US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel. File Photo courtesy of BERNAMA/Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Wire/dpa
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NEW YORK, US, Jan 16 (NNN-XINHUA) — Braving freezing temperatures, dozens of federal workers and workers’ rights activists in New York City gathered here Tuesday to protest against the longest-ever government shutdown in United States (US) history, which has kept those workers working without pay or furloughed for 25 days.
Xinhua news agency reported that the rally, organised by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), took place in front of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in Lower Manhattan at 11am (1600 GMT), with people holding posters that read ‘End The Shutdown!’, ‘Pay Federal Workers’ and ‘We Want Work’.
Representatives took turns to deliver speeches to express frustration and fury over the fact that tens of thousands of federal workers, some of whom are unable to make ends meet, are suffering from the standoff in Washington.
“… all labour has dignity. Now, when you send people to work and you tell them they’re not entitled to a paycheck, you take away their dignity,” said Gabriel Pedreira, a member of the AFGE. “The president needs to get serious about negotiations. The Senate leadership needs to get serious about negotiations.”
A quarter of federal agencies and some 800,000 federal workers nationwide have been affected during the partial government shutdown since Dec 22 as the White House and Democratic Congressional leaders have failed to agree on a budget to fund the US-Mexico border wall, which is proposed by President Donald Trump.
David Lampert, an economist with the US Treasury Department who is on a furlough, said he was among the lucky ones who could still get by without paychecks because his wife had a good job, but “a lot of people are starving,” he said. “This is hitting the lower wage workers the hardest and it just shows how unfair the system is.”
The crowd also marched around the federal building and its adjacent Federal Plaza, kept chanting slogans like ‘Open up the government!’ and was echoed by passers-by.
There are approximately 114,000 federal employees in New York State, according to the state’s department of labour.
–NNN-XINHUA