Politics
Chicago Airports Brace for Spring Break Season as Partial Government Shutdown Leaves TSA Agents Without Pay
Transportation Security Administration agents have been caught in the crossfire of a federal debate over reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The partial government shutdown at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has left TSA agents without pay since Feb. 14.
TSA is part of DHS along with other agencies like ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
With congressional Democrats demanding Republicans agree to a set of reforms for ICE, and no endgame in sight, Americans are bracing for a spring break season without a fully funded TSA.
Darrell English, a TSA officer at Chicago Midway International Airport and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 777 union, representing TSA agents in Illinois and Wisconsin, joined “Chicago Tonight” to discuss how the shutdown is impacting Chicago’s airports.
WTTW News: How are you and your colleagues navigating a second shutdown in just over three months?
Darrell English: This will be the first full pay period that they’re gonna miss, and a lot of these officers are behind on their bills, mortgages and all the personal expenses. The last pay they received, most members received only a few hundred dollars. Some only received 50 dollars. So this is gonna be devastating, this pay period coming up, to miss another full pay period.
There’s been reports of some significant slowdowns at airports across the country. So far, Chicago’s airports haven’t reported those same slowdowns. Is that sustainable for you and your colleagues? At what point could we start to see significant problems?
English: Soon it will hit Chicago, O’Hare and other airports as well. This is just the beginning part of spring break. This will be the first full pay period that they’re missing coming up this Friday. So you’ll definitely start seeing officers and flightloads impacted because of that. Officers don’t have the finances to continue to go to work because of the lack of money and resources that they have. You will see a breakdown, especially starting next week.
Is there anything that you and your colleagues can do to prepare?
English: What we’ve been doing is assisting our members with food. Also trying to get carpooling, getting individuals together to start supporting each other. But again, all these officers are in the same situation. So even though you have a carpooling system, it’s not sustainable because both parties are in the same situation. So eventually, like I said before, this is something that is unsustainable. Something has to be done to fix it. The passengers will have a very long and hard time getting through the security lines, as you’ve seen in other areas of this country.
How are you and your colleagues viewing the profession going forward? Is this the kind of job that’s too financially unstable?
English: Officers are taking a look at other options and understanding that their family and their livelihood is more important than to be caught in between the political issues that they go back and forth between. So we are seeing people looking at other avenues, possibly moving to something that’s more sustainable, more reliable than being a part of the federal government as we see it today.
Have you all received any communications from DHS officials or federal officials related to all of this?
English: No. I’ve talked to some politicians regarding it, and they had their concerns about what’s going on. They felt the same way that a lot of these officers are feeling. They know that they’re going through a lot of hardship. But at the end of the day, nothing is being done to prevent this from happening moving forward.
You and your colleagues got back pay from the last government shutdown, but I understand it took some officers up until January to receive that backpay.
English: That’s correct. There’s a big misconception that once the government was open, everyone was gonna get reimbursed for all the money that they were due all at one time. Just recently, maybe about two or three weeks ago, officers were made whole from the October situation that occurred. So this is another thing that’s bothering officers.
