Airports across the U.S. have begun serving as sites for temporary food pantries and places to get free meals for many federal aviation workers temporarily going without pay as the shutdown enters its fourth week. Although such employees are expected to receive backpay once the funding lapse ends, an increasing number are struggling to make ends meet in the meantime.
From Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and Little Rock, airport authorities and community partners have opened food pantries and donation centers to help offer relief to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, air traffic controllers, and other essential aviation employees who must continue working.
At Salt Lake City International Airport, tables stacked with food, toiletries, and baby supplies began lining the hallway outside the airport’s administrative offices last week. Airport Executive Director Bill Wyatt told Deseret News that roughly 500 TSA and Customs and Border Protection employees could benefit from the new pantry, funded through $100,000 in airport revenue.
“The help will be both needed and appreciated,” Wyatt said, noting that no taxpayer dollars were used.
Similar efforts are underway in Arkansas, where Clinton National Airport partnered with the Arkansas Food Bank last week to distribute emergency boxes to federal employees, and in Las Vegas, where Harry Reid International Airport’s pantry was emptied within hours of opening, according to The Washington Post.
Other airports and aviation groups have organized creative relief programs of their own. The Wayne County Airport Authority in Detroit introduced meal vouchers for federal staff, while airport officials in Indianapolis volunteered at TSA checkpoints to assist officers with screening duties. In Atlanta, a former TSA officer launched a $10,000 fundraiser to provide gas gift cards for struggling colleagues.
According to ABC News, demand at food banks near airports and military bases has surged as the shutdown stretches on and tightening budgets send federal workers looking for relief.
Despite the uncertainty, the vast majority of TSA officers, controllers and other federal aviation employees continue reporting for duty—keeping the nation’s airways secure while increasingly relying on the generosity of those they serve.
Work without pay amounts to slavery… it’s crazy to force controllers, etc. to work but expect them to tip into their savings to sustain themselves and their families. The relief efforts show that US citizens and corporations are still way less callous than their government but it is still morally wrong to degrade highly qualified essential service workers to welfare recipients. It is highly unlikely that this doesn’t have effects on safety. How efficiently can you run a busy sector when you’re distracted by how to pay the mortgage, feed the kids or fuel the car? Given the probability of such events recurring every year US banks are probably designing new products to fit the need already. “Your shutdown loan, just 5% APR for as long as the US’ credit rating stays high enough to make back pay plausible.”
Siegfried, the U.S. population and corporations are callous enough to allow this level of political idiocy to continue without a full-stop. Pretty much everything there is to hear/ read about this current dog & pony show is politically biased, highly partisan propaganda.