I believe the government shutdown is analogous to a major labor dispute --- say between the United Auto Workers and General Motors that results in a strike. Before the passage of the Wagner Act in 1936, strikes were often violent affairs with management using local police forces or private forces to physically defeat the union – and workers fighting back. People were killed on both sides. In 1894, when there was a national railroad strike, the President (Grover Cleveland) sent federal troops to Chicago break the strike --- over the objection of the then Governor of Illinois, John P. Altgeld. Labor history from the middle 1800s right up to the passage of the Wagner Act was one bloody battle after another. In the great sit-down strike against General Motors in 1936-37, GM finally agreed to recognize the union after the Government of Michigan refused to use the National Guard to drive the workers out of the factories.
Under the terms of the Wagner Act, a business must recognize a union should the majority of workers in a particular business vote for union representation. After recognition, employers must bargain with the union. Strikes occur when a contract has run out and there is no agreement --- and in fact when they aren’t even CLOSE to an agreement. Usually, once a strike starts there is a period of time when both sides dig in, issue press releases, and blame the other side for failing to make a deal. BUT – and this is the important thing --- NEGOTIATIONS begin pretty soon. Why? Because the business is losing money and the workers are losing paychecks.
Sometimes the leaders of the business think they can outlast the union by refusing to negotiate and hire replacement workers --- called “SCABS” by the unionists. This worked for the Caterpillar corporation which beat back a strike by the UAW in 1994 and 1995.[For details see https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/dec/10/caterpillar-strike-leaves-legacy-of-anger/].
It worked for the National Football League when the players association went on strike in 1987.The players association abandoned the strike after 15 days.
A similar tactic did not work in 1994 for Major League Baseball. The second half of the season and all post season games were lost, costing the owners millions. Not a single player agreed to be a replacement player as the owners geared up for the next season. Luckily, they were not forced to “try” to sell such an inferior product to the fans because of an injunction that stopped the strike just as the 1995 season was about to begin.[The best details are available at least as a first read at the following WIKIPEDIA site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994–95_Major_League_Baseball_strike]
The Major League Baseball strike of 1994 was unusual.Most of the time, the union and management start to negotiate.Once a deal is reached, the membership VOTES on it.(In the 2023 UAW strikes, the workers went back to work once a tentative agreement was reached.)
I believe one can understand what is going on between the Democrats and Republicans as the shutdown continues, by assuming that the two sides in that dispute are the equivalents of the workers and the owners. This time the dispute is not over a contract for pay, hours, working conditions, etc. but over a continuing resolution to keep the government open for a month or so while budget issues are hammered out. There are two sides to the dispute and, so far, neither side has budged from their position.
The Democrats in the Senate refuse to provide the seven votes needed to pass the continuing resolution unless a few things are added to it – the most prominent of which is the extension of the tax credits which help middle class people buy health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.
[There are many excellent journalistic treatments of this issue. Check out Margot Sanger-Katz,
“What’s Behind the Dispute Over Extending Health Care Subsidies”, The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/us/politics/shutdown-trump-health-care-subsidies.html]
If these credits are allowed to expire, people starting to buy new policies in November will see their premiums more than double. By the polling data, extending these credits is very popular – even among Republicans. There are two other Democratic demands --- one that the Medicaid cuts in the recently passed budget bill be reversed – the other is that President Trump must spend all the money appropriated by Congress --- he cannot unilaterally refuse to spend it.
So that’s the dispute --- just as in the need to sign a new contract in a labor negotiation.
But here is the difference --- there never was ANY negotiation between the Republicans and the Democrats. It’s as if the management of the company presented a “take it or leave it” contract to the union and refused to negotiate.(This does happen from time to time – it’s what led to the Major League Baseball strike.).And this approach actually worked for the Republicans in March. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate persuaded a handful of his fellow Democrats to support a “clean” continuing resolution --- for which he and they got a lot of grief from the Democratic base. This time, he has stood firm with the vast majority of Democrats in both houses. Only two Democrats and one independent have supported the “clean” continuing resolution passed by the House.
Since the shutdown began, the Democrats have been available to negotiate. The Republicans say that only after you pass a clean continuing resolution will we negotiate. The House of Representatives is shut down with most of the Republicans back home. This is part of the process of trying to “break” the opposition – see if the public will blame the Democrats and see if enough of them will “cross the picket line” to provide enough votes to pass the continuing resolution. (This is what both the Caterpillar Corporation and the National Football League were able to do --- both of these businesses “broke” the strike. Major League Baseball was not able to do that.)
Keeping the House out of session also permits the Speaker to avoid swearing in the newest elected member who would upon being sworn in provide the 218th signature on the discharge petition to force a debate and vote on releasing the Epstein files.It will be interesting to see how long he can keep the House from coming back into session.
The last shutdown in 2019 ended when enough Air Traffic Controllers called in sick to cause delays and cancellations at a number of airports. Faced with the potential danger to the flying public, the flight attendants’ union threatened to refuse to work out of safety concerns and that led President Trump to abandon his demand that a Democratic House appropriate a lot of money to build his wall on the southern border. A handful the days into the shutdown, there have already been delays and cancellations at a number of airports. The transportation secretary is threatening to refuse to give pay to controllers who call in sick but in fact, the stresses that controllers are under --- staff shortages, working without pay, probably make them less capable of doing their job. On this issue see a very revealing interview with the head of the flight attendants’ union available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdHIAhARwLY]
Assuming there are no crashes (as there were none back in 2019), we the public will sit back and wonder how many airport shutdowns will occur before the Republicans agree to negotiate.
[On this important issue see Max Zahn, “Could air traffic controllers help end the government shutdown?” ABC News, October 9, 2025, available at https://abcnews.go.com/Business/air-traffic-controllers-end-government-shutdown/story?id=126323568
Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
