Public Employees | November 2025

As SNAP faltered, public employees stepped in

Disrupted by the recent federal shutdown, public employees did their best to hold the social safety net together. Scarlett Ahmed and Vivian Falto, both members of the New York State Public Employees Federation, know firsthand how SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) can be a bridge between hunger and stability, and why the federal government must do its job instead of leaving workers and families to fend for themselves.

Speaking out on the federal shutdown

As a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Christina Bennett has worked for 11 years at the Miami, Okla., tribal courts, which serve five tribes. She built a career as a federal employee in the courts, where she also discovered a union home in the AFT-affiliated Federation of Indian Service Employees. But during the recent shutdown of the federal government, Bennett worried about how her family would survive. AFT President Randi Weingarten warns that Republicans still own the problem of skyrocketing healthcare premiums that Democrats tried to address, and that AFT members will remind voters next year of who is on the side of working families.

Affordability really matters

AFT President Randi Weingarten says she’s been around politics long enough to know that you can be on the right side of a fight and still lose—at least in the short run. That’s what happened in the latest standoff over the shutdown of the federal government, with Democrats fighting to preserve Americans’ access to healthcare and food assistance against an unrelenting Republican Party and president who showed there was no apparent limit to the pain they were willing to inflict. But Americans still want a life they can afford, opportunity to get ahead and a real voice in our democracy.

Webinar explores South Korean labor unions

Historically, labor unions have been at the forefront of mobilizing to protect civil liberties and strengthening democracy. As part of our Defending Democracy series, the Albert Shanker Institute partnered with the AFT’s international affairs department, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, and the AFT’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Task Force to host a discussion with South Korean union leaders who mobilized their nation against authoritarianism. This webinar goes beyond the recent protests, sharing examples of tactics and strategies and telling the story of long-standing resistance to dictatorship. Watch now.

AFT joins lawsuit to defend immigrant drivers

The AFT, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and two individual drivers have been granted an emergency stay on a proposed Trump administration rule that would prohibit immigrants from working as commercial drivers, such as Department of Transportation maintainers and snowplow drivers. Public Citizen is representing the plaintiffs. On Nov. 17, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals placed a temporary administrative stay on the regulation, effectively putting the rule on ice while judges review the parties’ arguments. For the time being, immigrants who had been affected by the rule should be able to obtain their commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) and get them renewed. The AFT will be providing some guidance on what the latest ruling means. And here is a link to Public Citizen’s page about the CDL lawsuit.