"An even more profound principle is also at stake, namely the ban on slavery and involuntary servitude embodied in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution."
Someone finally said it! Slavery is not something buried in the past. The 13th Amendment has been violated many times but rarely are modern forms of unfree labor brought to public attention. Being forced to work without pay is a form of slavery - regardless of any promise to provide compensation at some vague future time.
6
They use dynamite to clear a log jam. ‘Striking’ the fuse may just work.
2
"Gary Stevenson is a former organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters"
Well, if you can't trust the Teamsters for sound, nonviolent, ethical advice, who can you trust?
Let them strike... In fact, let them quit, and just get rid of that whole "Let me touch your junk" group... We've only had them since 9/11.
Another useless government program, not worth the money wasted...
In fact, this shutdown is the best way to show which useless programs we could just shut down...
1
I could not agree more. It's th o ne thing that will make people wake up to this travesty of a government shutdown created by a petulant president.
2
Agreed.
1
Meanwhile, another NYT story not posting comments notes that Canadian air traffic controllers are sending hundreds and hundreds of pizzas to their now unpaid counterparts in USA.
1
Repeal Taft-Hartley NOW!
2
No strike. These people are performing an essential service. If a single act of terrorism happened while they were on strike, the country's support would evaporate. The crime is that they are not being paid. What moron put them in the list of non-essential federal workers? That is the real crime. Of course, it is compounded by the demand that they work without pay. But please, do not encourage them to strike. They would lose all the support and sympathy they now enjoy. A strike would simply allow them to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
19
Completely agree. TSA should strike....disrupt business and tourism. I would feel differently if it were truly a national emergency, and so would our loyal worker's.
This is made up garbage. Secret Service needs to strike, too. That'll get some attention. While we're at it, air traffic controllers should also walk out and disrupt worldwide everything. Damn the torpedoes. Do what you must. Stand up and just do it. Disrupt everything. It's the right thing to do and i bet it won't last long.
Make our Republican Congress and President feel the pain they have inflicted on the country, and make no mistake, they will, especially in 2020. Such unseemly groveling no counts.
4
Damn right. Past time.
4
It's simple--No Pay No Work. Trump has essentially laid them off. Secret Service should walk as well. No more stolen labor, Mr Trump.
6
Ronald Reagan and his one-percenter policies were some of the worst things ever to hit this country. It is thanks to lousy Republican policies, which have decimated the middle and working classes, that the U.S. is in such a terrible position today, with a small percentage of wealthy people raking in most of the profits and squirreling them away in tax shelters and other tax-avoidance schemes so they won't have to pay taxes and spread the wealth more equally among all Americans. It's grotesque and we have to stop falling for their deceptive lines about "other people's money" and "free stuff." We are all in this together, as Americans, and if you can't see that when one part if society suffers, we all do, then you don't deserve anything that this country has given you, from public safety and the rule of law to public education and fair labor laws. Shame on the folks who keep peddling laissez-faire capitalism as the solution to the country's problems! Vote them all out of power and let's start legislating in favor of working people who have been pushed to the edge under Republicans and their neo-liberal Democratic cronies.
4
The best answer to this situation is given, I believe, in another comment, signed McAllister (Kentucky, 6 hours ago counting from now): it calls for air travelers to cancel their airline reservations and either stay home or find another way to travel.
It is called a "boycott" and I think it might work. What do you think?
2
I was so surprised that the New York Times would publish an article like this.The TSA was founded in order to avoid the need for profiling and other intrusive measures into the public flying, why not return to the intrusive requirements before we can fly,
everybody has to be pre checked then we wouldn't perhaps need the TSA as it now exists but a much smaller force.The TSA was a knee jerk reaction to Sept. the 11th and should be reviewed today to develop a better system.
2
How typical of the new way of progressive logic. Don't like the law, break it. Strike, protest, attack people of that doesn't work. And please stop pretending these guys are underpaid. Take a look at their full package vs. their education and experience related to their positions. If they call in sick, they should not be paid when the inevitable happens, as it ALWAYS has - retroactive pay. Anyone slowing down should also have that on their performance appraisals, but those don't matter anyway in government jobs - advancement tied to union meaning tied to seniority period.
I am very much pro-union, both in the private and public sectors, but Patco broke the no-strike clause in its contract and Reagan was right (I hate saying that) to fire them. Some public service unions should not have the right to strike as in effect it is extortion on the public. I would include police, fire and public transportation in the no-strike category. The negative effects on the public are just too great.
@Caded: That is precisely the point. Society needs to understand that it does not function without its valuable working classes. If you don't allow strikes, that lesson will not be learned, and you are essentially saying that workers should be treated like slaves, with no recourse to laws that protect them from exploitation by the monied class. Let society be disrupted and show all of these self-satisfied upper-class takers that they need to accept the fact that the working classes have rights, too.
6
Workers essential to public transportation should not have the option of shutting it down, a principle that goes back to many averted railroad strikes years ago.
A strike by TSA could work. Whatever their unpopularity with travelers, the idea of an ineffective wall is rejected by the majority of Americans.
Trump could duplicate Reagan, fire all TSA workers, and call in the military to do their work. His temperment and ego are malevolent enough to do such a thing.
There would surely be a public outcry against this action, because no matter what someone thinks about unions, they can understand working without pay.
Right now, the U.S. is violating the 13th Amendment, which states:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude (except as punishment for a crime) shall exist within the United States. "
The Federal employees working without salary are all in a state of involuntary servitude. They may lose their homes, adequate nourishment, money for the bus.
To fight Trump's malevolence and help Federal workers, Americans can stop flying (except for urgent business).
Imagine the pressure the airlines would place on Trump if they had no revenue.
2
I think a strike well announced like Feb 11th would be a great ideal. The HUGE difference with PATCO is most people were against them this would have broad support. I say this as someone who has been an employer, I expected a lot of my employees but knew I had to uphold my end of the deal. If you are not paid for two months the employer is not upholding there part of the agreement. Also the sound bite would be "why should we have to do our job when the President and Congress don't do theirs" it would also force an end to the shutdown and all would be grateful for that.
2
Instead, it’s time that TSA workers who don’t show up to work, to be fired. (à la Reagan)
6
@Non Chi-Comm Yea, that worked out so well. NO it didn't. All the things the Air Traffic Controllers Union striked for were implement after Reagan left office. That was a stupid thing for Reagan to do and he endangered all of the flying public for a political stunt designed to kill the Union effort in America.
7
Well. I survived the TSA work slow down today. Proving that the TSA's Union does little more than serve as a tool to a narrow DNC Political Machine agenda. The poor TSA workers should expect their Union to help them in times of financial hardship....instead, TSA workers who ARE getting paid.....they are NOT going without. ....chose to punish the public.
This is a farce. The Union Leadership is using the TSA workers as tools to force a very stupid, narrow , regressive DNC Political Agenda...and making the public miserable.
It may be time to abolish govt worker unions....when the unions turn on the people.
Not just TSA workers. What's needed here is a national strike--one out, all out. Every worker in the nation.
5
Not just the TSA, Barbara. We need a general strike, and we need it to continue until 45 is removed.
6
I think that a TSA strike targeting Washington area airports would be more effective than a general one. Make it personal for the lawmakers. And set up and advertise a CrowdJustice site where we can help the TSA strikers pay their bills in the meantime.
1
Government shutdowns should be prohibited by our Constitution. Our government should always be open and functioning. The entire premise of not having an operational government is absurd.
2
In the early days of the Reagan Administration, the air traffic contollers union, after slow walking traffic by “strictly going by books” initiated a walkout when no progress was made in collective bargaining, the Adinistration took action to collectively terminated all of the striking workers and permanently bar them being rehired! It took years for the air traffic system to recover! Trump is capable of doing far worse!
The last time that the TSA went on Strike was back during Reagan's time in office, however back then the TSA was also unionized, they aren't this time. Back then when they did strike, Reagan had given them a warning, you strike, you're all fired. Well they went on strike, and Reagan fired them all and replaced all of them. The ones that he had replaced them with weren't unionized, and he made sure of it, that way they couldn't pull another strike. Basically firing them was his way of telling them that they were all replaceable no matter what. So yeah, I know that they can't strike, period.
The TSA didn’t exist until after 9/11. It was created to standardize airport checkpoints which until that time were staffed by the airlines often with minimum wage contract security guards.
1
As mentioned, Air Traffic Controllers, is the reason not to Strike, plus not a particularly skilled position, when compared to Air Traffic Controllers, who were replaced. It would be the Ronald Reagan moment for this impotent President, where he would look strong to his base. What a catastrophe for the country, the fact that they are not getting paid should be a court case, their salary is what they signed up for, so, no sympathy there.
How can the government or anyone else force someone to work and not pay them? Last time I checked that was called slavery. At what point in the timeline can employees make the case for no work, no pay? One month, we are there already, two months, things are really hard, three months and everyone starts having credit problems and mortgages can start to be foreclosed upon. Even if there were no strike, when large numbers of employees are forced to quit in order to get new jobs the nation will grind to a halt over a stupid wall and a billionaire with an ego that will run over poor struggling workers who need their paychecks.
4
$23,000 a year AND not getting paid...that's actually pretty close to slavery in my opinion.
3
When someone performs a service and is not compensated, it's called a "shutdown". When someone performs no service and gets paid, it's called "Congress".
4
In addition, federal workers and their families/supporters should march on Washington DC as was done during the Viet Nam war. Their slogan: Lock Him Up!
1
Those unpaid government workers are financing our government. That alone is immoral.
4
First organized sick outs - stick by the rules 100% and slow down - then give an or else date sometime in the future - a week or two. trump will not negotiate - he wants 7 billion and offers nothing in return.
2
Strike! Strike at the heart of this shutdown. It is unjust for these workers to be held hostage so that Donald Trump can keep his foolish campaign promise. It shows that republicans think nothing of the average person. They hold their party’s prestige over the lives and welfare of the working people. The “wall” is only a symbol to republicans. A symbol that shows they can win a symbolic victory for their party. And at the expense of the lowly working Joe. They care less for their plight. STRIKE!
2
I had no idea that the starting pay for what should be a n extremely important federal job was so low. No wonder so many are lazy and don’t care much about the job. At $23,000 a year many people can make more working at McDonald’s if you could get 40 hours a week. I would definitely want to strike. And what kind of union do these people have, or representation from the officials they have elected. I could never see myself wanting to work for the TSA. It is just sickening that even federal workers, in charge of the safety of airport travelers, are ripped off like every other worker in our country.
This capitalist concept has gotten so far out of control. We earn less and less, when adjusted for inflation, every single year. We all work all our lives just to turn around and give our money right back to the corporations that run the world. We are told to save and save for the future, but how can most of us really do that today. And then trump throws a temper tantrum and shuts down the government over a wall (just knowing all of this is over nearly 6 billion dollars for a WALL drives me crazy) and just like that whatever measly savings some people had are either completely gone or about gone. This vicious cycle of keeping the people poor has got to end. And these trump supporters need to wake up and realize that this man, this traitor, is destroying our country. If they are so in favor of it why don’t they just have half their pay taken from their checks to pay for it?
1
Just waiting for a plane to crash and break the 2009-2019 record of not aviation incidents. Planes can fly over most walls, but I guess if they aren't being paid, then they might end up crashing into one. Trump will get away with murder yet again. He's already done it with a Chief Petty Officer Navy S.E.A.L. and two immigrant children, so that is just part of being a dictator--not caring who dies in your own charge and country. Nothing surprises me about Trump and nothing ever will. Just waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the rest of the country to figure this out.
1
Gotta love the Liberal Mindset. Always looking for the 'pie in the sky' and believing they have found another one.
How about contacting your Democratic Senator /Representative and encourage them to assist in protecting our nation ?
Time for the safety & security of our nation and citizens to take precedence over their disgust for President Trump.
Oh how I pray that all politicans would return to the precepts of their responsibilities and shed their personal ambitions and petty differences. It is truly sad that 'serving the people' has died - on both sides of the isle.
Fine. Let the TSA workers strike. Then fire them. Bleeding heart liberals causing more problems for a country with enough problems already. The TSA is nothing more than a plastic bandage that in the end repeatedly falls off the wound without healing it. Time for Americans of both major parties to grow a SPINE. If you need the nanny state security of the TSA to protect you 24 hours, 7 days a week, 5-6 weeks a month, 12 months a year, then STAY HOME, and let those of us who need to travel do so without being treated like cattle, sheep, or aphids.
no no no let's not give trump a chance to do what reagan did to the the air traffic controllers! call in sick on a rotating basis or the best just slow down......way down.
1
Yep. This would do it.
1
You know what Trump will do when TSA strikes? Send in the military and national guard to do the work. You heard it here first.
As a retired Federal civil servant who has been furloughed more than once, I have to say that a strike by the TSA or other civil servants would be a TERRIBLE idea. The authors of this article, like so many who oppose our President, want to use these civil servants as pawns to make a statement about President Trump. Let’s look at a few facts: number one being “strikes by civil servants are illegal”! As they pointed out, when PATCO tried this in the past, they were fired and these firings were upheld by the Courts. And, compared to a TSA Officer (who does play a pivotal role in Homeland Security), air traffic
controllers had a highly technical job...and were replaced. I suspect that these columnists are the same people who mock and complain about the role of TSA when they travel - but to attempt to damage President Trump, the display a sense of typical liberal “faux-outrage”! What about the Democrats returning from Puerto Rico to negotiate a settlement? No outrage there!
And finally, in response to the claims of “slavery” and “involuntary servitude”, I’d remind the authors that these workers are voluntary employees. If they do not want to be furloughed, they can resign and seek other employment. We call it “civil service” because it comes with its own unique set of benefits as well as hardships. No employee is a “slave” - unhappy with the furlough, just quit.
Since this is an opinion, I will excuse the lack of factualism by the authors as another example of liberal “fake news”
Before this step let's get 100,000 people out in the streets to demonstrate before Federal buildings and Trump hotels
1
I was beginning to wonder when someone would call for a strike and its ABOUT TIME. I suggest a general strike, maybe just one day, maybe a rolling work stoppage across the country and across the board...like they do in Europe. Everyone hit the sidewalks with a picket sign, rail, air, trucking, transit. Its time to bring this insanity of trumpism to the fore front....and this may be the way to do it.
Then again, won't happen. What happened to the Days of Rage back in the 60's? They are now wearing white shirts and ties, that's what happened. Or they have retired and their kids run the madness now...
37
Like police officers and firemen/women NO TSA workers should not have the option to strike. All work on the front lines protecting the general public. Anarchy is not the answer.
7
They are not being paid. That's slavery, which is unconstitutional.
16
@desertCard
Did you miss the part where it said
"A strike by T.S.A. agents, as federal workers, would be illegal"
@desertCard Then we can all count on you to quit your PAYING job and show up at the airport to work for free. To demand that anyone be forced to work for free is smug and entitled.
12
I suppose you know it’s illegal. But go ahead and strike - you won’t have a job to go back to. Anyone can run those scanners.
I absolutely agree. The general public would be very supportive of such a strike, and not only TSA, but every single government employee who has been and is currently still being harmed by this shutdown.
trump's hardcore supporters might object, but they are in a very small minority.
And with unemployment at a such a low level, it's doubtful all these workers could be replaced, especially if it extends beyond just TSA.
I say, go for it.
3
Been on several flights in the past week and I didn't hear a single complaint by any TSA employee. I'm not saying that my sample is statistically significant, but everyone I encountered was professional and focused on their work, in spite of their personal struggles. Let's face it, they have options and this won't last forever.
Almost every state has laws requiring the timely issuance of paychecks for work performed within the state, and the state labor departments are not affected by the shutdown. Federal employees working but not getting paid should contact the Labor Department within their state and file a complaint against their employer, the Federal agency involved.
4
I believe the TSA workers [and all Federal worker affected by the shut down], have a right to strike under the current circumstances. The Employer [the Federal Gov't in this case], has not kept up its part of the contract. Not paying the workers the agreed upon salaries/hourly wages currently in effect via collectively bargained agreements or otherwise, in essence breached the contracts/agreements in place. The Taylor law and other anti-strike laws for Gov't/Municipal employees are generally interpreted that employees shall not strike when the contract has finished. However, during contract talks the last cotract stays in effect i.e.pay, benefits and workrules [Triborough Amendment]. Here however the Gov't is basically saying 'we are not going to pay you but you better come to work or....' So yeah, the affected Gov't employees in my opinion have every right to strike - the Gov't has not kept its part of the agreements therefore the anti strike clause[s] imho are out the window too.
4
1) Are you an attorney or do you just play one behind the keyboard?, 2) The so-called Taylor Law is a New York State statute that does not apply to anyone other than NYS public employees, 3) Government employment is NOT like a civilian job. And since these workers are covered by a union contract, regular labor laws do not apply.
In advocating a strike by federal workers, the authors draw a contrast between moral justice and U.S. statute. But I wonder if current "shutdown" practices also violate our Constitution and our labor law.
After much bloodshed, the 13th Amendment banned "involuntary servitude" except as punishment for those duly convicted of a crime. Precedent also exempts military service. Arguably, mandates that civilian federal workers to remain on post without pay constitutes such involuntary servitude, and those policies should be overturned as unconstitutional.
More narrowly, an entity that does not compensate workers for their labor in a timely manner commits wage theft. To fight wage theft, the Fair Labor Standards Act entitles many workers to fight for minimum and overtime pay. To lower barriers to righteous claims, under the FLSA, victims can recover their legal expenses.
In Illinois, FLSA considerations led the court to order payment of state workers despite then governor Bruce Rauner's two year long refusal to sign state budgets.
Unfortunately, cynical policies claim that TSA is exempt from the FLSA. Still, Federal workers might sue for wage theft. And we could join TSA workers and others who serve us in demanding reversal of the exploitative travesties that fly in the face of fairness.
A worker who performs tasks so important that they must get done deserves a livable wage and decent working conditions. A moral government should overturn policies contrary to this truth.
3
All the federal workers should a) urge the Republicans to overrule Trump and open the government and b) strike until the government reopens. It’s a travesty that Trump and the Republicans are holding the workers hostage.
I’m pretty sure neither Trump nor any of the Republican Senators ever had to make the ‘food or rent’ payment decision.
2
Perhaps a selective strike, affecting just airports around Washington DC? This would be cheaper, apply pressure where it will do most good, and would undoubtedly bring on an interesting test case in the courts.
3
I understand the reluctance of the TSA workers, who don't have much of a cushion even under the best of circumstances, to be involved in any sort of job action. There are certainly memories of PATCO.
But, I do remind them--and the other federal workers not being paid, as well as those furloughed, there is no gain without some risk.
A hundred years ago, workers had a better sense of this. The pronouncements and threats from oligarchs--and, often, from government--were not that different from what is heard now. And the threat of losing much--even limb and life--was just as real. But the workers took action, because they knew that no one was just going to give up power and grant them their rights--they would have to take them.
The situation is no different now.
It doesn't have to be called a "strike"--if that worries those who say the law makes Federal worker strikes illegal--"sick out" of "protest" is fine. Let it all be argued in the courts. But be ensured--the only thing that's going to make this impasse move is massive public pressure through massive disruption, and the TSA does have a hammer it can swing. Given the fact that the workers aren't being paid anyway, it's time to take the risk.
2
One hundred years ago employers could pay whatever they wished, bring in strikebreakers who would beat, maim and shoot errant employees and jobs had no safety protocols. What you described is a true picture or apples to oranges.
It's very easy to suggest how other people should be brave and risk their jobs.
3
Has anyone asked what the federal government is doing with the money that they aren't paying the workers. I bet it's making money for Trump or the government!
Pitting the TSA against Trump? Brilliant idea, especially in light of the tremendous popularity and perceived effectiveness the TSA enjoys among the general population!
Continuing to follow in Reagan's footsteps, in one fell swoop Trump can remove intrusivve inconvenience unto the travelling public, reduce federal spending, and boost his popularity... Just in time for the run-up to the 2020. Great idea you've got there!
@STK
Who's going to replace the workers. No one is going to apply for a job for which they do not get paid!
2
Even though they are not affected directly by a government shutdown, let's add to a strike idea the hundreds of thousands of housekeeping and general staff of hotels, etc. that are highly represented by Hispanic workers.
It would be a strong message to Trump and other right-wing Americans that we are extremely dependent, documented or not, on immigrant labor from Latin America.
If they were to go on strike, only the lowest income non-minority Americans would step in as replacements. And there would not be enough of them.
It's "beneath" white Americans of middle class or higher income families to allow their young adult children to work these jobs.
2
The problem with this shutdown, and others like it, is that it is only partial. That fits the Republican narrative that most government workers do nothing and are not essential. Instead, all federal workers should strike, and then the country would feel the pain, and quickly.
1
The only way to end this shutdown is to really shut down the government. Keeping it partially open gives Trump cover.
The 13th Amendment prohibits working without pay, so forcing them to work is clearly unconstitutional.
4
Why would you possible want to work for free? Stop working until you start getting paid. Your employer is not fulfilling its part of the deal. And yes, not only TSA, but all workers not getting paid.
6
This should go beyond TSA. A national strike should give the democratic power back to the people
7
Totally agree that TSA should strike. The key is give several days warning so the flying public and airlines can prepare. If that doesn’t work, the air traffic controllers should do the same. Enough is enough !!
Also Congress should pass a bill that during shutdowns, Congress, the President, cabinet officials and aides also don’t get paid.
7
A strike, would refresh the news cycle. So long as irresponsible government remains, the problem persists. The government is the problem, once spoke by government. It's time for new government, democracy itself is rigged. A strike would have consequences, remember, they never accept responsibility and the blame would now be on workers, as always.
5
Other than the Coast Guard, TSA workers have the most leverage of those not getting paid to actually bring an end to this absurd madness. If half the TSA folks stayed home, our airports would have to be shuttered. And that just isn't going to fly with the general public. Only one person in this country would fault them for doing the right thing.
13
I agree that TSA workers should go on a strike similar to what teachers in states like Arizona and West Virginia did last year. Unfortunately the TSA union - American Federation of Government Employees- my former union in which I was a local union leader for over a decade--has no tradition or rank and file militancy to support a strike. So like the teachers they will have to do it themselves. However the broader union movement including more militant unions like SEIU, probably the airline unions, and retired union members, and many faith communities will support them. No pay = no work.
5
"It's time for T.S.A. workers to strike."
Yes. Yes, it is. It's long past time.
And, looking at things from a broader perspective, it's long past time for *all* American workers to strike.
We could learn a lot from the French. I'd certainly support a general strike. And it wouldn't take long to send the message that government doesn't work without workers and business doesn't profit without those who do the work that creates the wealth for others who then have the audacity to say "I built this all by myself!"
But then, I'm old enough to remember when American workers had some power and thus were not seen as trash to be overworked, underpaid, used up and discarded by the "job creators." Most of today's Americans apparently believe that they have no choice but to be treated like dirt in the workplace. I wonder if labor history is even touched on in schools anymore? I doubt it, especially not in ruby-red areas. Can't have the peasants getting uppity, you know.
It's long past time for Americans to remember that it's work that unites us. Most of us are not trust fund babies who were "earning" $200K annually by the time we were three (see Trump, Donald J.) and we must work, have worked, or will someday work for a living. And since we're the overwhelming majority of the country it's time we started to call the shots again.
18
Shouldn't we ALL strike? What would happen if the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are "excepted" and forced to work without pay simply did not show up today? In our case meat would disappear from restaurants and grocery store shelves. Yes, beef, chicken, and pork are all inspected by federal employees who are now being forced to come to work and perform their duties under the threat of retaliatory action if they do not. Even if we miss only one day of work for sick leave we have been ordered to bring in a doctor's excuse for that one day. Normally we would have to be absent for 3 consecutive days before a doctor's note is necessary. All annual leave has been cancelled. So we are trapped. But if all of us, to a woman and to a man, were to stop working? This country would come to a rock hard stand-still. And yes, I believe it is high time we did so. Then maybe people would pay attention.
15
I'd been thinking this, so thank you for writing this opinion piece, and to others in the Comments section suggesting that the 800,000 federal workers join a TSA strike. But why stop there? It seems something even larger may be in order. Now's the time for a large-scale statement that our whole country could make, even for one day.
9
The opinion for TSA workers to strike is wrong...what should be said is it is time for all of us to support TSA workers by not traveling and forcing them to work for no pay. Grind travel to a halt... and when it affects everyone - from Disney World to Corporate America to Vegas - the shutdown will cease to be an option.
The onus is on all of us to end this.
5
@McAllister - so a consumer boycott is ok, but a strike isn’t? Why not?
2
I'm surprised they haven't already called a strike. Legal or not, they have the moral right and they certainly have this reader's support.
5
As a lawyer I think there is an excellent chance that most federal courts would conclude that the refusal of the government to pay their employees trumps the law prohibiting federal employees from striking.
7
ALL Federal workers, including TSA, are prohibited by law from striking.
See: "Another important difference is although the NLRA allows private sector employees to engage in "concerted action," like workplace strikes, the Statute does not grant this right to federal employees. In fact, the Statute specifically excludes from the definition of "employee" those persons who engage in a workplace strike. It specifies that it is an unfair labor practice for labor unions to call or participate in a strike or a work stoppage that interferes with the operation of a federal agency." from :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_Labor-Management_Relations_Statute
2
@RLiss
In regards to your citation of that statute "[...] a strike or a work stoppage that interferes [...]" -- I can think of two forms of popular protest that don't violate this rule, because they don't count as a strike or stoppage - a massive "work-to-rule" coordinated effort (a strike in common parlance, maybe, but technically by dictionary terms, a strike is a refusal to work), and a coordinated work slowdown - doing your job at such a slow pace that you might as well not be doing it at all - but you technically are. Neither of them are stoppages or "strikes" (refusals to work). I'm not a lawyer, but seems like its worth the challenge.
8
Alternate suggestion: no strike, but they picket on breaks or before and after shifts. Many other airport employees who are NOT federal employees have the right to refuse to cross a picket line, either because they are non-union themselves or because they have a union contract that allows for honoring picket lines.
Caveats: the rules about private-sector employees honoring a picket line might be different in an airport context; I do not know. Also, at least some airports have a designated picketing area that is NOT where other employees enter, so honoring the picket line would be complicated. Finally, non-union employees are pretty unlikely to refuse to cross on their own, really this strategy would rely on unionized employees whose collective bargaining agreements allow for honoring other workers' pickets.
Is there any crowd funding to help our hard-working Federal workers who are in such (an unnecessary) hard spot? We, the public, owe it to them, even if our elected president tjinks otherwise.
3
I wrote the TSA Union head for my area in Arizona. I want to help the TSA folks. My business depends on the TSA and FAS
The T.S.A. position-implemented in 2001 was never meant to be a strong employee group. These workers are not part of the General Services (GS) pay scale and were excluded from federal regulations giving them collective bargaining rights until 2011. They also make considerably less than similar GS employees. This-of course, was intentional do to Republican anti-union sentiment; Republicans simply could not stomach *another* unionized workforce.
These hard working folk have a thankless task ushering hundreds of thousands of grumpy, mean, tired frantic humans through security lines no one wants to go through.
If they decide to strike I wish them the best. If they decide to continue calling in sick; more power to them.I will be flying in and out of my least favorite airport in a few days and fully prepared to support the agents.
7
The only thing that works in a strike is unity, everything else is divide and conquer. When the only U.S. president to have been a president of union, Ronald Reagan, fired striking ATCers, the pilots should have gone out with them. For unity, for the future, for safety. Pilots should have considered their working future as well as the controllers. Labor has been forever handicapped by that win brought to you by that Grand Old Union Man himself: Ronald Reagan.
(He also got rid of many middle-class tax breaks and trashed the fairness doctrine which gave rise to Fox and the many blessing it has bestowed on our democracy.)
No one seems to mention him any more, it's the perfect time for the left to set the record straight on this union busting, death-squad funding, corporate shilling aberration of a leader.
15
@Mike B. And it’s the perfect time for illegal strikers to be fired. TSA - thousands standing around
Who needs a wall when very soon no one will dare fly anywhere. So if you can't leave the country can't leave the state that would seem a small price to pay if you can prevent anyone and everyone from coming into the country. And if all other forms of transportation break down so much the better. Gasoline will be a fortune. Cars. Trains. Boats. Public transportation. No one will be able to go from here to there or from there to here. Or anywhere. So who needs a wall. A wall costs so much money. This is way better. No one gets paid anything. The governments saves all that money. It works out perfectly. Even the President has been be staying home.
1
The best limited action would be for the TSA workers at Reagan National and Dulles to have a sick in on the days that Senators and Representatives fly home to their districts. If enough Republicans are regularly inconvenienced maybe they will vote to fund the government and overcome a Presidential veto.
5
Trump is doing so many wonderful things. He has brought forth a Blue Tsunami that has swept a new and diverse generation of progressives into control of the house. He has shined a spotlight on the depredations of Republican gerrymandering and vote suppression. He has exposed the GOP as a confederacy of "courtesans" willing to hop into bed with anyone who tosses them a few shekels, including hostile governments.
And now it seems, trump is about to attempt the impossible: Brother Trump is about to breathe life back into the moribund American Labor Movement. God bless the man if he can do it! Solidarity forever!
13
I want to respectfully ask that anyone who thinks it is a bad idea for these employees to strike, to please, in solidarity with these people, refuse their OWN paychecks (or not cash them) for the duration of the shutdown. How about that? If you think that striking is a bad idea cause they maybe can do it without a paycheck, then you should be able to implement it yourself. Work for free for "months and years" and then please report back to us on how that is working for you. Cause see, it is easy talk about "doing the right thing" when it isnt YOUR paycheck being gambled with.
10
That is a tempting idea. It is also a terribly bad idea. Government workers do not have a legal right to strike -- and if anyone thinks Trump won't emulate Reagan's firing of the air-traffic controllers, you've been living on a far-away planet.
Memo to TSA workers: Don't win a pyrrhic battle and lose a life-long war.
3
Serious question: How would security be handled if all of TSA was fired due to strike? you can barely pay someone else less. Would it be the military?
3
Good. They should strike. Trump seems to want to continue this one for quite some time and he and Mulvaney are blatantly using these peoples' labor and sense of duty to not only prolong the shutdown THEY caused, willfully, but to also take the pressure off Trump, so he can CONTINUE withholding their pay and harming them. That is pretty dark. And callous. Trump is looking for ways to deliberately cause harm to the US government. How is that not the biggest betrayal of the oath of office he took?
it is unconscionable that Congress is forcing these TSA workers to work (or that the WH illegally recalls IRS employees to come back and work for free) to take the pressure of Trump so he can continue abusing Federal Workers and depriving them of a livelihood. Trump's regime is KNOWINGLY and willfully causing harm to not only these people but the United States government and every tax paying citizens who is also shut out from a government they pay a lot of money into. And the Republicans are doing NOTHING to stop him.
When is enough enough? What does it take for you all to march the streets and protest the blatant abuses?
3
I want to call for unions to step forward to find a way for all of us to help furloughed federal workers feed their families and pay their rents or mortgages. Let us help them whether or not they are union members. Let's also organize a national "Do Nothing Day" -- a day when no one but police, fire, and medical workers report to their jobs. This president should not be allowed to punish workers in this manner and still have a nation that works! FIE!!!
2
Are they allowed to, though? Pilots can't strike because of that whole essential air service thing..are we sure TSA even can?
I think ATC needs to call in sick en masse.
When TSA doesn't come to work, lines get long.
When ATC calls in sick, planes can't take off. The fewer Air Traffic Controllers at work, the fewer planes in the sky.
(PS: Barbara, I think you're the bees knees.)
Lots of ways to skin this cat . . . work to rule and rolling slowdowns come to mind. TSA workers unite! WE HAVE YOUR BACK!
1
The TSA has the power to break the back of this shutdown in one day.
One.
No one shows up for work, ergo no planes fly.
One day. Imagine the chaos. Imagine people stranded all over the world. Imagine the impact on the markets. Imagine the organs not transported. Imagine the supplies not delivered, mail not received. Imagine the paralysis of 9/11.
Imagine, if you can, not getting your Amazon Prime order delivered in two days. Fears and horrors, right?
People will go berserk.
Why people haven't already taken to the streets with torches and pitchforks and vats of tar at this point in this corrupt administration is a mystery. I, for one, have my torch and pitchfork handy by the door. Tar is harder to come by.
We have become intellectually weak and complacent. People in West Virginia, which last I checked are nowhere near the southern border, are driving policy based on Trump's lies.
Hate of other is a currency given value by Trump. No other president in my lifetime has sought to capitalize on our innate suspicion of anyone who doesn't look like us.
Trump isn't the problem. Determined ignorance is.
2
Half the country cannot see or seem to care about the shutdown's injustice to affected federal workers. Folks don't even talk about the contractors who will never be made whole.
In this age of Grover Norquist ,"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." , we are likely to get another Reaganesque mass firing if there is a strike.
2
Ms. Ehrenreich, now propped up with this Gary Stevenson character, has lost touch with her intended audience. I just endured the TSA blue flu work shutdown at the ATL airport. The TSA is punishing the WRONG people,,,,,they have just lost my sympathy...and judging from other people's reaction in the airport.....a lot of other people just lost sympathy for them as well.
Ms. Ehrenreich is either deliberately misleading her audience or is woefully misinformed about the nature of govt work....which is NOT the same as being out on your own as a waitress, or a steel worker, or even a govt contractor...........
TSA has a UNION. That Union is supposed to financially support its membership in times like these. The TSA, of all govt workers, ALREADY has their 2019 payroll approved as part of MANDATORY spending bill passed in Sept 2018.
The reason for work stoppage is NOT Trump....it is the SENATE.....using a standard political stunt off stalling a House Approved budget in order to squeeze in more Senator approved Boondoggle projects.....identical to that drop in the bucket appropriation for a Wall.
Ms. Ehrenreich....I've just lost all respect for you. SHAME>
1
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for the federal workers who can't get enough of Traitor Trump while vacuously blaming "the politicians."
They'll get my support when they start calling out their boss for what he is.
1
How hard would it be to replace & train 50,000 TSA employees over night? Hmmmm?
1
I wouldn't be surprised if in ten years or sooner, a majority of current Trump supporters will come to their senses and become pro-union again, finally realizing that Trump the fake oligarch. and the GOP's owners the real oligarchs, have been playing them for chumps all along since the Reagan era.
4
I have mixed feelings about strikes. I experienced several under NYS Taylor Law- fined two days pay for each day out for starters.The stress is gut wrenching and the outcome is unsure. Strikes are a last resort. It is easy for those of us on the outside to say STRIKE.
But these employees are faced with even greater risks from striking against an inconsistent, word breaking, narcissistic, liar. Like the weather he'll change his position by the next day at the latest. A president surrounded by felons, three card Monte dealers, weak-kneed Republicans, and even worse Manchurian President in Trump!
I know far-fetched but the translation fiasco, Trump Tower meeting and his response,platform change on Russia, and his other Putin meetings where even his intimate advisers don't know what was said.Will this president be amendable to doing a deal with workers when extending the shutdown may dilute the scrutiny and pressure of the Russian investigation?
Can you make this stuff up? Do you dare strike against a president surrounded by chaos where a rational outcome can be expected? Glad I don't have to decide to strike or not strike.
2
Yes, let's turn the United States into France. Whenever public servants don't get their way, they should punish the public they have chosen to serve, because "serve" is just an outdated, old-fashioned concept. Nobody really takes it seriously, do they? Besides, Trump!
3
I think this is a very good idea. The airline companies (who will be losing millions a day) will howl bloody murder. Their howls will be joined by every other company in the US dependent on air travel. The Republicans will respond to the howls of the CEOs and other rich people and pass a spending bill and quick.
And if Trump tries to fire the employees, the courts will throw them back in his face. After all, the judges are not being paid either and are probably not in a good mood.
3
The strikers should also demand that Congress reduce the power of a President. Who knew a President could do this? Should a President be able to do this? What about checks and balances on the branches of government for the good of the people? It's time to look at the office of President. This is one man (or some day a woman) and there is too much power and way too high expectations for one person. The federal government should be seen for what it is - many people running critical functions of this country.
4
The strike should be called by all federal employee unions and every single federal employee in the US government who is on furlough (and is working or not working due to the furlough) should walk out and not work at all. This would get the attention of Americans who are not paying attention or suddenly realise what these federal employees do. The American public would only be able to take a total walkout for about three days and then the pressure on the Senate would be so much that they would be forced to join with the House to put forth bills to pay the furloughed workers and vote to override any Trump veto on those bills. The Senate and the House have the power to do this. They need the American people to stop Dictator Trump's abuse of federal employees NOW or he will use this again. He does not care about anyone but himself.
3
As a teacher who participated in the Seattle teachers' strike of 2015, I say, "Get organized, prepare your messaging, and strike." That might well be the quickest way to end the shutdown, and I believe the overwhelming majority of the public would support you.
3
If TSA workers bring down the speed of two or three hubs, air travel will be disrupted nationwide. I think even just slowdowns would work.
It's only a matter of time before large numbers of federal workers without paychecks have to take other jobs. Then it gets bad.
4
The plight of 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid is hard. Of these 350,000 will not get any money, even if the government opens again. Many of those are barred from taking other jobs during the shut down.
The plight, though, is much bigger. Many government contractors are not working either. Even if Congress passes a law eventually pay all the furloughed workers, the contractors will not see their money. Many of these people are cleaners, guards, and other people with low paying jobs.
The government executive branch is in a dereliction of duty.
4
I was at LGA this morning. The gentleman in front of my on the TSA Pre-Check line, told the TSA agent "Thank you for your service. I hope this ends soon." To that the agent responded, "I don't think it will. He's got all the money in the world and doesn't care about us." As "he" would say, "sad".
6
Actually, a series of rolling wildcat strikes by all the furloughed federal employees would be more effective, and could be done in the form of a daily mass sick out. The nature of such a strike makes it unpredictable and therefore much more effective. This should go on until the issues of immigration and government closure are de-linked, the government re-opened and its employees given back pay plus hefty damages. The linkage did not occur until after the shutdown began, and occured due to Trump's fear of losing the only issue he has to run on in 2020, and his fear of the fury of the mob he calls his base..
4
Disruption of an essential government service, advocated by the author of this piece, should be treated with the same resolution that President Reagan treated the striking air controllers: the permanent loss of federal government employment.
2
@heyomania
Trump would find it hard to replace 800,000 furloughed employees. It would work if all of them walked together.
Some commenters claim that a TSA strike would endanger public safety.
It would not.
It would sharply limit (perhaps completely) air travel. That is an economic loss, not a matter of safety. But economic loss is the name of the game being played out by Individual 1. Why should the TSA and other government workers shoulder the burden of economic loss. You shut down the government, you shut down air travel.
7
@David A. I wonder how long Individual 1 could survive on $24,000/?
2
If the TSA would go on strike that would give Trump a reason to declare a national emergency.
3
I understand why they're going to work even when they know the government apparatus doesn't care about them or their families- it's called intimidation. I was a long-term employee of the VA who processed disability claims, and survived a couple of these shutdowns. As soon as it happened, the office manager, both verbally and in writing, made it clear that although you weren't getting paid, if you failed to report for work you'd face immediate disciplinary action (termination). So the TSA folks really don't have a choice, especially when you consider that most TSA positions are minimally skilled.
I made it through the shutdowns, but the VA's requirement to perform mandatory overtime for three straight years made me very wary of how the government manipulates its workforce. This past fall, when they again announced with one week's notice that mandatory overtime was again reinstated, I left for good. My takeaway: the US Government used to be a peach place to work and retire from. Not anymore. If I were TSA in this situation, I'd walk away and never look back.
6
As I had said before, all federal workers should engage in a solidary strike. This shut down is no way to treat our Federal employees who keep our country running. Their suffering should concern all of us.
3
How about helping TSA unions and others to figure out a way to distribute donations? My NextDoor site has had people asking how to help.
3
Why not charge the airports and airlines for the TSA? They have plenty of money.
1
Im generally sympathetic to workers including the TSA. And I hope they get paid. However, as an organization the TSA is basically useless. It is just security theater not security. Yet another incident where a passenger brings a gun in their carry on not detected but the TSA is out here worried about people with water bottles.
3
A strike is easy for us to encourage, but very very risky for the TSA workers. As it is, they probably expect that they will return to work and get back pay in a few weeks. With a strike, they have a realistic risk of being unemployed martyrs, possible homeless and/or bankrupt.
3
I doubt that the Trump base would notice a TSA worker strike. Not too many of them are likely to be able to afford to fly away for a January vacation.
1
As a first step, how about a rolling strike at selected airports, which would mean that there would be no outgoing passenger traffic. Start with those in states that voted for Trump: Salt Lake City, Birmingham, Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Charlotte, Phoenix, etc.
No outgoing traffic would mean no incoming traffic from any of these places. That would have profound effects on local businesses that cater to travelers: hotels, car rental agencies, etc. We MUST stand with the men and woman who form the first line of defense against air traffic dangers.
How long would local businesses and the traveling public put up with that?
6
Absolutely! It's time the nation shares the pain being inflicted on low-wage federal employees being forced to work with no pay. It's an outrage, and the public needs to feel and share that outrage. Trump may try to fire the T.S.A. workers, but no one is going to apply for a job with no pay. We need to follow the French example of the yellow vests to push back against a ruthless autocrat and his Republican enablers in Congress. Only when the nation understands the cruel folly of Trump's shutdown where he's demanding a $5.7 billion ransom for his wall before paying them will this shutdown end. It's time for the oppressed workers held hostage to strike! It's in their interest and the nation's as well.
7
If TSA walked out and, effectively, shut down air travel in the USA and in many international locations this crisis would rapidly end. Right now most people are entirely unaffected by the government shutdown, but with TSA out this would end.
4
I am right now in India on business travel, and when I went through security at Newark was so impressed how the hardship of the shut down didn't stop the TSA workers from being professional. They don't deserve this. If they can bring air travel in this country to a screeching halt, then we'll see just how much of a taste Trump and Congress has for this shutdown.
8
If they strike, there's not really anyone to replace them with. Because the government is shut down. Good luck bringing tens of thousands of replacement UNPAID workers on board.
The TSA works should quit though instead of risking getting fired. Quit and walk off the job instead of getting fired for walking off the job. This way, they should be still eligible for unemployment benefits. I'd be shocked if there was anywhere in the country where "employer stopped paying me" is not good cause to quit, making on eligible for benefits.
4
Great points. There is no feasible way to replace so many TSA personnel in a fast and cost effective manner. So if they take a short strike en masse, the risk of being fired is minimal.
2
Federal employees don't have strike 'rights'.
I paid dues 35 years to postal workers union. Excessive sick leave use is traceable and requires medical documentation after a couple days. Violations are dealt with in a corrective rather than punitive way, of course. Ask Ronny Fn Reagans air traffic controllers.
Without proper security, etal; air travel is unsafe and should be avoided. Take some form of ground transportation. Make corporations part of the mix.
Is this just another of the great benefits of a government job?
Or, is this a GOP strategy to downsize government?
4
In business school, we discussed a case where a large group of workers in another country got a raw deal. A classmate went on a rant that ended with saying the workers need to strike and bring down the organization. The professor asked if that was a good idea, given the government had the power and were willing to use it. He replied that history is full of instances where peasants rose up against oppression. The professor replied what history is full of is dead peasants.
The author asks the TSA to fill the peasant roles. Vaya con Dios on that idea.
3
Striking is not, as some suggest, a question of moral high ground. This is a question of the workers of this county exercising the massive power they have if they come together. This is not about TSA workers, and furloughed governors gaining our sympathy. Workers don't need our sympathy, they have power and they need to use it. I'll see you on the line.
3
The difficulties of these federal employees are encountering are of much concern to this administration as the individual plight of illegals working at Trump properties. To be completely fair, his opponents say all the right things, but I don't see them volunteering to divert their salaries to people getting not getting paid.While this is going on, I doubt lobbyists are not being seen or anybody on board the washingtopn political gravy train has found that it isn't running on time.
3
Going on strike is a really tough call. This President has put so much of the public at risk because his reality show drama where he is the star.
A good President would have solved this without the chaos and pain. Border wall or no border wall, this could have been done without this huge distress.
6
I just know I would not be showing up to work under these conditions. I myself would have been looking for new work regardless if there was no notice given. Plus I would not want to return to any government job under the condition that I might not get paid if there is a dispute of some sort. Nope. That kind of uncertainty is not to be played with. Trust is not to be played with.
1
I have a great amount of sympathy for TSA and other federal workers but striking would only provide another opportunity for President Trump and diversion by repeating Ronald Reagan's solution of firing striking traffic controllers.
President Trump craves chaos and needs/wants a lengthy fight to keep us from focusing about the faltering economy and upcoming Mueller Report. Instead, I urge persons who want action, pressure your Republican Senators so there will be a veto proof vote to open the government.
Let our elected officials know you will not forget their position and inaction about the shutdown when voting in two years.
2
If Trump fires the TSA agents, who is going to replace them? Not many people are lining up for jobs that don't pay.
3
I agree 100%. I have wondered why we haven't heard more about this. These workers are absolutely are being forced to work without pay, which seems a violation of the 13 amendment to me.
If TSA, or the air traffic controllers were to strike, this whole fiasco would end in 24 hours. The centrality of air travel to the world economy is clear. These workers have enormous power, and they should use it! The public would absolutely support that.
9
I think a general strike at the airport would be feasible. Other workers, from pilots and controllers on down, let it be known that if the striking TSA workers are fired, they will go on strike as well. This will stay Trump's hand. He will not be able to close the airports or expect the military to run them.
5
That may well be part of Trump's plan. He may be waiting for an excuse to fire them all and replace them with private security. The last 3 years have shown that the Democrats have underestimated Trump at every turn.
4
@Rahul
And vice-versa at the very least.
1
Wouldn’t that suggest that TSA workers are more interested in sitting on the sofa drinking beer than in supporting the country at a difficult time? Your suggestion speaks clearly about what is wrong with this country.
5
You do seem confused. Actually, what a strike by TSA employees, many earning near-poverty wages even when they are paid, would "suggest" is simply that they are unwilling to be treated as slaves.
It's hard to understand how that could be hard to understand. ;^(
1
@Confused, are you interested in working for a promise of a paycheck? If so, please submit your resume. I have plenty of things I'd like to do around my house with free labor.
3
@Confused
The TSA have stopped how many terrorists from boarding domestic flights? By my count, zero. Let them strike and be replaced by private airline personnel. A reduction in the federal payroll is never a bad thing.
2
It 's time for ALL federal employees to support their brothers and sisters who have been furloughed or turned into slaves.
ALL federal employees should walk off the job in solidarity with federal employees who are being used as pawns in Trump's desperate attempt to build a useless monument to his vanity.
This year 800,000 federal workers are denied pay. In years past millions of other federal workers were put in a similar situation. Next year Republicans may force another federal shutdown preventing Social Security Administration employees from being paid, CMS (Medicare and Medicaid) employees from being paid, Justice Department employees from being paid.
Federal employees need to work and act together to stop this Republican government game of playing with their salaries and lives.
Walk out together. Show Republicans they cannot play games with the incomes, families, lives of any federal employees.
If you walk out together the nation will stop in its tracks. The nation cannot survive a full federal government strike. Legality will not matter because the federal workforce cannot be replaced by supervisors or scabs. Who can replace the skilled workers? If any workers are threatened, all workers will stay out. That is the power of unions.
Even Trump's opiod addicted followers will demand Trump put the government back to work so they can get their Medicaid, Food Stamps and Welfare checks. Republicans will have to join Democrats to pass a budget that Trump cannot veto.
13
if enough tsa, I'd say even 1/2 went on strike, it would have a severe impact on the functioning of all US business.. and of course families who have booked vacation travel that is not refundable will be faced with hours of wait time or giving up the money paid.
if airlines, hotels and even cruises permitted the payments to be used later, without penalty, I'd expect their stock to quickly plummet.
so...i feel that the strategy in this column is perhaps the best way to rally public pressure to end this ego motivated presidential action.
7
I think this is a really bad idea. It is unlawful for Federal employees to strike. Public support, even if it were overwhelming, which it probably wouldn't be (there are still plenty of people that don't care at all about the effect the shutdown is having on government employees. Why would they support a strike?), that wouldn't make it any more legal. I realize the fact they're not getting paid may give someone a hook to argue the legality, but I think Congress has already passed a law indicating they'll get paid eventually. So, the pay at this point is delayed, not non-existent. I realize that doesn't help them in the short-term, and I am sympathetic, but I can't see them risking getting fired. Didn't do anything for the PATCO workers.
6
@Brandi
Striking is short-term emotion over long-term reason. And there's no guarantee that the average American -- especially a frequent air traveler who has no choice but to go through the TSA's demeaning and ineffectual security theater -- would support it. The Democrats hold the high ground by objecting to Trump's wall on moral grounds. Listening to the leftist rabble's reactionary labor advice is a surefire way to blow it.
Public employees have no ethical right to strike, because their salaries are paid by taxpayers who have no choice in the matter. If public workers have a right to strike, then taxpayers themselves have a right to strike -- by not paying their taxes. Two can play at that game.
2
Here’s a thought: if the TSA workers strike, the airline unions, representing pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, etc., might very well follow suit. Nothing like a total collapse of our air transportation system to grab the attention of the GOP and their miserable constituents. The longer the shutdown lasts, the more possible this becomes.
21
@ProSkeptic
I think you're on to something here, and a total collapse of the air transportation system would be something that Democratic leadership would embrace and celebrate as furthering their aims. We can only hope.
1
@ProSkeptic I love it.
I am all for labor actions, but at this moment in our nation's history you can be sure no national movement will come from a TSA strike.
What would be much more effective would be a work stoppage, maybe even a daily one, that is scheduled and announced. It could be very brief, even only 15 minutes long for a few days.
Call it a national coffee break.
Then in a few days, extend the stoppage to 30 minutes.
And so on.
American airport travellers, with warning, will stand by patiently for 15 minutes. And even for 30 minutes. Once it gets longer and becomes an hour-long "National lunch break", the Republican Senate will bend--they are the main reason nothing has changed and there is no solution in sight.
Take a coffee break tomorrow TSA workers, set a time and announce it. Then just stop work at that time, and don't let anyone go through security and stay at your posts.
Labor actions can be more effective and creative than strikes alone--which in this case would be a very bad idea.
6
GO TSA!! You guys are very few gov employees with the power to make this shutdown hurt. Call in sick! No pay no play.
8
TSA can end this shutdown with a mass sickout.
6
Great idea
1
It's time for the American people to rise up and strike, just like the French. We're mad as hell and not going to take it any more!
12
Great article. No pay means no work.
6
At some point, maybe rather than striking, the TSA workers will need to get a job that pays. If they are not unionized, there will be no strike pay and in many states, no unemployment payments or other bennies, I'm guessing. Trump always figures someone will bail him out of his boneheaded, destructive, nonsensical decisions. I think he pushed it one time too many. I don't see anyone running to bail him out. One would think if the GOP ever saw the light, Mitch McConnell would have so much pressure put upon him, that the House and Senate would be able to over-ride his veto in voting for full funding.
2
I have to agree.
Beleaguered TSA workers: Given your strategic position in the economy, you have an enormous amount of clout. You are not being paid, and this is a fundamental violation of the spirit of the contract. Even though it is technically illegal, you are within your rights to strike, and doing so might bring an end to the whole nonsense of this shutdown, in addition to striking a blow for labor more generally.
1
Typical Trump getting people to work for him then get shafted when they want to get paid; there are hundreds of contractors and subcontractors who can attest. Trump's MO is an NDA by for subs so when you needed to sue to get paid, you were virtually silenced. Bully tactics for a draft dodger and deadbeat.
7
Totally agree! Slavery is illegal. Never have I seen more justification for a strike. I bet the Dems and Republicans would get to the table pretty quick once airline travel came to a standstill. That's what unions are for!
2
A strike will only give the irrational and hopelessly compromised President Donald Trump yet one one opportunity to claim he's the victim as he struggles to protect the border.
A far better approach--a TSA worker sick-out-- is suggested by Georgetown Prof. Joseph McCartin. https://prospect.org/authors/joseph-mccartin
McCartin wrote the definitive book on the PATCO disaster. The last thing we need is a strike.
We're all sick of this shut-down, but, unlike TSA workers, we aren't compelled to work for free to protect the Nation. They have the right to call-in sick and, after the longest federal shut-down in history, all Americans are sick of Trump's conduct.
4
Let’s all get yellow jackets and go on a strike - a day, a week, whatever I takes - until the fat cats who hide behind Trump shout Uncle! Don’t just ask TSA or other federal workers to stand up and risk their jobs. We need leaders who can help us all organize.
3
Ehrenreich is right. We—as in all of us in this country who elected these despicable out-of-touch old people like Trump and McConnell—have broken our contract with government workers. Regan started more than the distrust of unions. He also started the narrative that government can’t do anything right, and dedicated people in government jobs have been maligned by Republicans ever since. It’s time the public experiences the loss of what its taxes really do buy: clean water, poison-free food, open national parks, and airline safety top name a few things. TSA and all government employees have worked proudly for the good of the public for mediocre pay. They owe the public nothing at this point. Strike, and strike with pride for what you have done for taxpayers despite them electing these dolts.
7
Chasing the ambulance, are we? A strike it would simply serve to complicate business transactions, upend the economy, displace thousands of government workers who will be shuffled around to help out, separate families who need each other, and perhaps cause lasting career repercussions for the TSA agents. And where will you be while it's all going down? Perhaps watching it play out on TV with your family? This really is a selfish article. And calling the TSA workers' actions passive-aggressive to boot! Perhaps they're taking a day off to look for work, which is a much more humane thing to do than go on strike when so many people need them. Ugh. Dumb idea.
3
Amazing that Trump's ultimate downfall may be the government shutdown and not impeachment. For a great deal maker he sure makes an outstanding crook. The ongoing insanity does not let the Democrats off the hook in my opinion. They are a weak ineffectual bunch led by the over the hill gang. Tell Trump he approves government funding or faces immediate impeachment hearings. Think that would get his attention? Time to play hard ball. But the Democrats like to take the high road instead. You can see where that gets ya.'
2
I think it is time for a general strike. TSA workers will be fired if they do this by themselves.
They are mostly poor and powerless.
For those Americans who consider this lockout of government workers over a power struggle over nonsense by the WH and Senate is a shame and a blot on your country -
Strike with them.
Pick a date - say Jan 21, and everybody except those who care for other people - stay home.
The nation would grind to a halt. Nobody would be punished because there would be too many of you. Almost everyone can afford to lose one day's pay.
If you really disapprove of what is happening and you really do care about your fellow Americans, this is not too much to ask.
2
The 13th Amendment! Forcing Work without compensation is slavery. Strike! I will stand on the picket line with TSA workers when I am not working!
2
As a retired Fed, national park ranger, who had to face this nonsense several times I'd suggest every single federal employee walk out and stay out until our astonishingly incompetent government puts a budget in place for every agency for the remainder of the fiscal year. You want eggs for breakfast, Mr. President? Walk down to the store and get some. Want to fly, people? Flap your arms. Want to visit a national park? Go to Canada.
It would never happen again.
8
And if that that doesn't work perhaps a more general strike would.
3
I defiantly think they should strike-More radical I think air traffic controls need to give a 24 hour notice they won’t be coming to work-This strike is a nightmare and it’s time for the people to do the job Mitch McConnell won’t do-
2
Democrats in the House can announce that they will pass no spending bills that don't include returning everyone to their job, with no repercussions and full back-pay.
I think that will really upset the Russian asset occupying the White House. (He gave this whole idea away himself when he called this a strike.)
1
Reagan firing the air traffic controllers is a good point. GOP looks at workers as a business EXPENSE; nothing more. Need to trim expenses and fatten the bottom line? labor costs are the first thing they look at reducing. Strike? Trump would fire them all and not bat an eye. Ray Sipe
4
Good points. If these workers are not getting paid, the agreement has been broken
1
If you aren’t allowed to strike, and your job is important, then you should be exempt from any shutdown and be paid on time.
In my opinion, these people are more important than any politicians, who are still being paid.
2
Agreed. And the pilots, flight attendants, and Air Traffic controllers should join them. This political stalemate would be over in the blink of an eye. I noticed another commenter saying, "easy to say when your job isn't on the line." As if it's that easy to find new TSA employees. I'm assuming the background checks for employment must be quite intensive and time consuming. Strike.
1
In no way do I support a president who is using 800,000 federal workers as pawns in his sick game. Nor do I support the authors' call to use TSA workers as pawns to make a statement against him.
As you say, a TSA strike is illegal. How then would a strike solve the economic calculations that each individual worker is already making? You are asking each of them to risk permanently losing their jobs and careers in order to break the law, with no clear benefit. This is lose-lose.
3
The workers should heed the example of the French, who appear to be a lot better at standing up to protest anti-worker government policies than Americans are. Why are Americans so acquiescent to being abused?
1
It is also time for both parties to reject their sweet salary in support of Federal Workers
3
Some Democrats already have!! How many Republicans have done so?!
1
I suggest that all air traffic controllers and TSA workers call in sick for say two days. They can get doctor’s notes to “prove” they were ill. I think most doctors would be happy to help. Anyway, that would get Congress’ attention. Especially if it started on a Friday. Joking aside, they must strike. I think the Constitution is on their side.
2
I flew to London yesterday and personally thanked each TSA employee along my route through security for coming to work. Then I told them that they should all go on strike: every TSA agent in the country. I hope they do, and I’m supposed to fly home this weekend. My trip would be disrupted, but I am more than willing to support such a unified statement about this capricious and petulant Tweet Boy.
6
It's easy to call for striking when you're not the one being asked to risk loss of your job, because with this President that's exactly what will happen - mass firings. And perhaps the courts will eventually rule for the workers, but maybe not. In any case it will take years before that happens.
What might have a better chance of working would be a "Yellow Vest" general strike of all workers, or an "American Spring" - they can't fire everyone. I do agree that whatever remedy is tried it will have to come from a grass roots level, as most successful movements happen. The working and middle class have been waiting decades for our "leaders" to work for them instead of against them, so it's time now for the 99% to assert its majority will and force the pendulum to swing back in their favor.
7
If airlines and their pilots refused to work because overworked and distracted air traffic controllers were making flying too risky, the government shutdown would not last very long. Pressure would build for Trump and Congress to find a different way to settle their argument over the wall.
What they should do is evaluate the need for more border security and whether a wall would be more useful than other sorts of spending. This is a technical, complex question for experts with experience of what actions will produce what results and with what side effects. Trump on principle does not work this way. Congress can but often doesnt. The country should force both to do so (which means that Trump will have to be sidelined)
2
As a retired federal employee, I support this idea 100%. If the TSA employees struck for even a couple of days, it would bring US air travel to a screeching halt! Then maybe, the pols will wake up and get the government back to work,
2
They're not being paid, thus their employer has broken the implicit contract, so yes they would be justified in striking. Approximately one day of tens of thousands of business people who earn as much in a month or a week as a TSA employee does in a year being grounded would bring too much pressure on Trump (and McConnell!) to persist in this nonsense. (BTW, I'm a well-paid professional who travels.)
5
So many tough NYTimes commenters here. So quick to tell someone else to go on strike, knowing it's illegal and knowing this President would love to be like Reagan and fire them all. And unlike Air Traffic Controllers, most TSA jobs are not as specialized.
This Union Member says no. These workers took a job that they knew did not allow them to strike and they decided to take it. This is not the first Government shutdown. They were given notice of this possibility months ago. And if they disagree with policy, they should have quit.
But to strike and possibly put the safety of the flying public at risk is shortsighted and unconscionable.
(Moreover, if they think the public has a low opinion of them now, see what a strike does.)
4
But, would the average voter blame the TSA agents for the shutdown during a strike or Trump?
Airlines could be damaged and their CEO's might pressure the GOP to end the shutdown, but the American electorate is so uneducated that it might well begin to blame the TSA agents based on the guaranteed misinformation campaign that would come out of Faux News. Then, the GOP might actually look good after this dumpster fire.
2
The president, his administration and republicans should not be paid either. They are absolutely unnecessary "workers."
6
I am ENORMOUSLY sympathetic to the TSA agents (I fly about 40,000 miles per year for work). My only hesitation in saying they should flat-out strike is whether they give up the sympathy/bargaining leverage.
On top of it, commuting to work costs money, not to mention child care. If you're only making 43K per year max, how long can you upfront these expenses?
My husband and I are both white-collar making six figures. I could not imagine what our reactions would be if we were told that we'll be paid at some indeterminate time and that we should tough it out until our government leadership gets the wall figured out.
4
I continue to be confused how it is 'illegal' to strike. Essentially isn't this trying to make collective bargaining power illegal? And thus, in a nation with astoundingly unequal power and wealth among individuals, making it illegal for an individual to stand up for himself at all? I understand that some jobs if left abruptly would cause catastrophe. But I doubt most would leave midway through a shift plane in the air to strike; I doubt you could get enough people to truly follow into a strike in such a situation. What you are talking about instead is shutting it down and leaving- telling airlines what time it will start so no planes are in the air. Having no planes flying forces attention to issues which otherwise no one in power would care about. It also helps reveal the lie that many are telling about how 'government' really doesn't affect them and they can do just fine without it.
1
It's very well for the government to promise to pay workers on the never-never and in the meantime expect them to work for free. Most individuals are in no position to handle such a cash-flow deficit. Maybe instead of promising to pay furloughed workers -- or workers working without pay -- the government could pay them in Treasury bills, which are merely promises to pay. Then the workers could sell those bills and get some money to take care of those other bills -- rent, mortgage, car payments, utilities. The government would still stay shut down while the politicians worked it out.
Take a page from a countries with lots of strike experience. The Rolling Strike - just disruptive enough, attention grabbing, leaves management powerless.
Monday, shut down Reagan National, Tuesday, hit Mitch McConnell’s home town airport, Wednesday, Lindsey Graham’s, Thursday, back at Reagan. If Trump plans a trip to Mar a Lago, shutter West Palm Beach.
Every union in America would back this effort.
31
In an article recently published on Josh Marshall's TPM website an unknown "senior Trump official" says they don't want most federal employees to return to their jobs.
This would be Grover Norquist's dream come true. His infamous statement in 2004: "I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
What would be left of American society should Trump accomplish what has been a Republican policy goal for decades?
3
The workers have every right to be angry, but striking is not and never should be a legal or other option when you sign up to be a public employee. The vast majority of the people didn't cause this fiasco either, a strike simply spreads the misery around and breaks a hallowed bond public employees undertake when they promise to serve the people, regardless of whether they are cops, firefighters, teachers, agricultural inspectors, air traffic controllers or TSA agents.
Does it even count as a strike when people aren’t getting paid? The fault lies in the employer here, not the workers. You can’t compel people to work without pay.
7
@Andrea P
There's a word for that - it's called "slavery".
2
No one should be forced to work without pay. If that isn't the acceptable baseline for launching a strike, what is?
8
A 24 hour total disruption in air travel would send a message to all Americans and elected officials. Unless all Americans are personally impacted by the shutdown, nothing will be done. Think about it: delayed flights, unloaded cargo at our airports (including our food, necessary supplies, etc.). The loss in income to corporate America would send a message. End the shutdown.
9
I am just happy Mitch McConnell is getting paid! We need him hiding and doing nothing for a ton of money!!
11
What, in G_d's name, are unions for if not to act for their members NOW!
15
Trump is now threatening the safety of millions of Americans that fly through our airports everyday. If there is a terrorist attack on a plane, the blood will be on both Trumps the the pathetic Republicans in Congress.
When will these fools in Congress and the Senate pass a 2/3 majority’s veto proof budget and get our country working again.
This is all over Trumps warped concept of “security” ?. The homeland security department is shut down, TSA officers walking off the job and boarder officers working without pay. While millions of dollars already approved for security up grades set unspent by this incompetent, shameful whitehouse.
If you didn’t think this corrupt Trump is working with Russian to undermine our country, you should have no doubts now.
3
"Trump is now threatening the safety of millions of Americans that fly through our airports everyday. "
And so is Congress by not providing about 0.1% of the budget for a barrier. Ironically you are calling for not improving border security to prevent a possible drop in airport security.
A barrier will not solve the whole problem. It does not work for airplanes or for entries already occurring through ports or Visa overstays. However barrier do send a message that you are going in a prohibited area, make it impossible for ground vehicles to pass, and impede pedestrian crossings. Given hours you may be dig under eventually, or cut through it with lots of noise, or carry a 30 ft ladder and somehow lower yourself to the other side. However, when combined with sensor's you have a good chance of taking long enough to get caught.
1
This is an astonishingly bad idea. A general strike would hand President Trump his talking point - that this situation is just like when President Reagan stood firm ... and won. The President would say "You're Fired" with great glee and promptly call in the military to do the job and protect safety. The "bad guy" would no longer be the President but, instead, the union who prevented hundreds of thousands of people from going on vacation and getting to work. Your "take a stand" proposal is EXACTLY the scrap the President is looking for.
5
Agreed! It's insane that the government can deem certain jobs so important that employees must work without pay. If the jobs are that important, their pay should not be subject to budget approval, but should be guaranteed. The current situation is unconscionable.
5
I'm not sure a strike by certain affected workers is the way to go, but I am sure that this partial shutdown is affecting a lot more people indirectly than just the ones directly affected. From the barbershop that is losing business because federal employees aren't getting haircuts, to the restaurants and cafes losing customers, from the gas stations not selling fuel to commuters to the tourist businesses catering to visitors to our national parks, there are lots of small businesses affected. They all need to start contacting their representatives and letting them know how much the shutdown is really costing. The federal employees at least will eventually get paid. But for many of those small businesses, the lost business will not be made up later. Perhaps they could leverage social media and tell their stories (like #metoo) so that everyone can see that millions more people are indirectly affected as well as the ones currently not being paid.
3
How long would this shutdown last if all workers especially those who work for The White House and Congress, went on strike,even for a day. I think there would be a lot of sympathy across the country for a general strike. Let The Donald feel the weight of all those votes he didn’t get with a general strike.
2
Boom. In one go, bye bye shutdown.
Shut down air travel for a couple days and even the Russian oner GOP would have to capitulate. They wouldn't want to miss a round of golf over the weekend at Mar-A-Lago
1
Yes! Strike! You guys have the 13th Amendment on your side! Public support & a shot at the resurrection of Reagan’s ghost of PATCO!
Beyond brilliant...
Take an industry that generates $5B per week in direct revenues – and likely 5X that much in tourism and several other adjacent industries – and grind it to a halt...
Especially one with a completely perishable product as a passenger-seat at a specific time...
And by an entity that has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual productive operation of the industry itself...
It just shows how little regard or awareness progressives have for the fragility and indebtedness and lagging competitiveness of the US economy...
Should people work for free – absolutely not...
Almost as bad as not working – but getting stuff for free...
PS
You all do realize that the general aviation sector (aka rich people's private jets) would barely even notice such a strike...
And to all the folks that can afford to fly next week - but can also afford not to - your progressive equanimity is duly noted...
PPS
There is one upside that might be had from this idiot brinksmanship – perhaps one of the major parties won’t nominate an idiot as their candidate in 2020...
If both do – I’ll tend to go with the idiot I know, vs the one I don’t...
1
At long last.
GENERAL STRIKE!
2
YES as I've been saying to friends for weeks this is not rocket science. ALL 800K employees being treated as of no value to the oval office narcissist should simply not show up for work including the FAA. trump the stupid wont be able to escape to Scotland or FL to golf and he'll have to boil his own eggs since White kitchen staff will stay home too!
2
I’m not really sure if TSA workers realise the power they hold right now. The public I believe would overwhelming support them striking for being forced to work without pay. I’m an aviation employee myself and would support them even though it might have an adverse effect on my own income.
2
I don't know enough about unions to make a call one way or the other. I am a little disappointed to learn TSA employees only make $11-$20 an hour though. Do you know what airport employees have to put up with?!? I don't see how $11 an hour is even remotely adequate for their line of work. Amtrak pays at least $18 starting. That's just for ripping tickets. $11 an hour? Sheesh. I'm surprised the airports operated before the shutdown.
4
I couldn't agree more with Ehrenreich's call to strike. People should not be forced to work without a paycheck. I can't imagine that most Americans wouldn't support them.
1
Bad idea. The authors are asking TSA workers to sacrifice themselves for a legal theory.
4
If the shutdown goes on for years like Trump says it might, does he really expect the workers to continue to work without pay? I hope the Secret Service and the people who cook and clean for Trump quit their jobs. The men and women emptying Trump's garbage cans, cleaning his toilets, and protecting his life aren't getting paid. When it hits Trump at home, he might change his mind about years without pay for federal employees.
2
It is highly irresponsible for you to encourage people to engage in illegal activity
4
Just curious, what would you encourage them to do? I imagine many, if not most, of these folks don't have another source of income. I understand If they walk out, it would be the same as quitting. It's been a month, so what would YOU have them do?
2
What is the legal position when "essential" staff have to do things that arise from not being paid, such as daycare for their children who would otherwise go to paid daycare? Can these staff take leave based on the emergencies that arise from not being paid?
I think that a single day of "blue flu" at Reagan National, Dulles, DFW, IAH and Hartsfield might cause some more of the GOP Senate fence-sitters to convince Majority Leader McConnell to climb out of his shell and move the spending authorizations over to the White House. This is squarely "Trump's Shutdown" and despite his statements, the Buck does stop with him. If they wait until next Monday, perhaps those Government employees who sick out will perform a day of service in the communities where they live, which means they were living into their committment; it's the elected leaders who aren't abiding by their oaths.
6
I think shutting down TSA will shut down airports and force the GOP to fund the government again. It may be the fastest way to restore sanity.
4
Every Federal worker should strike. That should gum up the works for that clown in the WH.
3
The entire situation of the federal shutdown is sick. Those workers affected and members of the public who sympathize with them should strike and deomonstrate opposite the white house and throughout the country. Close all the airports and strike all public transportation. The POTUS says he hasn't left the white house in 3 months ? That's the problem - he must be forced out of the white house ASAP. He is an ego-centric narcissitc maniac who is ruining the USA -he is more dangerous than the people he thinks he can keep out of the country with a southern border wall.
3
Strike now!
What would our dear leader do if he was stiffed as the TSA is now.
Ask yourself the question. Would Trump work without being paid?
In a Pigs Purse he would show up
Strike Now!!
3
How about Superbowl week run up and have Atlanta shutdown on the Monday after?
4
The American worker has surrendered their voice. Unions have been demonized. Solidarity lost. In France people have taken to the streets over an increase in gas prices. The French government would not dare to require workers to work without pay.
We could learn something from the French.
5
Striking does not make sense. Reagan fired air traffic controllers for striking... If I am not mistaken, Government workers in law enforcement jobs are on weak legal ground to strike when deemed essential workers.
1
I fail to see how it can be called a "strike" if you are not being paid.
Perhaps our government needs to re-read the 13th amendment.
5
My family had planned on flying to Arizona in March to visit friends during my daughter’s college break, but I’m not booking it yet. God knows what will be happening at the airports if this doesn’t end soon. Even plan B, a visit to Canada might be getting gummed up at the border crossings - guess we’ll be staying local.
This piece loses much of its effectiveness when the authors place the blame for the shutdown entirely on Trump. It's at all not surprising that Ehrenreich doesn't blame her own party in the least, but over 40% of people in the U.S. do.
$5 billion for the wall is a drop in the federal budget bucket, especially when compared to the lost wages of federal employees. But the Democrats, like Trump, are making a stand and don't care who gets hurt in the process.
@Paul The real blame is the GOP who controlled the House and the Senate for TWO years!!!!!!!! Pelosi hasn't been in charge two weeks? This was a set up by the GOP and Trump.
4
@Paul For the last two years Trump has had both houses of congress to give him the funds for the wall and got nothing. He waited for a the Dems to take the house and then set up his stonewall to embarrass the Dems. He is so transparent and lame it is really a joke.... He never has a thought for the working American; the fact that that so many of them eat from his hand like hungry chickens is a weird paradox, I will tell my grand children about. Haha, too bad it isn't so funny.
3
How about a national three hour work stoppage for all workers -- every business. Only even one hour. Let us all honor the work and vulnerability of the federal worker. For the religious among us, it would be a national prayer to end the insanity of using people as political weapons.
5
How can anyone call a refusal to work without pay a strike under the law?
9
The Union should have called a national wildcat strike the day Walker signed legislation practically outlawing government Unions in Wisconsin.
Too little, too late. The labor movement in the country is, for all intents and purposes, a lost cause. And any suggestion to try and revive it, is pretty much D.O.A.
For the record, there is one, and only one, group to thank for this - and it's the modern GOP.
4
The legislation did not outlaw unions. It did say that workers could freely join or not join unions and only the joiners would provide any funds to the unions. It is something called free association.
I don’t know about free association. What I do know is that the people’s wages were based on a collective bargaining agreement that the union had with the state.
They wanted to be paid at union wages but not support the union.
Since then I’ve read stories of workers within a year or so of retirement and being let go, with no one to speak for them because the union is no more.
The state isn’t bound by any agreement any longer.
1
As a member of the AFL associated engineers union at Boeing before I retired, I call it scabbing. We won our 40 day strike n 2000, and our voluntary union be came an agency shop. You didn’t have to join the union but you had to pay union dues. Only fair since the union was the negotiating agent for all engineers. Boring didn’t deliver a single airplane during the strike.
3
I'm surprised that no one is mentioning the conspicuous hypocrisy of not paying the FAA and TSA (i.e. airport SECURITY) in order to fund "border SECURITY." The twin towers were not destroyed by a bus full of refugees crossing from Mexico. They were destroyed by airplanes! If Trump and the Republicans are demanding more security, then why are they undermining it? Why isn't a single Republican coming forward to at least pay for airport staff? It's like claiming to be strong on fire safety and saying if we don't fund a giant smoke detector in Yosemite, we're not going to fund fire departments and force fire fighters to work without pay. How is this even slightly credible?
21
Striking might be illegal, quitting isn't. Unemployment is under 5%, these people are vetted with security clearance and they will work for $700/wk. They hold the entire airline business model in their hands. Best hope they don't realize that; if they don't show up to work, no one flies.
4
They are NOT unionized--how can they "strike?"
They can quit; call in sick; attempt to organize in the meantime
2
The authors make a compelling argument. Strike now!
1
In the words of the NYC labor leader Michael J. Quill, "No contract, no work."
2
American: “Well, I guess we just have to work without pay.”
The French: “Hold my wine.”
3
TSA workers, like all Federal employees are prohibited by law from striking.
(I was a federal employee, civil service RN, for over 20 years).
See: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/shutdown-federal-workers-cant-strike/579793/
2
Perhaps shutting our airports will finally get the attention of McConnell and his feckless colleagues. He and the Republican-controlled Senate, not our infantile president, now bear the major responsibility for putting party before country.
This is a great example of party/ideology over country.
The TSA striking? really, you'd like the country to come to a standstill for your own ideological victory? so shallow and myopic.
The work that TSA is important but they are essentially UNSKILLED workers. $23-43,000/yr for unskilled labor is NOT bad.
1
I think the Secret Service and Capitol Police should strike until the shutdown ends.
(It would end within 3 seconds!)
4
Go for it. And do it in the name of real national security.
1
Finally, someone agrees...
Once the shutdown starts to affect the the business traveler (male and white in most cases), Republicans will cave in.
2
I agree. It is time for labor to take a stand....and for the Senate Republicans to take a stand as well.
1
"to reignite the traditional fighting spirit of American labor."
Progressive minded folks can do a lot more for American labor. They can purchase vehicles and other durable goods (when they can find them) only assembled by unionized labor. Forget spending money on autos (Hondas, BMWs, Toyotas) assembled by non-unionized labor in states like Ohio, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.
Will it impact your pocketbook and maybe put you in a product that you feel is not of the highest quality? Sure, but Solidarity Forever! No?
What say the NYT OP-ED writers?
1
Wow. He can say all he wants to when he is interviewed on T.V. that he has empathy with the Federal workers, this includes the other Republicans. Shame on them all. Lip service does not pay the affected employee's of their bills as they face mounting bills. They are the pawns and are held hostage by our manchurian candidate, who sees no end game other to hurts our American people without shame. He said he was going owed the shut down. Now he doesn't know how to get out of it without losing face.
I predict the dominos will be TSA, Air Traffic Controllers, Dept of Agriculture, IRS, in that order. They should strike. I know I wouldn't work for no pay. If they all go on strike, who is going to lock them all up or have the gall to fine them. America should be enrage over the way this President and his hissy fits. If the Democrates give in, what will he do next time. We are talkng about an amoral man. I hope and pray daily how this will be resolved and a soft landing for this country
1
I'm still in shock to learn that TSA agents earn from $23,000 to $43,000 tops. Are you kidding me? And these poorly paid workers are entrusted to be the first line of keeping air travel safe from terrorists and homegrown loonies! Unbelievable. There's something, actually a lot, wrong with the way this country treats employees. I have to fly at the end of February. Hope this is resolved before then. The longer this goes on, the more dangerous flying is, eating our food is, etc.
2
There's one key point missing in this article: the shutdown would be over within a day if enough TSA employees call in sick and ground the nation's plane fleet.
More than any other group of federal employees, the TSA has the power to make an immediate impact on daily life and force a resolution to the shutdown crisis. With other agencies, we'll have to wait and see, e.g. how large an e. coli outbreak would be necessary for people to start appreciating the FDA?
1
If they strike, they get fired and lose all back pay. They probably get blacklisted from all future federal employment for life via termination for cause. If they were contractors, as originally proposed after 9/11, they would have different status. The labor unions wanted TSA to be civil service. Well, they got it.
2
TSA employees --or anyone-- should not be forced to work without pay, even with the promise of pay in the future. That is wrong. And it is the fault of Mr. Trump and his acolytes in the House and Senate.
I have no problem with TSA employees going on strike or just not showing up. The shutdown would be over in 3 days. Here's why: While some military people might fill some TSA shoes, the CEOs of every Fortune 1000 company in America would be calling their representative and the president demanding that the TSA be allowed back to work. I say, bring it on!
Meanwhile, I shudder at the thought of a food or medicine safety crisis with the FDA pros also sidelined. And we are one bad storm away from a ship and its crew not being saved by the Coast Guard.
This is what happens when a man who has never worked a day in his life, never flown commercial, never eaten anything but perfect food, or ever been in personal danger occupies the Oval Office.
6
Forcing people to work without pay is a long-standing American tradition.
And still would be, if half the country had gotten its way.
13
I think it's time for ALL of the government workers who are being forced to work without pay to walk out. Then we would find out what a REAL government shut-down is instead of one that only inconveniences a few of us. This is the time of year that we all love to complain about paying our income taxes. Maybe it's time we find out the hard way how much of our lives are made safer and more productive by the many people supported by our income taxes.
6
I have little doubt that that this possibility was covered when the TSA hired theses folks. They, like air traffic controllers, know their jobs are essential and took the job anyway.
1
@James
Yes, blame these workers for Donald Trump's bankruptcy.
All federal workers took an oath to go bankrupt for their country and their Chapter-7-In-Chief.
Pathetic.
11
@Socrates
I'm not blaming anyone. Btw, I'm a Fed employee. My agency has funding this shutdown but didn't in previous ones. I had to go to work bc I was "essential." I was frustrated bc the folks that didn't work during the shut down still got paid.
One of the readers has suggested a one-day strike. I think that's a great idea; maybe the entire federal government should call in sick for a day.
The longer this goes on, the more likely there will be strikes. I think many Americans are siding with the furloughed workers and want an end to this. Unless Mitch McConnell and the republican senators are put under enough pressure, this will not end for quite a while. And it's only the beginning. President Trump will be emboldened to govern by fiat, bypassing Congress.
After PATCO, it will take a lot of courage for the TSA workers to go out. It would also give organized labor a big boost. All call in sick for a day, then get the strike signs ready.
1
Maybe we don’t need the TSA as much as we think we do. If they strike, and others are brought in to take their place, we may learn they are not as critical as they would have us believe. The air traffic controllers tried this with Pres. Reagan. Pres Trump could order in the military or civilian workforce and then where would all the TSA folks be if everything kept rolling along reasonably smoothly.
Maybe it’s time to start profiling. I suggest we start with everyone over 75 not being screened so carefully. And TSA Pre or Global Entry members should just be allowed to pass thru with no screening. And please stop the searches of kids or elderly in wheel chairs. That is just a farce and make-work for the TSA employees.
1
@Mark Haimann
Oh Lordy, the military most certainly does not have enough air traffic controllers to man all the towers across this land of ours.
And you can hardly get them from the street.
2
We should be thankful that we can still see and comment in the New York Times. Its likely that the 31 national emergencies still in force and entitles the President to interfere with internet media. Trump merely has to excercise some of the old emergencies in force legally. This may not last
2
@Michael Cohen
I agree with you but not because it is Trump exercising the enormous unilateral authoritarian powers. It is wrong and dangerous that ANY president has such authoritarian powers. So, yes, Trump must be stopped. But the best way to stop him is to remove or highly restrict all such powers from Trump and all future presidents.
@Errol I couldn't agree more. It seems in the past the applications of these gross emergency powers were limited. A simple Presidential renewal keeps them in force. This is a terrific scandal. If in fact by law U.S. democracy is so weak it is not a democracy.
If TSA strikes it will be illegal. Every single TSA agent, men, women, mothers, fathers, should be arrested and placed in Federal prison until they agree to go back to work - pay or no pay.
There are plenty of folks who aren't getting paid, or who aren't making enough to pay off their credit cards, their home loans, their student loans, and still enjoy a prosperous lifestyle - something guaranteed to us by the Constitution.
TSA - get your / keep your OWN house in order and do not strike!
PS: Everything above is garbage. I believe a TSA strike is warranted and to heck with whatever legality the White House wants to fuss about. Shut down the United States air system and even Mitch McConnell will be forced back to the table. Trump? I don't know . . . he's a pretty odd duck.
1
I would have a hard time working if I was not getting a paycheck.
Strike.
8
We should all go on strike.
Low income people are taking it in the chops.
Can you imagine being a helpless senior citizen and facing eviction?
1
So, progressives think the government half shutdown is wrong, wrong, wrong. But those same people think it is right for government employees to violate the law by striking which will.....shut down the government function they perform.
That is some fancy, illogical thinking. But then, logic is never something that progressives allow to get in the way of their agenda of government control of everything and government operation of most things.
1
@Errol
FOX News is calling....you seem to have stepped away from your hourly programming.
9
They should go on strike TOMORROW. Every single government worker who is not being paid should stay at home and not report to work tomorrow...or the day after...or the day after that. Pull a 100% strike until Trump ends his dangerous government shutdown. Enough is enough, America.
5
Absolutely agree!
3
About time someone with a voice said it!
3
Perhaps a surgical strike is in order. As in a TSA walk-out from Reagan National, Dulles and any other airport likely to be used by Congress when they wish to return to their districts for the weekend.
6
It would be relatively easy to move the military into Reagan or Dulles and take over the empty spots. The people at Andrews already do the same thing in the same geographic area. The striking workers would lose their jobs and likely never ever get Federal employment. Not a good idea.
This is a perfect time to re-evaluate and significantly reduce the TSA security theater farce. The nitwit measures put in place starting after 9-11-2001, such as removing shoes, prohibiting liquids above 3 ounces, removing laptops from bags, intense scrutiny of elderly women, etc., are wholly unnecessary and don’t contribute to security in any meaningful way. That people have come to regard this as both necessary and ‘normal’ is a testimony to how people will come to believe anything if they are subjected to it long enough.
The TSA is a make-work program funded from our taxes ($40,160 mean annual TSA agent pay). Not only would significantly reducing TSA screening directly save tax money, it would save large amounts of time for productive citizens, which is currently wasted standing in these lines. Meanwhile, the truly vital airport personnel, such as air traffic controllers, could get a raise.
1
We should have had a general strike, of the kind France has seen many times, at the start of the Trump administration. Thanks to the bought GOP, Trump has pretty much been able to do everything he wanted legislatively and, were it not for our tremendous courts, would have also had free rein administratively.
The left kept up a facade of a resistance and Trump has been emboldened by the lack of consequences, to the point of using one million pawns to dangle in front of Speaker Pelosi.
Labor is there. Democratic voters are right there. Women are right there. Where is the leadership? Come on, Nancy, Chuck, call for a general strike. Let people march in every city, town and village. Give America the opportunity to show Trump and his cronies that we will not stand for any more of his nonsense. Let the people speak!
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
15
@Rima Regas I don't think Pelosi or Schumer should call for a national strike, but I do wish we'd have the cohesiveness of labor that France has. Yes, sometimes a general strike is called for.
2
@Pontifikate
Normally, the party would do it. I don't see Tom Perez doing anything remotely like that. Do you?
3
@Rima Regas No. But we don't have a real "labor" party here in the US, alas.
This would absolutely gum up the works, like what is happening out in LA right now. Just watched they didn't settle for 6% demanding 6.5% and smaller classrooms, psychologists and nurses for schools which don't have them.
If the TSA workers did this they might get a sympathetic walkout by ATC and pilots. Wow shutdown the air transportation system, Putin would have a cow.
7
I say, STRIKE!
I 100% support any/all federal workers out on the picket lines or doing various sit downs.
This is absurd that fellow Americans are unable to pay their bills and are choosing between buy medicine and feeding their kids.
Americans have become too complacent with the horrible status quo we all have come to expect.
We need change, real change and NOW. Better wages / healthcare for ALL / dump that tax break for the rich and make them pay a higher tax rate like they used to before Reagan.
13
Not only is TSA striking illegal, but the Republican organized-labor freakout that erupted when the organization was created was so menacing that it was almost comical. I can still hear the screams: "Heaven help us if TSA is unionized!
It's way past time we cease to subsidize the security of already wealthy airlines who do their best to starve wages of all workers (top executives excluded) wherever they can get away with it. Strike now, strike long and make them squeal.
5
You have my permission to strike.
But, please, could you wait till Thursday to do that. I have a friend flying to London on Wed, with her husband and 10 year old nephew.
You may wonder why I ask for the wait. Well, Trump says he’s waiting - till he declares an emergency...
All I’m asking for is the same ‘rule of law’ he gets...
1
It's time for organized behavior to exert its power. Trump is management exerting it's muscle in the federal sector. Unions have traditionally countered with strikes to restore a power balance. Let's see some action to reign in this shutdown foolishness.
13
Good luck generating sympathy for a T.S.A. strike. The only government agency more loathed by the public is the I.R.S.
2
Usually yes, but I think most Americans will support a strike by TSA agents who are forced to work without pay. That changes everything.
6
I'm sure others have pointed out that in 1981 the government was able to hire 11,000 workers (or however many they needed to) to replace the striking PATCO workers. The difference now - if I have my facts correct - is that the TSA workers are not being paid. Would it be easy to hire replacement workers with no guarantee of a paycheck? I'm not fond of unions generally, but it seems to me that, in spite of the challenges that would be created if the TSA workers did go on strike, this is a time for them to say "no more!"
3
This walkout would not be a strike, but a denial of service due to nonpayment of an agreed upon contract. A strike occurs when a contract is under negotiation and an impasse has occurred after the end of a previously negotiated contract. The 13th amendment bans forced labor. Therefor the workers are protected if they refuse to work after not receiving contractual compensation. They could not be fired for refusing to work for free. This would also have the salutary effect of forcing a compromise quickly as the nation would grind to a quick standstill. They could not be replaced, unlike 1981. Their numbers are too large and there are no immediately ready replacements. They would be sympathetic as everyone can relate to being paid for work. The Air Traffic controllers of the Reagan era were being paid under the prior expired contract. Their strike was for higher pay and improved work conditions but was indeed illegal.
18
This drum beating for a TSA strike is reckless and irresponsible. My guess is a lot of TSA agents take these jobs for the health, dental, vision, life, that these jobs provide for their families.
We don't know how the courts will handle a strike, but we do know that Trump is vindictive and vengeful. If he cared at all about government lower wage employees, he wouldn't allow this shutdown to continue.
In response to a strike, Trump will likely move to fire the TSA workers, shift responsibility to the military, and then try to outsource transportation security (at more cost to taxpayers), something the Republicans would have no problem doing.
I can't speak for TSA workers, and feel very sorry for them. What they are being asked to do is outside the pale. The unions have filed lawsuits challenging the government's decision not to pay these workers. That seems like a good first step.
2
Many in the military do not make much more than TSA workers. Only difference is right now the military is getting paid (except the Coast Guard).
The issue is people who show up for work should get paid and not used as pawns by a rich businessman. Trump has no clue what it is like to actually work for a living and be in a place where you can’t buy food or medicine for your family despite going to work every day.
2
I think Barbara Ehrenreich is being a little unnecessarily ambitious here.
Really, TSA doesn't need to actually "strike" with signs and picket likes....Really, all that needs to happen is periodic sitdowns for half hour, forty-five minutes across various airports.....
That would be more than enough to throw the plane schedules in the garbage....
5
No, no, no. That's asking for angry confrontations at the airport between unpaid agents and the flying public.
1
@Bill Abendrothi. Surely calling in sick would be acceptable. I mean, I feel ill just thinking about these unpaid workers.
I'd think that the federal workers would be able to exert their rights in the current situation. The new deal era Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established that no employee would be forced to work without pay. It was amended in 1961 to include the federal work force.
So, one way to stop this deadlocked situation is for all federal employees currently forced to work to threaten to walk off the job at some point in the next few days demanding to paid for their services as required by long established law. In other countries, social media was very effective in organizing wildcat strikes and demonstrations to bring down national government (Arab Spring for example).
What I'm suggesting that the situation could get very ugly indeed in a hurry if our federal workforce becomes radicalized and restive in response to being used as political hostages.
5
This is a great idea. I don’t see how you can force someone to work for no pay, and not call it slavery.
When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, it was over traditional labor issues (pay, working hours, etc.). But they were getting paid when they went on strike.
How better to force Trump to pay you than by not providing services unless you get paid. He is obviously not interested in the workers’ welfare. The only power the workers have is to strike.
7
I would love to see Trump's pay check put on hold till shutdown is over. Some travel is really essential and crucial; people going to funerals, medical treatments in other cities and other necessary travel. Trump has no idea what he is doing to people in this country. He is entirely empty in his head to say nothing of callous. All he can really do is talk, or as I call it "yak"
4
As long as he has a roof over head, food on the table, a working television and can play golf when he pleases, withholding his pay check won’t make a bit of difference to him, unfortunately.
1
it's incredible that we have gotten to the state of a federal government shutdown. Over what funding over a physical barrier ostensibly for the purpose of keeping illegal migrants out. Having lived through every presidential administration since Harry S Truman never seen anything like this. What have we come to as a democracy when one man. Whom a US court has designated as a criminal co-conspirator can cause this much turmoil. When will sanity prevail.
8
Go for it! Why should Trump be able to make pawns out of these necessary workers, who are required to work for no pay, while most Fed workers are merely furloughed with eventual full pay? Real consequences are what is needed to finally get Trump to back down.
6
The defense jumps offside, the play won't count if the offense doesn't want it to, so they go ahead and heave an outrageous pass downfield, a pass they would never, ever attempt if there was going to be a consequence. And they score!!
Pundits call it a free play, an "Oh, what the heck" play.
And its what TSA and other workers have at the moment.
They're not going to be paid anyway, some of them will never be reimbursed (and there's talk Trumpsters are working on ways to limit the economic impact of the shutdown by limiting reimbursements), so what the heck, why not go for it?
Somebody in this country should be earning a decent wage, don't you think?
2
1. TSA employees do not strike for the same reason that they do not quit their currently unpaid job: if they do any of those, then they lose the money which they are guaranteed to be paid to them retro-actively, after the shutdown is over.
2. Also, TSA employees have more respect for the law than the authors of this reckless article, and understand the consequences of an unlawful strike.
3. Also, TSA employees take into consideration the impact that their strike would have on the rest of the population. Shame on these two authors for suggesting something that would pitch TSA employees against everybody else, and all for an ambiguous/uncertain purpose. You guys need a sanity check !
4
We should all strike. All businesses negatively affected by this administration should give their employees a paid day off to strike in solidarity.
13
I have been saying these points to those nearest and dearest to me! If the TSA and all of the transportation providers, airlines etc go out then something has to happen. You would think that with all of the suffering we already know about that there would be round the clock meetings until this is rectified! If there are such meetings they are not being reported. Congress should not be paid until this is solved, nor should they go home to their families unless there is an emergency. If air traffic comes to a halt maybe somebody will have the ovum to finally set that bully straight. I hope of all the supporters are getting this, this is bad and this administration does not care about you or us.
1
Semi-shutdowns with people working for free just allow the dysfunction to continue.
It's not just TSA workers who should be striking. Everyone being forced to work without pay should be striking: the Coast Guard, the FDA, everyone. EVERYONE. And we should all be cooking meals for them.
This shutdown is being led by crooks who don't care about good governance or federal employees going broke. Trump and McConnell in particular are looking for a way to undermine power the Democrats won in the 2018 elections --- power given to them by the people.
The only way to stop this shutdown is for the workers to make it real: shut it all down. We'll see how quickly McConnell calls a vote when the airports are closed, when the seaports are closed, and when the lights start going off because the turbines at the dams stopped turning.
14
Take a stand?
How apropos.
That's what 90% of the TSA agents are always doing when I'm trying to hurry to catch a flight.
In fact, it's not just taking a stand..it's standing around.
This bloated bureaucracy does nothing to make me feel any safer than I did when I flew into LAX on the last flight into LAX on the morning of 9/11.
1
Trump wants a shutdown? Let's give him one. Shut down all airports via TSA and flight control employees walking off their jobs now. Then see how fast the GOP would react to their affected donor class. American people would stand with these airport employees.
6
@L'historien Of course, the truly wealthy won't be affected by an airport shutdown. They have private planes.
GOP is always shouting about less government, so why not hand airport security back to the airlines and airports authorities? It was a knee-jerk, post 9/11 decision to federalize airport security anyway. We’re not safer since the enemy is from within. It’s us.
4
Drastic times call for drastic measures. TSA and the Air Traffic Controllers should strike. That will shut down the airlines and a significant portion of every business in the country. If that doesn't get the republicans off the dime, at least it will shine the bright light of who's to blame all over them.
4
Can they announce a one day strike? One day down is enough to ripple through the entire airline industry and "share the pain" without jeopardizing their jobs. Pressure must be exerted to break the impasse.
Basically, Trump wants democrats to give him a political win without giving democrats anything in return. Why would they do that? Trump has set this up as a zero sum game where one side wins and the other side loses. That is how elections work; it is not how government in a democracy works.
In a democracy, representatives gather votes by horse trading. If Trump wants funding for his wall, he has to do the work of gathering the votes. Instead he has taken the federal government workers as hostages and is demanding his terms be met before releasing them.
Trump is offering democrats nothing mostly because republicans don't value the wall and therefore don't want to trade anything, like DACA, for it.
The wall was popular because it was supposed to be free (paid for by Mexico.) Now that it costs something, nobody on the Republican side wants to pay for it by trading with the democrats, and democrats don't want to pay for it because it isn't a democratic priority.
Either Trump needs to admit the free wall was just a campaign slogan and abandon it, or he has to admit it must be paid for by negotiating with democrats. Either way, Trump must release the hostages before any negotiations can take place.
2
@DB Oh yes, I am the great negotiator, believe me when I say it, for I am the king of kings. Even if I am naked and without wit...
As opposed to a “strike” - how about getting a preliminary injunction against forcing people to work for no pay in violation of federal labor laws and the 13th Amendment’s van on slavery?
It’s not a strike, just a cry for justice.
3
An unsustainable trend will end eventually. 800,000 people cannot work for nothing indefinitely. Whether by sick out or strike or quitting, the workers hold the power to end this shutdown. Will Trump, McConnell, et al. push them to the brink?
3
Strike
That’ll show Trump and Republicans how they screwed over American workers
3
No matter how much I agree with Ms. Ehrenreich and Mr. Stevenson, I cannot agree with their conclusion of calling for a traditional strike.
First, President Trump would almost certainly fire the TSA agents. The current problem remains -- Trump does not feel any pain from his current action. He is deliberately causing pain in the people he is holding hostage. And he would willing cause even more pain. It would not bother him. His lack of empathy is legendary.
Second, before other Federal employees could join in or offer their support, you have to accommodate the national security considerations. As an example, the air traffic controllers that work your civilian airliner also work the military's flights -- including Air Force One. Going on strike could be perilous in more ones than one.
However, this does not leave 800,000 Federal employees powerless. I would encourage all of their representatives to work together and come up with a plan of collective action. There is more than one way to skin a cat. And the people going without a paycheck just happen to know where all the Government's skinning knives are kept.
Don Brown
1
I heartily support a strike. I recently traveled and was shocked the airports are still running after the president decided to just stop paying everyone. The problem is he's already shown he lives in an alternate reality, cares only about himself, and is bad at the job to boot. I don't think he'd even understand what was happening, much less make a rational decision.
It would still be up to Congress to get the country running again. Or remove him! That's still an option.
7
The TSA is not necessary to air transportation. A general strike by the TSA would not shutdown air transportation. As a matter of fact I believe what the TSA does is unconstitutional, that we should not be subject to search or even show ID to travel as a citizen within the borders of the US. That said, I do not believe anyone should be forced to work without pay which is also unconstitutional. Transition the TSA workers to other jobs; their pay is low and jobs are not hard to replace at the same pay level. Repeal the Patriot Act. And to answer the question "Yes, your aircraft has been inspected and is safe for flight." Remember the TSA was originally temporary, suppose to go away in 2005. I believe that no one should have to work without pay or be subject to search. Demand from government these God given freedoms.
2
I am pretty sure that the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute forbids federal employees from striking.
Just keep that in mind.
1
@Ben
It also says they are supposed to be paid for their work. The are not slaves!
2
We returned from London to Boston's Logan Airport on Thursday. I was coming down with the flu and as it moved into the second hour of waiting on queue with several hundred others I found myself desperately in need of a bathroom, with none available. I caught the eye of a TSA worker who took one look at me, told me he could see I was suffering and bumped me to the front of the line. I didn't expect such kindness. All of the workers were doing their best. When we passed through the final checkpoint I asked if he'd been paid. Not for 21 days was the response. I would support the TSA workers should they go out on strike but believe we could.go further make it a one day national strike. This is our country. This is America. No penny ante despot will keep us down.
15
Yes, a strike by TSA would be a starting point. Follow this up with a strike by air traffic controllers to force the issue. When senators are stuck in Washington, not able to go home on the weekends, there would be some action.
And remember, a bill passed by both houses, sent to the president, and not signed becomes law in 10 days. If the law is vetoed, if can be overridden.
6
Federal employees would be risking too much. But they could also 'strike' in another way: work to rule. No better way to gum up the works without actually striking.
4
I keep thinking that if enough TSA employees stop working, that would create public outrage, on the workers' side, forcing Congress to end the shutdown.
1
The public has a long memory whenever some official messes with our transportation. Here's looking at you and the George Washington Bridge, Chris Christie. Christie never recovered politically from the fallout.
Calvin Coolidge said, " There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." It could also be said that the President has no right to endanger public safety, anywhere, any time by refusing to pay for the labor that is required to keep the public safe.
6
I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I agree that T.S.A. workers should strike. It would certainly be a wake-up call for the nation, and I think many Americans would sympathize with them. I certainly would. In fact, I wish all Americans better understood just how many hard working, dedicated civil servants there are - men and women who are heaped with abuse and scorn by people like President Trump simply for trying to make our country better.
On the other hand, imagine the unforeseen consequences for shutting down air travel in the United States. Couldn't there be situations where peoples's lives are at risk because someone couldn't travel? A medical specialist, for example?
What it's really time for is Senate Republicans to push veto-proof legislation through. The solution is obvious.
15
On September 10, 2001 I could meet my party at the gate at any airport in the country. There was no TSA.
Because the TSA was created out of the 9/11 lie there is no reason, and never has been, for the TSA’s existence. So the simple solution is to dissolve the TSA and allow the screeners to return to their fast food jobs so that flying can become tolerable once more.
3
@Jim Griffin
"Because the TSA was created out of the 9/11 lie there is no reason, and never has been, for the TSA’s existence."
So September 11 did not happen? Jim's comment above is illustrative of the monkey logic that pervades this article and most of the comments on it.
While subject to a lot of regulation, the employment relationship is fundamentally contractual. I work for you, you pay me. If you don't pay me, it's you, not me, that breached the contract. You owe me damages for breach.
The government has breached its contract with these workers. It has no right to demand that they continue to work--slavery is against the law.
So yes--strike! If is can even be called that.
5
@Justin
Sooo, Justin: I assume that before making this grand pronouncement you actually read the entire TSA contract.
Right?
It's illegal for federal government workers to strike. Does anyone remember what happened to the air traffic controllers when Ronald Reagan was President? The air traffic controllers went on strike. Former President Reagan filed all of them.
If TSA employees go on strike, Trump will impulsively fire all of them. In turn, the government will bring in contractors, who will be untrained and inexperienced. Untrained, inexperienced employees will give terrorists a greater opportunity to strike the flying public.
Furthermore, contractors will cost the government more than keeping TSA staff as federal employees. It has been shown time and time again, that contractors cost the federal government more than government employees. The Department of Defense is a good example of what happens when hiring overpriced contractors.
Furthermore, the contractors will pay the TSA staff horribly. Only the top echelon of the contractors will benefit, i.e., will be paid as five-percenters.
2
Another key thing about a potential TSA strike is that, with the government in partial shutdown, the striking workers would not be able to be replaced by new hires. The government would find it impossible to entice temporary replacements to do the job with no pay.
21
It wouldn’t take very long at all for a sufficient number of TSA posts to be covered by active duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel.
@From Where I Sit
If they run airports anything like they have run recent conflicts, there's nothing for TSA to worry about...
2
@Dan Stackhouse
Plus, the personnel office is surely closed due to the shut-down!
3
Calling for a strike is a difficult choice. Federal employee unions operate under different rules than say, the teamsters. If you are working a job that is on the lower end of the pay scale in a union with a small war chest under an erratic president that has the continued support of the Senate, a successful strike could be a long haul with dubious outcomes.
As a card carrying union member for most of my life, I find the ability of the federal government to use employees as bargaining chips in their inter branch squabbles abhorrent. I find compelling people to work for no pay with the promise of future reimbursement akin to indentured servitude. As the bargaining chair of a local on more than one contract negotiations, if you strike, know the way back in and its costs.
One of the authors of this article has connections with the teamsters. Maybe get the teamsters and longshoremen to honor and support your potential picket lines for a little extra oomph. They have experience in this area.
8
Ultimately, the power of this country lies with the people that do the work that keeps everything going on a day to day basis. This is the whole premise of organizing and having a common objective. One TSA worker stopping work doesn’t really affect the system. Organization of large groups of people to move in the same direction is where the power lies. That idea is the basis of unions.
Unions and organized labor have gotten a bad rap in the last 30-40 years. At the same time, working people have lost ground in wages, working conditions and health and pension benefits while corporate CEO’s and their families have enjoyed the fruits of our work. In this country, people need to take a step back and realize that in order to maintain power without money we have to speak as a whole for our common interests. We can do that by voting to put people in office that work for common good and refusing to support people who do not.
Elected officials who say they support working people should walk their talk. Trump’s actions on behalf of farmers, government workers, and the rest of us worker bees do not support his talk. Be very clear, he is not the one who cooks the meals, clean the hotels, manicure the grounds, grow and prepare the food, or protect the flying public. Without them, this country doesn’t move forward.
TSA seize your power.
5
When I fly in or out of Washington Reagan National Airport on a Friday I often see many members of Congress there, heading home to their districts. I think that a strike like this should be planned to influence as many members of Congress as possible. A Friday looks good to me.
35
@Mr. SeaMonkey Thursday would do too. I think a lot of them leave town Thursday night per Ted Cruz.
5
@Karen K. Yeah, maybe I'm giving them too much credit, saying that they work all the way until Friday. They are getting a paycheck, unlike many government employees.
3
I have a crazy idea: There are 800,000 federal workers out, and there are 300M people in the US. I assume that the average federal worker makes $40K per year, or $800 per week. 800,000 workers times $800 a week is $640M a week. If 100M of us gave $7 per week to a fund to help them through this mess Trump has artifically created, we could help them eat and at least pay some bills. If the media helps set up a charity to do this and the treasury will channel the money to the appropriate people, may be it could be done. Yes, it's nuts. I know. But, at least some Americans could prove they believe in what the Federal government does and that the media is not evil.
4
@Tim
I have a simpler idea. Cuz we tax payers have already paid!
Mitch can vote to open. And over-ride the veto.
Why should I pay, if Mitch can?
7
@TheraP I totally agree. Unfortunately Mitch appears to be useless, morally and fiscally.
2
@Tim No thanks Tim, I feel awful for the workers but Mitch has been derelict in his duties and has given up the power of the Senate to trump. Why should I pay these people? Why should we have go find me pages for sick people! Medicare for All! Pay the workers! Down with Mitch!!!
1
My father ran a small electrical contracting company, and my mother said he was never the same after his employees unionized. I have international travel bought and paid for in the near future. And I am a student of economics--I agree 100 percent with Ms. Ehrenreich.
The world has changed dramatically since the air traffic controllers strike. The US is ripe for a bottom up strike by the TSA. Airlines and the entire travel industry would be impacted. Workers are being taken for granted. This combined with the Los Angeles teachers strike--amazing chaos. Reagan was in a position of power. He used it to dramatically shift the dynamic. Right now many forces are combining to give public sector employees (and also their private sector counterparts) tremendous power. It is indeed time to use it.
9
I think a series of half-day strikes would be very effective. Organize quickly, have the workers call in sick. It would cause just enough chaos.
10
Yes, they should strike. Nobody should work without pay. To help the budget in CT, staff in the system took several days off. We didn't get paid, but we didn't work either.
And if they don't strike, they should all call in sick for a day. I know the laws says they can't strike, but it also says they get paid.
11
If you sympathize with TSA workers and all federal employees who aren’t being paid, stop traveling by air and making air-travel reservations until the shutdown ends.
6
Agree. I assume any eventual agreement between the Democrats and Republicans would protect the TSA workers.
2
I don't see why we should put this on the shoulders of the TSA workers. A better idea would be if everyone in the country who is opposed to the shut down collectively picked a day and went on strike - not just government workers, but everybody. How about January 18?
30
Not only should the TSA workers strike, consumers should attempt to delay all unnecessary air travel until the shutdown is over. I've flow over a half million miles and I frankly wouldn't get on a plane with conditions currently adversely affecting air traffic controllers ability to do their jobs effectively.
Bring the Airlines stock values down significantly and watch the business community whine to Trumpty Dumpty. I hope he has a great fall.
8
The law may prohibit public employee strikes, but the Constitution prohibits involuntary servitude. That is what TSA workers are being required to perform, in exchange for a promissory note redeemable at some undefined time in the future. Courts would quickly rule unconstitutional the notion that anyone be required to work if they are not being paid as agreed.
7
@Joel
You obviously do not understand what "involuntary servitude" means. This is not involuntary servitude: the TSA workers can quit anytime.
If not now, when?
American workers have only advanced when they have fought and sacrificed. At some point the calculation become simple: they have more to gain than lose by striking.
Republicans have been waging war on working people for decades while telling them "more freedom." Inequality has been rising all along. Time for the tide to turn.
15
I appreciate the pros and cons of a TSA strike, but I do think that if the government is still shut down at the time of the State of the Union address, Democrats should boycott it.
5
It's all well and good to advocate for a strike when it doesn't impact you, but what happens when those folks are fired?
Where will you be, then?
My father was one of the air traffic controllers fired by Reagan. He took it hard and my family never really recovered the financial stability it had before he lost that job.
I'm all for worker rights and I'm all for fighting for what you believe in, but only to a certain point. I suppose that's cowardly and cynical of me, but I know, from experience, that the support only lasts so long. After all the rhetoric has died down and the mob has moved on to the next cause, no one cares about your plight anymore. You'll be the one left trying to figure out how to put your life back together and dig out of the financial hole caused by months on the picket line and subsequent joblessness.
Luckily, I'm not a federal worker, so I don't have to make this hard decision now. But if I were, I'd think very long and hard before striking because I know that's a very slippery slope. God bless those that are willing to sacrifice their own long-term well-being for the greater good. I wish I was that strong, but I'm not. Been there, done that, won't do it again. As they say on airplanes, put on your own mask before helping others. Cause in the end, no one's looking out for you, but you.
1
Why suggest that only TSA workers strike? Why not suggest that all federal workers strike? It seems unfair to ask the TSA workers alone to risk their jobs for the sake of principle and to make a point. They already have enough to fear and worry about without also worrying about being fired. Why single out TSA agents only for this good idea?
10
How many advocates of a strike by someone else are willing to show the way by walking out of their employment until the shutdown ends? I suspect the authors will not be showing us the way.
@gc I support it and my job would be deeply affected because more than two thirds of the materials (plant cuttings grown overseas) I work with come in on planes. So I and about ten employees would be shut down. And trust me, there are no domestic substitutes that a small operator could access.
2
What if the workers merely worked slower?
I hate to see these poorly paid and generally undefended workers bear the brunt of whatever backlash Trump might levy on them. But I agree with the spirit of the article, and I wonder why it is that the majority of Americans who think Trump is a blight upon the nation, and perhaps even a real danger, aren't doing more to get him out. We need leadership.
1
@Thomas I like the idea of a slow down. Technically, the TSA employees are showing up for work. And it must be extra tiring for them right now since many of their peers have the blue fly.
1
@Thomas
"What if the workers merely worked slower?"
With regard to the TSA, I don't think that is even possible.
2
@Thomas
Slower than they already do?
Walk to any east coast airport, TSA agents are busily chatting and horsing around while frazzled passengers wait patiently..
Republicans and Democrats have finally found common ground - the use of public employees as pawns.
4
I am not so sure that the striking TSA officers could be as easily replaced as were the PATCO air controllers. There are five times as many TSA officers as there were PATCO controllers while by contrast, the U.S. armed forces are far smaller than they were back then.
Also, other unions might join in simply because labor relations in the airline industry already are among the worst in the American economy. Without pilots, flight attendants, maintenance crews, and without TSA agents, air traffic would end and there would be nothing that the president could do about that.
2
@Quiet Waiting
Fired TSA workers would, and could, be replaced in a heartbeat. The PATCO air traffic controllers were replaced quickly and they, unlike the TSA workers, were highly skilled or trained.
How much time do you think it would take to train a few thousand people to say "Take off your shoes and belts and put them in the bins. Please remove any laptops or electronics from your bags."?
Yes they should all stay and tell Trump it is because of him not the Democrats. Why are employees suppose to go without paychecks, because we have a President not getting his way. He has never had to go without money.
This shut down must end. When is the GOP going to stand up to Trump? I hope none of them get relected in 2020, especially Mitch McConnell.
13
A strike is a work stoppage. Not coming to work is not a strike.
2
Public employees of all kinds, TSA or otherwise, have the right to quit. But they should not have the right to strike, because of the nature of their service and who their hiring authority is. Next up, the police?
1
The Secret Service are working for free. They should stop working as well. When politicians experience their own personal fear, maybe then they'll feel motivated to end this closure.
49
This suggestion is reprehensible. I strongly suspect the consequence of a strike would have little or no impact on the authors. For me, it could me never seeing some of my family again. We are excepting family for China - some of who we haven't met and may well not see again.
I could spike and impact no one except myself and my company. A TSA strike in disproportionally harmful to people without any role in the situation.
The suggestion is an offense to all good sense.
3
Is there any doubt that, if upper level management and their business advisors -- or business people in general, really -- were unable to fly for business or use their miles for pleasure, the government shutdown would end. None. Government would open in a jiffy.
Federal workers trying to meet a mortgage payment can be ignored, but God help the politician that troubles the daily routine of flying for business.
I'd favor an organized sick-out rather than a strike ... just to avoid the legal issues of a formally declared strike.
4
Normally I would agree with Ms. Ehrenreich and Mr. Stevenson, but as we know, Trump will surely fire ANY government worker who strikes. And right now, a lot of government workers, (anyone actually), will snatch these jobs.
Me personally? They have a right to strike, all government workers, and demand, if not charge, a 5% add-on surcharge for the inconvenience. The 5% surcharge of course, comes out of Congress salaries. Pay retroactive.
2
@PC
There's no line to 'snatch' non-paying jobs, in spite of your unreal claims that people are lining up to work for nothing.
2
I would support TSA strikers in a heartbeat, particularly after learning their abysmal poverty level pay rates.
I now ask every business owner to hire a TSA employee temporarily to stand security guard at your front door ‘till trump folds or is moved out of the way’.
There’s 27 million small businesses in US, surely 50,000 of them could help our fellow citizens in need. Oh, and also I would suggest that those TSA agent vote democratic tho. : )
5
Great idea!
It's all well and good for the parties in Congress to stay in entrenched positions (while in the past voting for border walls starting with Bill Clinton's wall here at the San Diego-Tijuana border), but those folks are getting liveable wage salaries, great healthcare, and all the perks that go with the office.
It's another thing altogether to be just scraping by in general, and then being expected to work with no paycheck on top of it.
The L.A. teachers are out - why not the T.S.A.?
3
Legal theory and political machinations should not be tested on the backs of people who are vulnerable to dismissal under the law. It’s easy to be a cheerleader for such academic proposals when one is safely protected behind a keyboard.
4
There are pending 13th-amendment lawsuits filed. Let's hope the suits don't get dismissed on standing grounds if the shutdown ends, as the situation will clearly arise again.
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell gave 800,000 America workers the middle finger when they shut the government down over a non-existent border crisis.
All those workers should return the gesture to our Gluteus Maximus and the Senate Monarch-In-Chief.
Strike, TSA !
220
What are you waiting for??? If you’re a TSA worker on the low end of the pay scale making $23,000 (as per the article) you make $11/per hour. Most likely that could be achieved in the local economy considering 4% unemployment nationally. Obviously a government job includes benefits that would be hard to duplicate in most of the unskilled jobs that pay $11/hour. You deserve better treatment but you also deserve to feed your families and have gas in your car. A job that is as tenuous as a government job, subject to the whims of idiot politicians (choose your villain) isn’t really the job or future you hoped it would be, is it? If you’re fired for an illegal strike you have nothing to lose. Hopefully legislation will follow that makes these jobs protected for pay purposes moving forward. The only way for this to be resolved is for everyone in the United States to share your pain. Disruption of air travel (people,freight,mail) is catastrophic. I say “game on”. You deserve better government. We all do.
9
If you are making $11/hr, it is irresponsible to take on the costs of a family. Not every job will provide even survival much less all the trappings of a middle class lifestyle. This is particularly true of jobs that are funded by taxes or do not require a quarter million dollar education. The comments here are proof of the extent of the entitlement mentality that is so pervasive these days.
1
Public sector strikes in the 1960s and 1970s, which were considered illegal, are not equivalent to federal workers striking because the federal government is not providing payment of wages. It's amazing to me that such workers continue to work out of the false idea that doing so is their duty. Instead, by continuing to work, they empower the president and some elected representatives to misuse the power of their offices. The nation would be best served if TSA workers strike.
3
Let's be very clear with terminology used. When your employer refuses to pay you, it's called a lockout.
Trump is not striking against anyone. He has locked out his employees. He just has the added benefit that they still have to work while he does it.
4
@Mike
No. A Lockout is when the employer prevents you from coming in and working. This is not a lockout.
It's a bad situation, all the way around, but I don't think a general strike is the answer. The problem is that Sen. McConnell has put the senate out on strike, paralyzing legislation. He has no right to do this, and is shirking his responsibilities as an elected official.
I found it enlightening this morning listening to NPR, when Newt Gingrich made the comment that "most government workers are Democrats." That is probably the opinion of the White House as well.
1
And it’s likely true. It would be quite hypocritical to be part of the huge bureaucracy we have in this country and be a Republican. You can’t be against big government while feeding at the public trough.
1
This American totally agrees. A strike would send a message that shutdowns are not a substitute for governing. Do it.
12
I agree wholeheartedly.
3
I agree, if it is illegal for these workers to go on strike, it should be illegal for their employers to dock their wages and benefits. At least Unions maintained a strike fund to help their families.
3
The TSA workers have been "constructively discharged," (i.e. working conditions are so intolerable (working without wages) that a reasonable person in the same situation would quit). They should be picketing to have their jobs restored! And, the air traffic controllers should be on the picket line with them. In normal times, our government provides us with a safe air travel system. Let the government Trumpdown face a world without air travel.
8
A real strike? Where do you think we are. France??
8
As a retired non-essential employee before the terrorist attacks of 911, I think a strike would play into the President's hand. If the federal and contractor TSA employees were to strike the President would just fire them as President Reagan did the Air Traffic Controllers. There is plenty of case law to support firing. The focus of all American's should be to get all federal workers back to being productive and providing the services the American people expect. Remember when you wrestle with a pig, the pig likes it and you get dirty.
I think a mass strike would be legally defensible and necessary by locked-out federal workers who are expected to show up for work based on a promise of a future paycheck. Once again, Donald Trump has boxed himself in with his bombastic pronouncements that a shutdown could last for months or maybe years. He has set the terms and conditions under which locked-out workers are expected to follow. Nobody should be reasonably expected to live under Trump's dictates over a long period of time. I believe the courts will be sympathetic if Trump tries to retaliate against striking workers.
The president has too much power. The Republicans are helpless and unsympathetic. It's time for a bottom-up solution to put constitutional governance back on track.
609
@Dan
I don't believe the Republicans are helpless. They can override Trumps veto tomorrow if they had the will. The Republicans own this Government shutdown as much as Trump does.
146
@Dan
Republicans are not helpless! They are craven, treasonous and self interested. McConnel and the GOP senate delegation could push back at any time and they do not. Do not confuse lack of power with lack of will.
115
@Dan
" The Republicans are helpless and unsympathetic."
Unsympathetic, yes. Helpless, no. The Senate Repubs could end this now if they had the spines to stand up to their dictator.
69
While I think the TSA and other essential employees should be getting paid during the shutdown, suggesting the TSA go on strike is an incredibly bad idea, as is some of the suggestions in the comments that they should call in sick en mass.
Ultimately, this would harm them more than do good, many airports have already been considering changing to private security instead of using TSA and if this were to happen, that is exactly why the airports would do and in a hurry, probably too much of a hurry and end up with very poor security for years to come because the airports won't stand for staying shut down.
You know what will happen if they did.
Remember PATCO? Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controller Union by firing them. Why? National security.
Of course, TSA agents deal with much more people, than air traffic controller deal with the number of planes. However, if Trump tries to do to teh TSA agents union, what Reagan did with PATCO, it will ground flights for weeks, or significantly reduce the number of flights.
Also, such a move, will certainly do great damage to the economy.
Going out on strike, will hurt TSA workers, and many other people, while Trump gains points with his base. Also, Trump may decide to shut down the entire government, as a payback.
This country is already dealing with an unstable president; there is no point adding fuel to an ever growing fire.
1
I am not in favor of a TSA strike. I think that the airlines should be subsidizing TSA workers salaries as the airlines are most affected. This should be only for the duration of the government shutdown. Even if this means increased airfares the peace of mind for needed protection would be worth it.
Only a couple of clueless leftists could advocate making air travel dangerous to advance their political agendas.
A strike would either show the nation that: a. they are willing to let you and your family die in a crash/hijacking - to get their money, or b. can be successfully replaced by private security contractors.
I feel for the TSA employees, and believe they are both hard working and necessary, yet while a strike will not get them paid any faster, it will make them look bad to the general public.
Boobs like the authors have never done an honest day's work in their lives, but think they have the solution to all the problems of the world.
4
What a crass, selfish response to this situation. So thousands of government employees should continue to work for free?
The TSA rank and file absolutely should strike. What you fail to understand, somehow, is that the fallout would not be their responsibility. I'm sure you do "honest work" all the time and would continue to do it if your employer just stopped giving you paychecks, right?
A TSA strike is the perfect response to a shutdown precipitated by a multiply-bankrupt yet somehow still unfathomably wealthy con man with zero awareness of the human ramifications of his absurd tantrums.
We have a million government employees with their livelihoods yanked out from under their feet and your response is to attack the authors who suggest those employees actually stick up for themselves? Absurd, greedy, parasitic, and flat out wrong.
10
@Cliff
Wow. This is mean and it's also clueless.
Air safety is being harmed by Trump, not by the workers. FAA Air Traffic Controllers are not being paid, imagine the stress.
That is a safety issue. Being forced to work without pay puts most Americans in a bind. TSA workers are supposed to keep us safe from terrorism. They work hard for little money; the least they can expect is their pay!
As for your parting shot at the authors: journalism IS an honest day's work. It's difficult; it requires talent, it is time-consuming.
And you have no idea what the authors have done in their lives. I worked in a factory, as a nanny, as a model, and in the library to get my degree. That's all hard work.
1
I used to fly several times a year. But, I quit flying in 2015, because I was tired of being treated like an animal at the airport. Any TSA worker who walks away should be fired.
1
I favor a show of strength strike by all federal employees. I favor the idea expressed by others of a limited strike - one day, or 8 hours, etc. to demonstrate their strength and illustrate the threat of a full strike. There are over 40,000 TSA agents and 40,000 border agents, not to mention others. They cannot be replaced easily either by the military or by other personnel.
Another option is a general slow down, or a percentage 'blue flu' strike with say 20% calling in each day, like all A-E staff on Monday, F-J staff on Tuesday, etc.
Government workers at all levels - federal, state, and local - have been abused and taken advantage of for too long. It is time for workers to stop just taking this abuse.
Teachers are beginning to realize this with some success. Time for others to realize it too.
9
I'm sorry but the moral contract between government and citizen is not to protect workers and place taxpayers second. The very problem with the concept of a government strike is that government is a monopoly that is meant to serve taxpayers and citizens. We already suffer by inept service, by excessive cost and have no recourse as the underlying service is held by a monopoly. Unlike every other business in the country, workers for government are already assured that post-shutdown, they will be paid fully simply delayed. It is the private contractors from the small cleaning service to the larger enterprises that are simply left in a lurch that are where the hardship is felt. Government workers deserve to be paid but they should not be allowed to strike and if they do, they should be replaced. Government functions for the good of all citizens first, second and last.
3
According to @Chris, TSA workers deserve to be paid but should not stop working despite not being paid? Have you ever gone to work for 3 weeks with no pay and no expectation of when you will get paid, Chris?
You may think government workers are “inept” and “excessively costly”, but apparently you must not depend on government workers to treat your water, sewage, clear snow from the road, rescue you from a burning building or maintain security at the airport.
Public service employees are not all perfect, but they are not any less perfect than people who work for private contractors. Government jobs are coveted these days because of the benefits of health care and pension rarely available in private companies. These people are dedicated to keeping theses jobs and for that reason, most have continued to work despite not getting paid.
That said, everyone has a braking point and at some point, so will these workers that we all depend on. Hopefully the Republican Senate figures this out, and does their job to serve the people of this country by taking a veto proof vote to re-open the government.
1
@Jane K - You miss the point. The government is a monopoly which is supposed to have a covenant with taxpayers/citizens. However, like all monopolies, service, innovation and accountability suffer. You are correct that any single private sector company can be horrible, but a free market (which is suffering today), encourages freedom of choice which holds companies accountable. To your point, gov jobs are in demand and it is the very nature of this excessive pay structure (inclusive of benefits and pension) which is the problem. The government should be in the business of the most efficient, highest quality service for the very least cost to taxpayers NOT in the business of high pay or excessive benefits. It's the exact nature of monopolies that allow for the above. Within this context, gov should not be able to shutdown by workers on strike. BTW - I'm a never Trumper but the shutdown can be resolved by a $5B agreement by the Dems to fund Trump's folly. As stupid as it is, it is no more stupid than any other waste that politicians routinely allow to occur. I blame both sides for what is 100% a political move to set up the other side. This is not a fundamental issue of policy but simply politics
1
I think it's time for the citizens of the US to conduct a national strike in support of the federal workers. Why just put it on the shoulders of the TSA workers or the others that are already victims of the Trump shutdown.
26
Requiring federal employees to work without pay may not technically be slavery, but it is close enough to be a relative. The oddity here is that we, the people for whom this government exists, trust in some of these workers to safeguard our lives, our families and our homes, but we allow Mr. Trump and his Republican Senate allies to abuse these same individuals upon whom we rely.
41
I am no fan of the TSA, but I agree. It’s time. Shut down US transportation! That will wake up Congress!
McConnell and Graham can man the Security Checkpoints in Washington’s airports if they want the capital to function.
54
@GWBear
Can you see those two actually doing something useful?
2
Air traffic controllers and the Secret Service and all effected should strike and let Trump adjust to the USA being ruined by him and his moronic ideas and fellow travelers.
Trump and Company are vandals and criminals and terrorists. Let people who actually work for us take over by striking. It would last half of one day.
Away with Trump and his stooges!
25
Several commentators rightly worry about the negative effects of a strike. However, the air safety infrastructure is eroding day by day. Must we wait until we start seeing planes crashing again before we unify to support the people who keep our air travel safe?
A strike by TSA, with clear notice in advance, would be a critical first step to end this madness.
29
This is an incredibly bad idea. At the moment public opinion is deeply hostile to Trump and it's getting worse by the day. He is being squarely blamed for this mess. If the TSA goes on strike with all of the chaos that would follow, we would risk losing the moral high ground in the eyes of a large swath of the country. And we would be playing into Trump's hands. It would give him an opportunity to rally his base, and regain at least some the support he has lost from middle America. But worse than that, is that we would essentially be daring Trump to call our bluff while holding a very weak hand. The law DOES in fact prohibit strikes by public service employee unions. Does anyone think Trump would hesitate for even a second to channel Reagan's sacking of the striking air traffic controllers who in turn was channeling Calvin Coolidge ("There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time.")? Are willing to risk the jobs and livelihoods of these workers? I'm not. The law is too clear. And it would be too easy to replace them with the military.
We need to challenge this corrupt administration wherever and whenever we have a chance of winning. But this is a battle we are likely to lose with enormous cost in human misery.
154
@John C. "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time."
I think one could also look at this as public employees striking FOR the public safety in this situation, and probably the event that would end the shutdown most quickly.
132
@John C. The moral high ground isn't reached by climbing the backs of unpaid, involuntary workers.
144
@John C.
It is wrong to force government employees to work without pay, and for others to be furloughed. I think that a strike would be supported by thousands of 'unaffected' Americans. These workers have no relief in sight and most of them have no savings to fall back on. Look at the lousy wages they are receiving. This 'president' does not care who he harms and he is violating his oath of office. Being fired would be no less scary than no income, and at least they might be eligible for unemployment benefits.
131
I'm wondering why all the White House staff and the Capital's staff are still working? Are they really considered "essential?" I don't think so. If these people were furloughed and told to stay home until the government is open again, perhaps Trump and Republican members of Congress would be more motivated to deal. Why isn't the media asking this question?
38
@Elaine Better still, why is all of that staff still getting paid?
2
@Elaine Is 45 essential at this point?
2
In addition to the points made, it is especially important to heighten the focus on the dictatorial role of Senator McConnell. He is the president's collaborator by single-handedly blocking a vote to end the shutdown in the Senate, thus saving the president from having to veto the legislation now approved by the House after the Senate in late-2018 gave its approval. A presidential veto would be overridden with some Republicans joining Democrats. By blocking this outcome, the senator is complicit in this very dark attack on workers.
178
@Barry Winograd
It's because he's an inveterate coward. This man is not a patriot in any sense of the word.
13
@Barry Winograd This should be shouted loudly and often. McConnell is ultimately responsible for this continuing as long as it has. What a spineless excuse for a Senator.
7
@Barry Winograd. Is Meuller investigating McConnell for any Russian funding of some sort? Just wondering.
3
Oh, I agree; I agree. Definitely a strike is in order..
13
After 9/11, there was no airport operation. It was a major inconvenience for millions of people. Everyone understood and accepted that there was no choice. This would be a different issue. People would be furious enough that trump would have no chance of support from the public.
36
How about this: a Secret Service slowdown - a blue flu if you will - where there are just enough of them to protect Trump & his family (and others they are responsible for) if they stay in the WH or home. No traveling to make ridiculous claims at the border, no rallies to whip up the "base," no Mar-A-Lago for the Mrs. & kids, etc. Sort of a "house arrest" until the Liar-in-Chief cries "Uncle" or at least allows the Republicans to vote to re-open the government & pay those forced to work without pay.
125
@Anonymouse
Good idea!
11
@Anonymouse
How about this: a slowdown or stoppage of all the work at the Capitol buildings. No more cleaning services, food services, elevator services. Make the conditions akin to those in our national parks. Maybe that will cause this logjam to break.
49
@Anonymouse All the Secret Service should walk off the job. Trump can afford to hire protection.
11
Amen and hallelujah. Notice how it’s always the least paid and most financially vulnerable that bear the effects and pain of malfeasance and incompetence ? Meanwhile, Congress is on standby ( vacation ) getting paid. And Trump is in Campaign mode, bolstering his bloated ego and padding his pockets, at great Taxpayer Expense. What’s wrong with this picture ???
Everything. It’s immoral, a mockery of principles that built this Country and indecent. Add terminally tacky to that list and that’s a brief definition of the entire Trump Regime.
Trump will jump on the chance to FIRE all of the TSA workers, if they Strike. Merely to “ prove “ his Manhood and emulate Reagan. Don’t give him the excuse. I strongly suggest the Blue Flu. Call in SICK, early and often. Rinse and repeat, as needed. Nothing will end this Shutdown faster than enraged Corporations/Donors. And even a hint of a financial meltdown will do absolute wonders. GOOD LUCK. Sincerely.
19
I hope they will strike. And not only to be paid for their crucial work, but to be paid fairly. A starting wage of $23K with earning potential of 43K?? That is insane. Rise up.
38
More than that, Ms. Ehrenreich. ALL the unpaid workers should strike. And they should surround the White House and the Capitol. When I hear them complaining in the media about their hardships, I start yelling, "Quit whining and FIGHT BACK!" Perhaps the problem is that as federal employees they got complacent about the employment security that goes with that position. Well, ladies and gentlemen, time to snap out of it.
317
@Michael Engel It's also illegal for federal workers to strike, as the article points out. Unlike private-sector union members, they have zero protection from getting fired. Does that sound like a comfortable place, given the capricious "stable genius" in the White House? Funny, I always hear private-sector employees whining about public-sector employee pensions and benefits (tyipically with Koch Brothers talking points). Exactly who should quit whining and fight back?
39
@AJF It was illegal for all those teachers to go on strike in the last few months. They did, and they won. And the First Idiot can't fire tens of hundreds of thousands of workers. In fact, they have no alternative but to take drastic action.
45
@AJF
So it is illegal for federal workers to strike, but it is perfectly legal to not pay them? Does anyone else see a problem here? I think that there is a name for forcing people to work without pay.
119
Given the intensity of TSA work, wages seem paltry. How does anyone live anywhere close to one of America's big cities and survive on $33k a year? And now work without pay. Trump does not seem to care - which of course is not a surprise. I favor the strike!
23
Strike? Hah, sad to say that's funny. It is sad because Americans don't have the backbone we used to have. Nobody is going to stand up to try to make a difference. We are a spineless bunch.
6
Definitely strike.
I’d like to the Secret Service strike too. So that someone special can’t leave his house until this gets resolved. Like a self-imposes house arrest. Just him and his thumbs to while away the hours.
64
@BL
How about the entire government, those currently being paid as well as those working without pay. And maybe the furloughed folks can picket. If they want a shutdown, if Government is the Problem, then lets test that theory and give them a total shutdown and we will see how well society functions without the federal government.
6
I couldn't agree more with the authors. A one-day work stoppage, well announced, with the promise that it will be longer if no action is taken immediately, will stop this shutdown. The pendulum has swung far enough against American workers. WE run the country.
320
absolutely. one day walk out to wake people up.
5
@Paul F Hear, hear!
2
Excellent idea. What better way to puncture the Republican fantasy of government as a necessary evil at best? Sharing the pain may be the only way to make the GOP acknowledge that government is central and essential in modern life with all its complexities. Besides, considering Trump's behavior, why should anyone else maintain historic restraints ("norms")?
69
Instead of a strike working to rule would be legal, put almost as much pressure on the administration, and would keep the workers from being even more of a punching bag.
13
@PilgrimDuke
A slowdown is a good kind of showdown!
1
The TSA personnel can save us all from this stupid Trump lockout (for hostages like me), and the unpaid servitude suffered by those expected to work while forgoing pay.
6
While I'm sympathetic, I don't think a strike is the answer. I do however think that a significant number of TSA workers and air traffic controllers calling in sick JUST FOR ONE DAY would paralyze the nation's air transportation. The result would be that the congress would have to pay attention (maybe some of them would get stuck not being able to get back to their districts or to DC) and the general public, who up until now has been unaffected and apathetic might wake up and push congress and the president to immediately end this nonsense.
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@mrs. sheltie
How does the public do what you suggest? Go to the poles? No poles right now.
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@john michel Mmmmmm- North Pole, South Pole, telephone poles... lots of them... the public can phone their senators and representatives. Flood their email, protest in large groups, get those phones ringing off the hooks. The public has to become affected and care for a cause; then, this is possible.
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@Mamawalrus72 Thank you for pointing out the true source of the problem......the problem is the SENATE. They have ruined the budget process...selfishly for only one reason.....to insert each Senators pet Boondoggle project.
The House already approved a budget. The blame for this work slowdown disaster rests completely with the SENATE.
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Remember Reagan and the PATCO walkout. He simply fired more than 11,000 workers on August 5, 1981. Now we have people working without pay because of a partial government shutdown caused by an illegitimate process. The tables have turned and now, the workers should not work.
We have forgotten that workers must cooperate with and support each other. No one else will. This is solidarity. Two things will change the current situation: voting and solidarity. Both are very much intertwined
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Some things are worth fighting for.
This may very well be a way to return the disrespect that the Republicans have shown working people.
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Reagan did more to destroy American unions than any president, but I hope public servants take the authors' advice. Every American must stand stand firm against slavery, involuntary servitude and government ignoring contracts the Supreme Court ruled was illegal in their 1819 ruling, Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, that the government does not have the legal right to abrogate contracts.
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@Keith This is definitely not slavery or involuntary servitude. No one is being forced to work; they can quit their jobs if they want. Comparing this to that is dismissive and insensitive to the actual harms of slavery.
It is time for a general strike by everyone, public and private workers. All workers stay home for at least two days
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Thank you, Barbara Ehrenreichm and Gary Stevenson! It's way past time for TSA workers to strike. They are not willingly being unpaid for their labor. Their president has shut down the government. TSA Workers of America, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your Trumpian chains!
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@Nan Socolow
Am I the only reader who sees something ironic in a slightly modified Marxist rallying cry emanating from a community partly named Palm Beach?
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@Nan Socolow
Uh, they have their jobs to lose
I think ordinary people know when they are getting the shaft. STRIKE!
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If that is true then I wonder: why do they vote for Republicans, the party of, for and by the rich?
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All federal workers should go on strike and paralyze the Country demonstrating their solidarity to the 800000 workers affected by this ignominious shotdown.
Maybe a general national strike would sent a shock wave down the spine of the spineless GOP and would be a deterrent for future shotdowns .
As a citizen I am ready to sustain the price and consequences that a total shotdown would bring upon us .
Let’s stop this nonsense for good !
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@inter nos What's spineless about the GOP?
Last time I checked, the Congress, Judiciary and Executives are separate yet equal branches of government.
Nothing done thus far has been illegal. Going on strike would be illegal, at which point the Judiciary would step in and tell them to get back to work or face termination or huge fines..and the Democrats who encouraged them to go on strike would be WHOLLY blamed for not only creating chaos and weaponizing this shutdown, but for being super hypocritical for not funding border security, ICE or any other government function designed to show that we're a sovereign nation.
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@inter nos, I agree they should all strike, but don't agree that the GOP is spineless. In fact, I think this is a deliberate tactic aimed at undermining elected Democrats.
Trump had 2 years to build his wall, and it didn't happen. This shutdown is an attempt to govern by fiat, and everyone who cares about the future of this nation has to stand against him. This means Pelosi, other elected Democrats, Republicans with integrity (?), unpaid government workers, and all the rest of us.
This may be a pivotal moment in our history: will we allow our our president to turn himself into a king, or will we save our democracy?
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@inter nos
It is about the moral high ground. TSA workers being forced to work without pay are working as slaves. It is not OK to compel someone to work without pay. If TSA workers fail to feed their children or get them to school, they can lose their children--and go to jail. People earning 23000 per year are not likely to have significant financial reserves. Missing one paycheck puts housing at risk, and sends them to "payday" loan sharks.
A general strike by those with "critical" jobs turns the moral equation around.
Yes to unpaid workers not working. No to paid workers abandoning their "critical" jobs.
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What at last is clear to me is that Trump and McConnell by refusing to approve the budget are intentionally creating a national emergency. Obviously, a TSA strike would be just the thing. This is part seems to be a means of deflecting whatever information Mueller has uncovered in his investigation.
Time to pitch in to support your TSA neighbor and for TSA workers to set up "GoFundMe" sites. OTOH it was also pointed out to me today that unemployment pay is state not federally funded and administered. So all of these people must immediately apply for UE.
Apparently, Congress can pass the budget without the president's signature.. so anyone out there who has a friend who knows McConnell or other GOP senator should cajole said person into going ahead and passing the budget that was agreed on and passed by the Senate before Christmas.
A strike would seem to be exactly what would please Mr. Trump. (And the workers would not come out well.
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Does Trump mean that he is on strike? While this would also be an incorrect use of the word, it's closer since he is striking from funding the government that he supposedly runs. God knows.
I think the pay of the entire White House staff and Congress needs to be similarly frozen during any government shutdown.
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A short-lived strike, we hope... you'd think that shutting down the country's airports would end the #TrumpShutdown in an hour.
Alas, the .01%ers who oversee the government fly charter aircraft-- no TSA security involved. They care not one whit, therefore neither does most of Congress.
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Members of Congress use commercial airlines also,by and large.
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@George Even charter planes have to have air traffic controllers. So they should strike too.
No, a strike isn’t the answer.
That would make even more people suffer, such as:
people who need to travel for medical care;
people who need to travel to be at a sister’s or brother’s wedding; people who need to reach the bedside of an ailing grandparent, uncle, aunt or adult child;
people who need to bury a parent;
people who want to take a honeymoon.
The ANSWER is to end the stupid shutdown NOW.
Any negotiations about other matters can come later, when 800,000 federal workers are no longer hostages of our sociopath President.
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@Jean
Well, Jean, who are you appealing to? It's easy to say but harder for those actually engaged in the hostage negotiations.
Should extortion be condoned? Should we negotiate with these "terrorists?"
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@k2isnothome
Of course extortion shouldn’t condoned!
The members of Congress should overwhelmingly vote to end the shutdown—enough votes to override a veto.
And McConnell should know that if he won’t allow the Senate vote, he will have at least 4 Republicans defect to Independent status for a few months, which throws control of Senate to Democrats.
McConnell would cave to save his powerful position.
It only requires 4 Senate Republicans, standing together to demand McConnell allow the Senate vote, or they defect for at least a while from Republican status.
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I am due to fly overseas this week with my entire family but I would gladly have our vacation ruined for the thousands of TSA workers to be paid what they are owed and not forced to work for nothing. Strike!!
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@David B
Just cancel your trip any way. Consumers can make an impact by not flying just as well as Air Traffic Controllers can by striking.
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@David B:
They CANNOT strike; it is prohibited by law.
see: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/shutdown-federal-workers-cant-strike/579793/
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@RLiss we need a strike to show the White House and Congress that the workers of this country are not play things to achieve the realization of bumper sticker policies. People do what the law prohibits all the time and to spur necessary societal change illegal actions are often necessary. A TSA strike would provoke Trump administration legal action which would be countered. To avoid the TSA workers bearing the brunt of this burden, I hope there would be a general strike by other workers in support.
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I'm genuinely baffled as to why Americans haven't been talking about a general strike until now. In France or Germany, a fraction of what Trump and the Republican "majority" have inflicted would have been met with mass civil disobedience and maybe worse.
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@Miles
I would say because it's not in the American Psyche. Consider that in the early 1930s people were starving, yet there was no general strike (or even revolution) at that time, like there was in Europe. The thread of Puritanism runs through our whole culture. That we have to suffer through things.
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@Miles See my comment, if it is allowed in. The answer to your bafflement is that Americans aren't what they used to be.
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Ever been to Mississippi Miles?
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I'm a federal employee and of course sympathetic to the hardship of working without timely pay. But invoking the 13th amendment and calling this slavery is shameful. It's untrue, and it's disrespectful of the incredible suffering that led to the amendment. We are employees who volunteered to perform our duties, and we can quit any time we like. Slaves did not volunteer for their positions and were unable to quit (unless you side with Kanye, I suppose), and they were not given any promise of eventual pay. So you need to drop that argument if you don't want to make the country's collective eyes roll at you.
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@RH
Excellent point! This is NOTHING like slavery, unless, of course, the editorial's authors are envisioning reparations.
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@RH@RH
You have a language problem.
“Employees” are not volunteers. They are people who expect to be paid for their work.
If this isn’t slavery, then you need to find some word for it, maybe something that splits the difference between “indentured servitude” and “slavery”.
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@Peter Hornbein. This would apply to the involuntary servitude phrase not slavery.
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Private companies are paying to keep Yellowstone open.
What makes the authors think airlines wouldn't take all necessary steps to provide security, and in turn prove once and for all how the TSA is not needed?
Go ahead, TSA. Make my day.
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@Charles
I think it's called profit; that, and the airlines are not in the security business.
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@Charles You can't round up tens of thousands of trained, certified, and security cleared temporary workers to replace the TSA workforce with the snap of your fingers.
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Ever try to collect from an airline?
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TSA and the air traffic controllers are essential- just not essential enough to pay. I need air traffic controllers to be on the job, but in this case the national airspace should be shut down. Let Trump drive himself in a Yugo to Mar-A-Lago, without the Secret Service.
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