The federal government is reopening for at least three weeks, but the prospect of a repeat looms. A second shutdown threatens to kick in Feb. 15 if Congress can’t cut a deal on President Donald Trump’s demand for money to build a border wall.
However, labor advocates think they have the answer on how to end government shutdowns.
During the final week of the shutdown, sickouts spiked among federal employees who refused to show up for work, leaving staffing shortages, triggering airport delays and raising concerns over whether tax refunds would be processed on time.
Meanwhile, there were indications of growing support for coordinated absences even as thousands of staffers were being encouraged to work without pay.
Last week, former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich who was also temporarily an economic adviser to President Barack Obama, publicly urged employees to stop showing up to their jobs in protest.
Joseph McCartin, a professor and director of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Institute for Labor and the Working Poor, told Voice of America, a government-financed news outlet, that the strategy could work.
“It would be about getting public attention, and even more important, causing the government to focus on this problem,” he said. “And hopefully, to delink the payment of wages to federal workers from the dispute that exists over the border.”
In an American Prospect Op-Ed published less than two weeks before, McCartin had pushed for workers to act, writing, “A sickout by unpaid federal employees could bring the impasse — and their status as hostages to the president’s whim — to an end.”
Documentarian Michael Moore promoted the tactic in his Friday appearance on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show.”
“There’s an easy way to end it,” he said of the shutdown. “Federal workers ― don’t go to work without pay.”
Moore stressed that “we shouldn’t be supporting anything that requires someone who’s not paid working for us,” telling the audience to avoid flying and filing tax returns, suggesting they opt for extensions instead so as to avoid the need for workers.
The day after Moore’s appearance, the agreement to reopen the government was announced.
While the future of government operations and Trump’s border wall remain unclear, Democrats and Republicans have until Feb. 15 to find a solution before key parts of the government could again grind to a halt.