The nation’s largest union of federal workers is calling on lawmakers to pass a stopgap funding measure to end the government shutdown, calling it an “avoidable crisis” as the impasse approaches the one-month mark.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 federal and D.C. government workers, said in a statement Monday that the shutdown ispunishing the very people who keep the country running.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in the statement. “Today I’m making mine: it’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay

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