, federal employees told U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Betty McCollum in a roundtable discussion arranged by their unions at the St. Paul Labor Center Friday.

What that tipping point ends up being is a question keeping many around the table awake at night.

“I’m very afraid,” Erin Phelps, an air traffic controller at Minneapolis St. Paul airport told the DFL congresswomen. “Our systems are being degraded by this shutdown, and it’s scary.”

Air traffic controllers, members of NATCA, are being forced to work without pay during the shutdown, as are TSA agents and officers at federal prisons in Minnesota, members of the American Federation of Government Employees. They missed their first paychecks last Friday, and it appears likely they will miss another next week.

That means workers like Phelps, whose husband is an air traffic controller too, are dipping into their savings to pay for day care, gas, housing, health care co-pays and other costs – or taking out short-term loans.

The mounting stress and plummeting morale are making their workplaces less safe, workers warned, both for themselves and the public they serve. “I’m becoming more convinced someone is going to die in our prisons,” said one corrections officer, who drove from Rochester to attend the meeting.

McCollum, a DFLer who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, blasted President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans for dragging out the shutdown to gain leverage in their efforts to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

“We all took the same oath of office to protect and defend the United States,” McCollum said. “This is not protecting and defending… This is putting politics over country.”

Craig, a DFLer newly elected to the state’s 2nd Congressional District, noted the twisted irony that Republicans’ crusade to make the nation more safe with a wall is, according to workers in our airports and prisons, having the opposite effect.

“It makes no sense to me,” Craig told workers in the meeting, hosted by the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation. “Every Democrat I talk to is up for a conversation about border security, but we cannot keep holding federal workers hostage.”

Craig and McCollum want Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call a vote on budget bills negotiated in December, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. “It’s certainly not the budget I would have wanted, but I’m willing to support it” to end the shutdown, McCollum said.

A veto-proof majority of senators supported the budget, too – until McConnell pulled the bill in deference to Trump’s last-minute demand for $5 billion in wall funding.

Craig recalled her first vote as a member of Congress for “exactly the same bill the Senate passed three weeks before I got there.” She added: “The Senate needs to take up its bill again and end this.”

Furloughed workers from other government agencies, including the IRS, HUD and the FDA, also attended the meeting. They offered McCollum and Craig a litany of examples of how the shutdown is impacting Americans, from blocked access to tax forms needed to fill out financial aid documents to government-backed housing loans caught in limbo.

Workers also described mounting economic pressures as the shutdown drags on. “I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” one HUD employee said. “My lease is coming due, and I can’t sign a new lease because I don’t have any income. It’s appalling. It feels like we’ve been made invisible.”

To make matters worse, federal employees are barred from accepting certain gifts, making it difficult for labor organizations and other agencies to funnel support directly to them during this time of hardship.

St. Paul RLF President Bobby Kasper said the federation’s nonprofit arm, which provides emergency assistance to union members during strikes, lockouts or other financial crises, is seeking legal advice about how to make sure the labor community can provide assistance in solidarity with federal workers for as long as the shutdown lasts.

“The people impacted most by this shutdown didn’t go into public service to get rich, and they don’t deserve to be treated like a political football,” Kasper said. “The labor community is going to stand with our brothers and sisters in AFGE and other federal unions, and it’s reassuring to know we have friends in Congress who will do the same.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Smith pledges to fight for federal workers as shutdown hits home

January 11, 2019 by

TSA agent Celia Hahn speaks at a press conference inside MSP Airport with Sen. Tina Smith.

The political staredown in Washington is maddening. Its human toll grows more heartbreaking each day.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith stood at a podium in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport today holding a letter from Joseph, an air traffic controller from Lakeville. He sent the senator a photo of his newborn son, born 10 weeks early on the 10th day of the federal government shutdown.

Joseph told Smith there is just one Twin Cities hospital that provides care to babies born so early, and it’s not in his current insurance network. Because the government is shut down, Joseph can’t switch plans. He can’t apply for paid family leave, either.

“I take solace in what matters most,” Joseph wrote. “Oliver is getting a little stronger and a little closer to home every day.”

The government appears no closer to reopening, however.

Today 800,000 federal employees missed their first paycheck since the shutdown began. President Trump marked the occasion by holding firm to his position – one he has said he’s willing to maintain for months – that the government won’t reopen unless he gets $5 billion in funding for a wall along the nation’s border with Mexico.

Smith, who met with impacted federal workers at the airport today, called on Senate Republicans to stand up to Trump and put people before the president’s political stunts.

The Republican-controlled Senate unanimously passed a short-term funding package last month to keep the government open. But Trump refused to sign it, opting instead to leverage a government shutdown for his unpopular wall.

“We should not be using the people standing behind me as bargaining chips,” Smith says.

Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell knows a veto-proof majority of senators supported keeping the government open without funding for the wall, but so far he has refused to stand up to Trump.

“All that has to happen is for Mitch McConnell to bring those bills forward,” Smith said. “This shutdown could end as soon as tomorrow if we could come together and appreciate that we should not be using the people standing behind me as bargaining chips.”

The people behind Smith were a handful of the estimated 5,470 federal employees in Minnesota either furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown.

Some are tightening their belts, tapping their savings or taking out loans to cover daily costs until they get paid again. Workers at the federal prison in Rochester have opened a food bank to support each other during the shutdown, corrections officer William Axford said.

“The things that would normally be inconveniences, like car repairs or maintenance, become back-breakers,” Axford, an officer in American Federation of Government Employees Local 3947, added.

Other federal workers are looking for new jobs. Celia Hahn, a TSA agent with 16 years of experience at MSP Airport, said her agency already faces a shortage of workers. In fact, management has announced plans to hold a hiring fair later this month.

Letter and photo received by Smith from a Lakeville air traffic controller hit hard by the shutdown.

Working long hours, short-staffed, for no pay takes a toll on workplace morale – and public safety, Hahn added.

“It’s definitely not going to make travel more secure the long this goes on,”the president of AFGE Local 899 said. “And that’s not because of people not doing their jobs. It’s because of people just not being here.”

TSA agents and corrections officers are on the low end of the federal pay scales. Hahn said TSA agents’ wages start at around $17 per hour. Sandstone prison guard Mike Weber said new hires make less than $20 in his shop.

Smith has signed onto a bill that would make sure another group of low-paid workers impacted by the shutdown – contractor employees – are made whole with back pay when the impasse ends, something that has not generally happened, according to the senator.

President Trump has said he can “relate” to federal workers and contractor employees going without pay, suggesting they are able to “make adjustments.”

But those adjustments come at a price for many, including Weber and his wife, who also works at the central-Minnesota correctional facility. Weber, president of AFGE Local 683, said they are one of nine couples on the payroll.

“Savings don’t last very long when neither one of us is getting an income,” he said. “We can’t tell our 4-year-old we can’t afford mac-and-cheese; we’ve got to keep putting gas in our car to go to work. So I think we’re going to have to look at taking out loans, and that costs anywhere from 5 to 10 percent interest.

“I think we’re going to have to start planning for the next shutdown when this one ends. That’s pretty sad.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Retirees, federal workers to Paulsen: ‘Shutdown has to stop’

October 16, 2013 by
AFGE members Vicky Sirovy, Gary Schabert (middle) and Jared Thyen ask U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen to end the federal government shutdown.

AFGE members Vicky Sirovy, Gary Schabert (middle) and Jared Thyen ask U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen to end the federal government shutdown.

Leaders in the U.S. Senate today unveiled a bipartisan agreement to end the partial government shutdown and extend the nation’s borrowing authority, but doubts remain as to whether the compromise will pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

As the spotlight shifted to the House, federal employees, union leaders and retirees paid a visit to Minnesota Rep. Erik Paulsen’s Eden Prairie offices this morning, urging the 3rd District Republican to stand behind public statements that he would vote for a “clean” bill to fully fund the government were it to reach the House floor.

Paulsen took heat for that very statement earlier this month, when Tea Party activists demanded he get on board with House Republicans’ plot to use the shutdown as leverage in an ill-fated attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act.

Now Tea Party Republicans are looking to exact steep cuts from Social Security and Medicare as ransom for extending the nation’s borrowing authority before tomorrow’s deadline. Retirees like Ilo Madden of St. Louis Park are hoping Paulsen won’t play along.

“Social Security and Medicare are my main sources of survival,” Madden said at a press availability following the meeting with Paulsen’s staff. “I wonder why the officials who we gave our faith and trust to in the form of a vote are doing this to us.”

[Click here to e-mail to Rep. Paulsen and ask him to support a clean bill to end the government shutdown.]

The delegation of about 15 people reflected the wide-ranging effects of the shutdown, now in its third week. Gary Schabert, a retired veteran from St. Paul, said he participated out of concern for his daughter, who is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in two weeks.

“This is for her, to make sure she has what she needs when she needs it,” Schabert said.

Other members of the delegation told Paulsen that the Tea Party’s political grandstanding in Washington was coming at the expense of federal employees and the citizens they serve, including veterans.

Jared Thyen, a Bloomington resident who works in the Minneapolis Veterans Hospital, said many of his colleagues at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System – the people who process claims and determine benefits – are working without pay.

“Morale at my office is extremely low,” said Thyen, 32, a chief steward of Local 1969 of the American Federation of Government Employees. “People are not able to pay their bills, like child (care). People my age and younger cannot pay their student loans. The bills keep coming.

“This shutdown has to stop.”

Federal employees are still reeling from three years of frozen pay and cuts to retirement benefits. Many workers have been furloughed up to six days per year as a result of sequestration cuts. According to AFGE, federal employees’ pay freezes and retirement cuts have contributed $105 billion in deficit reduction already.

“We have to put a stop to this,” Local 1969 President Vicky Sirovy said.

Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation Bill McCarthy urges Paulsen to support a "clean" bill to fund the federal government and end the 16-day shutdown.

Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation Bill McCarthy urges Paulsen to support a “clean” bill to fund the federal government and end the 16-day shutdown.

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Expenses, stress mount for essential employees during Tea Party shutdown

October 15, 2013 by
Federal workers and supporters demonstrate against the federal government shutdown outside the Social Security Administration offices in Minneapolis.

Federal workers and their supporters demonstrate against the federal government shutdown outside the Social Security Administration offices in Minneapolis.

Gloria Jones and May Sy Lawrence won’t get paid for doing their jobs until Tea Party Republicans in Congress get serious about doing theirs.

Jones and Lawrence are essential federal employees – officially classified as “accepted employees.” As they have throughout the 15-day shutdown, they showed up for work today at the Social Security Administration offices in Minneapolis, but they won’t see their wages until members of Congress – who are getting paid – pass a clean budget to fund the government.

On their lunch break, Jones and Lawrence joined a demonstration outside the Social Security Administration, calling on Tea Party Republicans to end the shutdown and stop holding the economy – and the federal government – hostage. [Click here to add your voice.]

Republicans in the House initially allowed the government to shut down in an attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act. When that failed, they tried using the shutdown – and a looming deadline to extend the nation’s borrowing authority – to gain leverage in budget negotiations.

Jones said Tea Party Republicans might not be so cavalier about shutting down the government if their paychecks, like hers, depended on it.

“If they were in our shoes what would they do?” she asked. “They need to get their act together and end this now.”

About 19,000 federal workers in Minnesota – and 800,000 nationwide – are either out of work or working without a paycheck.

The strain is, perhaps, greatest on essential workers, who, unlike furloughed workers, must continue to pay for child care while they are at work, transportation to and from work, and other expenses – without the benefit of a paycheck.

Lawrence said the shutdown already has taken a toll on her family’s ability to meet its financial obligations. She called her mortgage company to ask for some relief from monthly payments during the shutdown, she said, and was denied.

“It’s pretty stressful,” Lawrence said, “especially when you have small children. We need to get it settled as soon as possible because it is affecting everyone.”

Lawrence, Jones and their co-workers at the rally today are members of the American Federation of Government Employees. Members of several other organizations joined them today, including the largest union of state government employees in Minnesota, AFSCME Council 5.

“At AFSCME, we’re familiar with shutdowns,” said Council 5 spokesperson Jennifer Munt, referencing a 20-day state shutdown in 2011. “We don’t like them because they hurt everyday people.

“We took Minnesota off the Tea Party choke chain. The Republican Party in Washington needs to do the same.”

Social Security Administration workers brave the rain to join a demonstration against the government shutdown outside their Minneapolis offices.

Social Security Administration workers brave the rain to join a demonstration against the government shutdown outside their Minneapolis offices.

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Shutdown a ‘lose-lose scenario’ for veterans, furloughed workers

October 8, 2013 by
Stanley Walton, locked out of his job with the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration, joins a picket outside the Whipple Federal Building on Fort Snelling.

Stanley Walton, a locked-out member of AFGE Local 1969, joins a picket outside the Whipple Federal Building on Fort Snelling.

Is Stanley Walton’s work essential? That depends on whom you ask.

Walton was one of 7,000 “non-essential” employees furloughed by the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) today. He and about 150 others reported to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, where they were handed letters instructing them to stay home until lawmakers in Washington had resolved the partial federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

Although the government considers Walton’s work non-essential, the homeless veterans who rely on him probably disagree. Walton says he connects “our most vulnerable veterans” with the housing, medical and other benefits they’ve earned as a result of their service.

That work doesn’t stop just because Congress can’t agree on a budget.

“It’s devastating,” said Walton, who served 25 years in the Army before taking a job with the VBA eight years ago. “I’ve received calls from veterans, and I have to let them know I can’t help you until the furlough is over.”

Others locked out today include workers who process appeals made by veterans claiming medical, job-preference or other benefits. These claims already can take more than a year to process, and the shutdown will only lengthen the amount of time veterans have to wait for a decision on their appeals.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union of 670,000 federal employees nationwide, represents 208,000 workers with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Alma Lee, president of AFGE’s National VA Council, called the furlough a “lose-lose scenario for federal employees and the veterans we serve.”

“Veterans sacrificed greatly to earn their benefits, and we need to be on the job to deliver them,” Lee said. “VBA is already critically understaffed and the lockout is only making it worse. Our veterans deserve better from their elected leaders.”

A handful of AFGE members, supporters from other unions and veterans joined a picket line outside the Whipple Building today. They pinned responsibility on House Republicans, who are using the shutdown as leverage in budget negotiations, hoping President Obama and other Democrats will cave to their demands – like defunding the Affordable Care Act – in order to reopen the VBA and other government agencies.

“We went through this 20 years ago when the government shut down,” said Craig Maehling, a disabled veteran from Minneapolis. “It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”

[Click here to demand House Republicans allow a vote on a clean bill to keep the government open.]

AFGE members and supporters from the labor community picket outside the Whipple Federal Building.

AFGE members and supporters from the labor community picket outside the Whipple Federal Building.

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