Leaders of unions representing county, state and federal workers gathered in the state Capitol on Wednesday to call on members of the General Assembly and U.S. Congress to find a compromise and finally pass state and federal budgets.
The union leaders’ calls echoed through the Main Rotunda without much of an audience, as neither the state House nor Senate held a single voting session this week. The state budget was due June 30.
Maximus Weikel, deputy administrator for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13, called attention to the silence and legislators’ absence.
“None of the folks we represent could get away with refusing to do their main responsibility, much less refusing to show up to work,” Weikel said. “But that is what is happening in this building right now.”
In 2009, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that state employees must continue to receive pay while they work during a budget impasse.
No such rule exists for the tens of thousands of federal employees who live in Pennsylvania, though existing law requires that workers receive back pay for the time they go without a paycheck during a government shutdown.
That guarantee of back pay — one that’s been questioned by President Donald Trump and his budget director, Russell Vought — is not enough to help furloughed workers now, said Philip Glover, District 3 national vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
“You’ve got to put gas in your car, eat, take care of your families — all the things you still have to do, but without a paycheck,” Glover said.
He noted that more than 950,000 federal workers nationwide are furloughed without pay, and he jabbed at U.S. Senate Republicans for continuously putting the same stopgap funding bill to a vote, knowing it won’t pass without more buy-in from Democrats.
“Make a plan and negotiate it,” Glover said.
Also looming over federal employees is Vought’s threats to fire federal employees during the shutdown.
State talks continueWeikel warned that the federal government shutdown would soon “compound the damage being done to Pennsylvania’s public services at the state level. Already, funding is drying up, especially in our counties.”
Indeed, many counties, including Lancaster, have weighed seeking loans to cover operations otherwise paid for with state dollars. Others, like Northampton, Armstrong and Westmoreland, either have or plan to furlough staff due to the late state budget.
SEIU 668 President Steve Catanese represents many of those county workers. He said Pennsylvania Senate Republicans are the “main perpetrators” of the impasse.
Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons told CBS 21 last week that he and officials “really hope” to avoid layoffs, but he thinks the county may reach the point where it will need to stop paying outside contractors.
Last week, Pennsylvania House Democrats — with Gov. Josh Shapiro’s support — passed a $50.3 billion spending plan that Senate Republicans, slated to return to Harrisburg on Oct. 20, said they had not agreed to. The GOP has pushed for a budget to fund the state at last year’s $47.9 billion.
Angela Ferritto, president of the AFL-CIO, which has more than 700,000 union members statewide, said Democratic and Republican lawmakers continue to blame the other side.
“It feels like a political game,” Ferritto said. “And to me, we have no room left in this game. Time’s up.”