Air traffic control personnel are resigning to seek other work after a month without pay and a union representative told CNN on Monday he expects more to come. “They will resign. They will go get outside jobs,” a National Air Traffic Controllers Association Atlanta rep said in an interview with Don Lemon on Monday. NATCA officials say they’re aware of resignations that are a direct result of the shutdown and are calling on all branches of the government to get the government open again. The union released a hand written resignation from a Madison, Wisconsin.
In the letter, the trainee says he can’t hang on any longer and needs to find another job and he says he likely won’t be the last. “I worry that I may not be the last developmental forced to resign from an already understaffed facility,” the letter reads. Controllers are among 800,000 essential employees working without pay and for the first month there has been pride in maintaining safety under the circumstances. But as they and the other workers anticipate missing a second paycheck next week the cracks are starting to show and NATCA says they’re already short of staff. Complicating matters is the fact that the training academy for controllers in Oklahoma City is also closed, meaning there will be a serious disruption in the flow of new trainees. Click “Download File” below to read the PDF copy of the letter.
