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TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home
- jonawesomegreen 8y agoNon-paywall link: http://archive.is/RPAmu http://archive.is/RPAmu
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Canada 8y ago"they’re putting their lives on the line" Yeah right, my heros.
- kordlessagain 8y agoIf that is true, then technically anyone at the airport is putting their lives on the line. No one life is worth more than another, so arguing they are putting their lives on the line is an attempt at controlling the conversation. That said, the airport is a TSA run security theater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater. They know this, of course, but must act otherwise.
- Canada 8y agoI was being sarsactic. The TSA is nonsense and a huge waste of money not to mention time.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kurczynski 8y agoShe said her fellow officers are “out there working, they’re putting their lives on the line. We took that oath when we got hired here, and we’re not even getting what we deserve.” All budgeting problems aside, how do TSA officers put their lives on the line?
- maccio92 8y agoYou don't think screening for bombs has any potential to be dangerous?
- ed312 8y agoAt what scale? I would argue a taxi driver has a more dangerous job (in terms of probability of injury).
- kurczynski 8y agoI believe I read that taxi drivers have a very high fatality rate in the United States, but definitely higher than law enforcement.
- cobookman 8y agohttps://www.tsa.gov/blog/2018/01/29/tsa-year-review-record-amount-firearms-discovered-2017 https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2018/01/29/tsa-year-review-record-a...
- dmix 8y ago> A realistic replica suicide vest and claymore mine were discovered in a traveler’s checked bag at the El Paso International Airport (ELP). The traveler was an explosives ordnance disposal contractor and the items were used as training aids. I can't believe he'd be dumb enough to try to bring this on an airplane. It'd make way more sense to ship them to w/e destination.
- kingnothing 8y agoThe TSA has never found a bomb.
- ryanbertrand 8y agoI wonder if Uber/Lyft has seen a jump in driver sign ups since the shutdown. Not sure how fast their onboarding is...but probably faster than trying to find a new job / temp job?
- stefanmichael 8y agoI would imagine faster, but certainly more reliable depending on your skill set.
- freehunter 8y agoA friend of mine works for Shipt and she says there's been huge amounts of new signups in the past two weeks.
- cascom 8y agoWhile i don't envy their position - i think describing it as working without pay as a little disingenuous - while they have yet to be paid for the work they are performing, does anyone really believe that they are not going to be paid for their work down the road?
- walru 8y agoYes, they will receive back pay, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck.
- cascom 8y agothis is my point - don't you think it a salient fact to inform the reader that these employees will in fact be paid for the work they perform....at some point
- drdeadringer 8y ago... at some point where they may be homeless because of missing rent because of living paycheck to paycheck and the first $0-by-government-shutdown paychecks have already been sent out.
- davinic 8y agoThe point is that they won't be repaid for the costs incurred from being without any income for months. These include late fees, high interest rates on loans, long-term damage to their credit, etc.
- pfranz 8y agoI heard workers sued the government over late fees and other personal penalties workers had from the 2013 shutdown. They won in court last month, but it took 6 years.
- wvenable 8y agoJust imagine how many payday loans are currently being processes right now at crazy interest rates. The true fallout might actually occur long after this shutdown is over.
- excalibur 8y ago> “The American people need to know that their air travel remains safe,” Markey wrote. I think the American people have been lied to enough.
- anth_anm 8y agoAir travel is safe, the lie is that we need the TSA and the security theatre.
- InitialLastName 8y agoAir travel is probably safer with the TSA in full operation, but only because there is a lower proportion of angry and tired people who have been waiting in line for 4 hours around.
- excalibur 8y agoSen. Markey wasn't referring to the TSA, at least not primarily. He was much more concerned about air traffic control and safety inspections, as we should all be.
- gammateam 8y agoTime to get a more useful minimum wage job. TSA is just an occasional contractor enrichment scheme that senator's can't roll back just in case something happens.
- rchaud 8y agoTSA staff going from poorly paid to not paid at all certainly doesn't open the door for any perverse incentives for extra cash. No sir-ee.
- goobynight 8y agoPerfect time to end this thinly veiled jobs program.
- empath75 8y agoWhile I'm not a fan of the TSA as an institution, I'm certainly sympathetic to them being in a situation of essentially unpaid servitude. Nobody deserves that, no matter how shitty or unimportant you think their job is.
- marcrosoft 8y ago> essentially unpaid servitude According to Webster: "a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life" This is false. They have an option (leave) and can execute on it.
- xeromal 8y agoYeah, it's more like being downgraded to an internship
- Daishiman 8y agoMan the world you must live in where the option to be unemployed for months is a trivial thing for everyone involved.
- marcrosoft 8y agoMonths of unemployment != servitude. There is an option.
- beatgammit 8y agoWell, I've heard that in many areas, banks are giving out zero interest loans to government employees in the amount of their regular paycheck. So, unless these people don't know about these programs, they are still getting paid, and the loans will be repaid when the shutdown ends.
- cordonbleu 8y agoI think we are in a pants down situation, thus vulnerable. if any more opportune time exists for a sudden attack out of left field, i cant think of it right now, but we as a whole should be in a mindset of being responsible for the often unseen areas of responsibility, that good government usually addresses.
- dfischer 8y agoTSA is one of the biggest jokes in government economic rigging. Anecdotally, they're even more grumpy than the DMV. Yeah I've heard the adage the DMV is supposed to be slow as a control theory. Bottom line is the TSA doesn't provide the value it costs.
- beatgammit 8y agoDMV in my area is quite pleasant. Then again, the TSA is also quite pleasant (in demeanor, not the inconvenience), so maybe I'm just in a pleasant area. I really wish we could just abolish the TSA and let the airlines and their insurance work it out with the airports. Things were way better before 9/11 when I didn't feel like a criminal when I need to ride on an airplane.
- pram 8y agoTSA is a case where the government nationalized a thing (airport security) that was sufficiently handled by the private sector. A centralized regulating agency for transportation security makes sense, but heres what I don't get: what was the argument for also creating/hiring a literal army of guards to replace the private force that existed before? It seems unprecedented considering everything else in the post-Reagan political ideology. It was a massive and invasive expansion of Federal policing power, and it seemingly comes under no real scrutiny or opposition (beyond everyone completely hating it)
- fein 8y agoIt's just a government jobs program, nothing more. Just a tool to bolster bigger budgets and higher employment numbers.
- pfranz 8y agoI have little sympathy for the TSA as an organization. I also have no idea if the effectiveness is any better or worse, but I feel like the policies and protocols are more consistent between airports or even terminals than they were before they took over. (although, the TSA seemed to struggle with this during the first decade or so of their existence and it's still an ongoing problem...just much smaller). As airport security concerns grew after 9/11 more demands were made of travelers with vary inconsistent application. At least now if I go to most airports I know what the security protocol will be. If I have PreCheck, that is also pretty consistent with how its applied. Given that, I don't see any reason they can't just be standards or policies that private security would adhere to. I'm sure there's a boondoggle story behind it, but I thought some airports had tried replacing TSA with middling success?
- Balgair 8y ago> TSA is a case where the government nationalized a thing (airport security) that was sufficiently handled by the private sector. SFO is still private. Their version of security is not the TSA, they are Covenant Aviation Security. [0] [0] http://covenantsecurity.com/careers.html http://covenantsecurity.com/careers.html
- jbob2000 8y ago
- rwoodley 8y agoNothing like a bunch of privileged computer geeks laughing at the 'help' that isn't getting paid. And mocking them because they feel insecure dealing with all the hostility every day on the job.
- smartbit 8y agohttps://outline.com/Kp9kvE https://outline.com/Kp9kvE
- btbuildem 8y agoATC staff, inspectors -- I get that, they're useful TSA?? They're not doing anything of value, for the most part. Three quarters of them could probably be let go. We're not losing much here.
- chris_mc 8y agoThat might be true, but it's still fucked up to not pay them, and you guys are being crass by saying this stuff right now. They're people just like you and I, and the TSA front line employees aren't the problem, it's the security theatre that's become the norm that's the issue. Please consider separating your hate for the TSA from the individuals doing their jobs each day.
- spdustin 8y agoRegardless of one's opinion of the efficacy of the TSA, the fact remains travelers must endure higher wait times when a significant fraction of scheduled-to-be-working TSA officers are not on the job.
- pjc50 8y agoThe system whereby the government is "shutdown", forcing all its employees to become creditors, but at the same time everyone is expected to treat it as mere theatre where they eventually will be paid, is absurd. If it was France everyone involved would be in the street throwing road flares at the police. They should at the very least be starting to talk up the threat of going on strike - or action short of a strike. (Also, shutdowns are becoming increasingly frequent. If this continues, maybe one day it won't come out of the shutdown ...)
- empath75 8y agoI don’t imagine we’ll be out of this one as long as trump is in office.
- otterley 8y agoThis is a bit puzzling to me. Isn’t TSA paid for by user fees? If so, why are they being impacted by the Government’s failure to pass a budget? https://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/security-fees https://www.tsa.gov/for-industry/security-fees
- kristianp 8y agoI'd like to know how TSA employees are getting by and paying the mortgage or rent, considering that most people have less than $500 in savings. People saying that they've heard of banks giving out zero-interest loans in some areas is only anecdotal.
- thefringthing 8y agoIf this happened in France (or many other places) there would be strikes, barricades, burning towers of tires, the whole works. American workers are incredibly timid.