District of Columbia public service workers held a rally last week to demand a D.C. budget that values the work they do and pays them a living wage.
“Turnover feels much higher now than when I started almost 10 years ago,” said AFSCME District Council 20 member Evita Pass.
“Many of my co-workers simply can't afford to maintain the high level of care our students need as we are struggling to ensure our families have those same opportunities,” said Pass, an education aide for the District of Columbia Public Schools. “Our short-staffing means paraprofessionals are already being shuffled around and stretched thin.”
Pass said that proposed cuts to the D.C. budget will cut future raises and worsen the problem.
“With the high cost of everything — food, gas, housing, electricity — it’s going to be hard to find qualified professionals with the necessary skills for these jobs,” Pass said.
District Council 20 Trustee Ernestine Miles, a health care administrator for the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance, echoed that sentiment.
“Investing in public service workers makes it possible for people like me — and so many other D.C. workers — to continue affording to do public service work in the city we serve,” Miles said.
The rally took place outside the Wilson Building. Inside, union leaders such as Arthur Slade, vice president of AFSCME Local 2743, testified before the Committee of the Whole about how Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and financial plan will harm their livelihoods and the city’s services.
The mayor’s proposals include $127 million in funding cuts for future collectively bargained raises for city workers. This would harm thousands of D.C. government workers who are already facing an affordability crisis and making sacrifices to continue providing the public services that keep the nation’s capital running.
Other speakers at the rally included leaders of other unions, D.C. Councilmembers Robert White and Janeese Lewis George, and D.C. City Council At-Large candidate Dyana Forester.