TSA Workers Under Pressure, Industry Associations Rally Support

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, pressured by the third government shutdown in less than six months that has left them without pay, are facing huge financial pressure, and the Department of Homeland Security has told reporters that at least 376 of them have quit altogether since the most recent partial shutdown began on February 14. 

Last October, TSA officers went 43 days without pay in what became the longest-running government shutdown in American history. Around 1,100 TSA officers had quit during this past shutdown, according to the Associated Press. 

Now, according to Reuters, TSA has lost 460 more officers during this new shutdown. Ha McNeill, the senior official at TSA, went before a U.S. House committee this week to detail the struggles the administration has endured. 

She told journalists she'd talk about TSA officers "sleeping in their cars at airports to save gas money, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second and third jobs to make ends meet, all while expected to perform at the highest level when in uniform to protect the traveling public. Many have received eviction notices, lost their childcare, missed bill payments and been charged late fees, damaged their credit, defaulted on loans, and have been unable to even qualify for a loan to help ease the financial burden during the shutdown."

Airline industry union Airlines for America (A4A) has launched a new campaign called "Thanks TSA" to draw attention to the challenging—and currently unpaid—work our TSA officers do every day. The campaign will be spread across social media and digital channels, hopefully reaching travelers at airports where TSA has been the most beleaguered. 

"Congress created this chaos for air travelers, and Congress put this excessive strain on TSA officers unnecessarily," said A4A President and CEO Chris Sununu. "It's simply unacceptable that some TSA employees—who work for the United States government—are relying on gift cards to buy groceries and sleeping in their cars because they can't afford gas to get to work. The very least we can do is tell these hardworking Americans that we appreciate the work they do, especially in these incredibly challenging circumstances."

It’s almost been as many days since the partial government shutdown began due to disagreements in Congress over funding: Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without a reform for ICE agents’ accountability following the shooting deaths of two Americans in Minneapolis. 

Democrats have tried several times to vote unanimously to fund the TSA and other agencies that are now operating unpaid, like the Coast Guard and FEMA, but Republicans have refused to fund these agencies without funding ICE. 

Trump has also since demanded that Republicans reject any funding agreement that doesn't also pass the SAVE America Act, which voting rights activists have condemned as a voter suppression bill. 

Yet it seems there’s no relief in sight for TSA officers: both the Senate and the House of Representatives will be out on break for the first two weeks of April. 

The U.S. Travel Association condemned the paid recess while TSA officers remain unpaid, saying, “There is a striking irony in Congress preparing to leave town for a two-week paid recess while TSA officers, the people who secure America’s travel system, face yet another $0 paycheck. Come Friday, if Congress fails to do its job and pass a DHS funding bill, they’ll head to the airports, get escorted to the front of the security line and be screened by the very TSA officers they failed to pay. Meanwhile, millions of Americans will arrive at airports over the next three weeks to face hours-long waits and endless frustration. 

“So allow us to speak directly to Congress: Do not board that flight, pack that bag, or clear that schedule until TSA officers have been paid,” the statement continued. “These are the men and women showing up every single day to keep travelers safe and the system moving. Walking away from that responsibility is not a recess; it’s a dereliction of duty. Fix this before you leave Washington. Pass the funding. Pay our TSA officers. The American people are watching, and they will remember who stayed to get it done and who didn’t.” 

Airport conditions have become tenuous the longer this partial government shutdown continues: reporters and travelers have posted videos showing incredibly long lines at major airports from Houston to New York, and travelers have been arriving three to four hours prior to their flight’s departure simply to make it through TSA security checkpoints. 

 

 

Beyond travelers missing their flights and the general mayhem of long lines is the increasingly human toll of this shutdown: “I’ve heard from officers who cannot afford copayments for cancer treatments or office visits for their sick children,” Aaron Barker, a local TSA union leader in Atlanta, told AP News. 

At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, over 30 percent of TSA officers missed work last Wednesday and Thursday—likely to make money elsewhere. There are some 50,000 TSA employees working without pay. 

And on Saturday, March 21, over 3,250 officers called out across the nation, representing 11.51 percent of the officers scheduled to work that day, according to ABC News. 

NBC News highlighted the various call out rates at major airports:

 

 

Beyond this, the Trump Administration has sent ICE agents, who are currently being funded despite the DHS shutdown, to 14 airports across the nation to help with crowd control. They've been at airports since March 23. Since they're not trained to run the security checkpoints, their impact has been minimal on lines at airports from Chicago to Atlanta—but the impact of their presence is huge. 

“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley in a statement. “TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints – skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.

“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Kelley said. “They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has also spoken against the measure, with Naureen Shah, director of policy and government affairs for immigration at the union saying in part, “President Trump and his allies in Congress refused to fund TSA and manufactured a crisis at airports across the country. Now, the president apparently wants to use ICE as his private security force, reminding all of us that ICE is not retreating from lawlessness but assigned at will by the president for political retribution.

“This is the exact opposite of what the American people are clamoring for, which are real, enforceable changes to rein in ICE and Border Patrol’s cruel deportation and detention obsession.”

---

For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.

Topics From This Article to Explore