All work and no pay is an insult to TSA employees
- Wrangell Sentinel
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
The following editorial was published by the Wrangell Sentinel.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security stopped more than a month ago when congressional Democrats and Republicans and the president put partisanship, reelection campaigns and social media messaging ahead of doing their job.
With Democrats and a few Republicans demanding changes to the aggressive tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and the majority of Republicans opposing many of those changes, Congress was unable in February to approve an appropriations bill for the department, which includes the Transportation Security Administration.
No appropriations bill means no paychecks for TSA workers, which means no regular income for food, rent, a mortgage or gas for the car to drive to work at the airport.
And while the officeholders of the highest 536 elected positions in the federal government have been collecting their paychecks, the law requires that tens of thousands of much lower-paid workers stay on the job without paychecks.
Since the funding fight started, TSA workers have received one partial paycheck but then missed their regular paycheck on March 13.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time the federal government has required employees to stay on the job for free. TSA workers went more than 40 days without wages during the much more widespread government shutdown last October and November.
Adding insult to economic injury, members of Congress walk right past airport security stations as they catch flights home on the weekend. It makes you wonder if any stop to say “I’m sorry” to the TSA workers.
They could at least drop food and gift cards into the boxes set up at several airports to help the workers get through the week.
As TSA workers call in sick to make time for other jobs that actually give them a paycheck — and who can blame them — airport security operations are coming up short on staff, creating long lines, hours long at several airports last week.
Yes, the unpaid workers will be paid their lost wages when Congress and the president finally get their act together and approve a spending bill. But the expectation of a paycheck at some date in the future doesn’t do a whole lot of good paying the bills today.
Our elected non-leaders need to take the lead from TSA workers and do what is expected of them, which is to find a compromise to control ICE in its dangerous assault on civil rights while preserving its ability to go after dangerous criminals.
If members of Congress can’t manage to do their job, they should at least stop traveling anywhere. They’re just adding to the unfunded workload every time they pass through a TSA checkpoint.
