‘How am I going to pay my bills?’: Air traffic controllers object to working without pay

It is Day 28 of the federal government shutdown, with no end in sight.

Day 28 also marks a very significant day for air traffic controllers, who are working their first day without pay. Off-duty air traffic controllers, at airports all over the country, including here in Seattle, spent the day handing out informational pamphlets.

At the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), they stood in three different skybridges, handing out pamphlets and talking to travelers about the strain air traffic controllers are feeling about working without pay, and the potential consequences of having such critical workers working for free.

“How am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay for gas to go to work where I’m going to get a zero-dollar paycheck?” National Air Traffic Controllers Association Regional Vice President Mark Rausch said.

Air traffic controllers are working mandatory overtime, so, no time during the day to work a second job to make ends meet. Workers are calling in sick while flights are being canceled or delayed.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Nick Daniels, have continued to emphasize the pressure that controllers are feeling. They told The Associated Press the problems are likely to only get worse the longer the shutdown continues.

“Air traffic controllers have to have 100% focus 100% of the time,” Daniels said Tuesday at a news conference alongside Duffy at LaGuardia Airport in New York. “I’m watching air traffic controllers going to work. I’m getting the stories. They’re worried about paying for their daughter’s medicine. I got a message from a controller that said, ‘I’m running out of money. And if she doesn’t get the medicine she needs, she dies. That’s the end.'”

“I think the message is simple. Let’s end the shutdown now,” Mark Rausch said. “We can’t expect people to do an honest day’s work and not get an honest day’s pay.”

Rausch said, in spite of the sick call-ins and delayed and canceled flights, not much has changed since before the shutdown. There was a shortage of controllers, long hours, and a lot of stress on the people who keep us safe in the air.

“You’re flying from Seattle, let’s say you’re going all the way to New York. The entire trip, your aircraft is in constant communication with air traffic controllers that aren’t being paid,” Rausch said. “Stopping funding and stopping paying air traffic controllers certainly doesn’t provide additional safety. It’s just going to add that additional distraction and introduce risk.”

Contributing: The Associated Press