“Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn…”  Solidarity Forever

Our nation is in the throes of a massive national crisis, but it’s not the anti-immigrant phony border “crisis” that Donald Trump has conjured up to hold our nation hostage to his racist wall ransom.

But there is a very real crisis for the 800,000 locked-out federal workers, half of whom are being forced to work without pay. The continuing forced shutdown could mean home foreclosures, lost vehicles, inability to obtain needed medicine or send kids to school, no gas in the tank, no food in the fridge. In today’s economy, many of these families are only a paycheck away from disaster.

The forced shutdown is a crisis for the working-class communities

The forced shutdown is also a crisis for the working-class communities these workers live in. They face quickly overwhelmed public services, lowered tax bases, epidemics of medical and mental health issues, divorces, even suicides. Vital services and resources including food resources for low-income families are threatened. American treasures such as our National Parks are suffering irreparable harm.

Trump’s lockout, now the longest in history, is yet another kick in the gut to working-class communities which have already suffered epidemics of plant shutdowns, corporate moving plants overseas, etc.

The humanitarian crisis of thousands of refugee families being ripped apart, locked up and even dying at our nation’s border is also a crisis for our working class. It shows the same contempt for the welfare of workers and their children as the shutdown, magnified by racism.

The sight of the unhinged racist billionaire Donald Trump, bragging that he is “proud to own this shutdown,” proud to rain misery upon our nation, our honored public workers, our families and communities, when he has had everything given to him, never had to struggle for anything, is obscene. In an insult to every member of the U.S. working class, sexual predator Donald Trump repeatedly slanders decent working-class immigrants as rapists. This kind of characterization of workers as criminal and billionaire as heroes is nothing new to American workers. It doesn’t fly.

If the Trump administration follows through on its threat to declare a National Emergency, it will create not only a constitutional crisis, but a threat to the American labor movement, using national emergency declarations, instead of negotiations to address labor issues.

 We DEMAND our government be reopened, that workers be paid! 

Labor has the power in its hands to end this shutdown! Government workers have been finding ways to fight for their rights. National reports have cited large numbers calling off; as they’ve had to look for other employment, growing numbers have resigned.

The AFL-CIO is calling for rallies across the nation in solidarity with these embattled workers and their families. We call for massive turnout at union solidarity events. You don’t need to be a union member to stand in solidarity!

Let’s call on every one of our members of Congress – Democrat or Republican – to take immediate action to reopen government. Delegations can meet with representatives, resolutions of support from city councils, county commissions, unions and labor federations can help. Let’s talk with our church, community, veterans, women, and youth groups asking support.

UNITY of all is needed as never before to turn back the Trump administration’s attack on government workers and the entire American people.

Image: Creative Commons 3.0

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