Of course once employees stop getting paid, their unions WILL sue. Now contrary to some posters, I don’t think that they have much of a chance under the 13th ammendment because it is silent on how long you can wait to get paid. But I think that it is difficult to argue that letting planes take off* is required to “preserve life and property,” when we grounded everybody after 9/11. How long before unpaid air traffic controllers simply failed to issue takeoff approvals?
*Theoretically, this logic would not apply to “life flights,” like medical evacuations and aircraft carrying donor organs, but surely that constitutes a tiny fraction of flights and could be handled by a vastly reduced number of controllers.
I’m not sure using an inept, unnecessary, child-groping, sham-security department that does nothing to ensure safe flying, as a poster child to plead for govt funding is going to sway many opinions.
The TSA is the epitome of autocratic, government waste. Maybe we’d have an easier time funding budgets without wasting billions on garbage departments like this.
That’s still not the same. You’re expected, and required, to submit 80 hours every two weeks. The entire process is about the accounting for the hours for budgeting.
That’s completely different from every two weeks the number of hours changing, so that sometimes it’s 80, sometimes it 81 (maybe yeah overtime), sometimes it’s 79 (or less, bummer). That’s an “hourly worker” whose number of hours they are paid for each week is variable. And, they’re getting 0 right now.
If you happen to work 82 hours one period, say you stay 30 minutes late four days in a row, would you submit an 82 hour timesheet? Or, would you still submit 80 hours for accounting to fund correctly, and some accounting bucket just got lucky for the extra 2 hours of work?
Either you would just eat the two hours, or you would need approved premium time request for them. Indeed, ISTR that the Justice department got in trouble because some of the lawyers kept two sets of books, one that showed the 80 hours that they got paid for and another set that showed the ACTUAL amount of time that they worked on various cases for management purposes. That was ruled illegal and the supervisors were punished and the lawyers got back pay for the extra hours. You really aren’t supposed to work extra without approved “premium time.”
It’s really not about accounting, because in our case, despite the many, many different categories of time, there are only two different accounting codes: One for when you are actually working, and one for everything else. (sick leave, annual leave, holiday leave, etc.)
If this isn’t enough to keep the collective US up all night, food safety inspectors also work without pay during shutdowns. If there’s a sickout, everyone is at risk, not just air travelers.
Yeah, almost every interaction I have had with TSA agents has been positive or at worst neutral. They are just people trying to do a job. That the job is stupid isn’t really their fault. There are for sure people who have bad experiences and there are definitely assholes working there, and I don’t mean to diminish that – but the main problem is with the structure and mandate of the TSA, not the majority of the agents operating the screening lines.
Of course they will; I say again that the only people happy during this clusterfuck of an administration are the lawyers who are making a freakin’ mint with all the endless lawsuits.
I get it – we shouldn’t get mad at the people who are just doing their jobs, and following orders.
But the people we SHOULD get mad at aren’t available, they hide behind said workers – so what are we to do?
And how did it come to be that anything is excusable when following orders, or working? Remember you can quit, as one child prison warden did in Texas.
I did not say we should excuse bad behavior on the grounds of following orders. Most screeners do decent jobs even if the job they have to do is stupid. We can and should be mad at the ones who turn abusive, even as we recognize that the policies of their superiors enable this behavior.
I remember reading a statistical analysis tracking the long-term effects of Reagan firing all those striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
While it’s impossible to state with any confidence that any particular air accident would have been prevented, the overall study concluded that the massive and sudden loss of experienced controllers almost certainly increased the number of people killed in air travel incidents over the following decades.
Oh, ho, ho. What people don’t realise is how much that can affect US big business.
A lot of importing countries require certification. That the food was processed in a properly registered plant. Sometimes with supervision. Sometimes it must be inspected. It all depends on the importing country and the faith they have in the exporting country’s system.
If inspectors aren’t working, they can’t supervise. They can’t inspect. And they can’t sign the piece of paper that says those conditions are met. This is international news. I can definitely see a border inspector in the importing country questioning the provenance of a certificate if inspectors aren’t working. Even a delay is hugely costly.
Depending on the import rules, those could be delayed, too. So some of your favourite foods might suddenly be more expensive or unavailable.
And, yes, someone food might even kill you. But thst doesn’t affect corporate, too much, so they won’t put the pressure on over that.
My greater concern is that domestic food processing, particularly that of livestock, could be under- or un-inspected. People can and will die should this shut-down last much longer.
Another reason I say that the shut down cannot and will not be allowed to go on “for years” as 45 threatened. It will fuck with too many rich people’s bottom lines, on so many levels; not even including all the inevitable lawsuits that will be forthcoming.
Hey you lawyers out there: isn’t there some law making it criminal to misuse, abuse or otherwise hamper federal funds from taking their intended course?
Like zero. Planes have windows. Planes have radios. Pilots all know how to coordinate operations in the absence of ATC - it’s done all the time in low-traffic airspace. The system can’t support the volume of commercial traffic without ATC, but a few flights aren’t a problem. (In theory, the whole ATC system can go off line and everyone still can follow their assigned procedure for lost communications, sequence their own arrivals, and land safely.)
“Podunk traffic, Cessna November one one Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, entering left downwind for two-eight, Podunk.”
Now, if Uncle decides that GPS has to be unavailable for the duration, or can’t pay the electric bill for the localizer and the VORTAC, then there’s a Big Problem in instrument conditions.
It’ll also be interesting to see what happens now that the Secret Service won’t be getting paid…
Maybe they can make some money doing street-side security puppet shows in the meantime…
True even on the scale of a few weeks - the SEC being shut down, for instance, is screwing up a lot of businesses, who can’t move forward with anything they need approval for - e.g. IPOs. The loss of financial data that normally comes from the feds is screwing everyone up as well. Etc. etc. If this lasted for even a couple months, the country would fall apart.
And what of the possibility that 45 knows he’s going down, and is simply resolved to take it all down with him? Or that he will happily see it burn if he can be king of the ashes?
Not that it’s ever really a good idea to give TSA agents a hard time but I’d have to think that until this is resolved it would be a REALLY FREAKIN’ BAD time to be rude to them.
