Airports Promote Food Banks, Gift Cards for Unpaid TSA Workers as Spring Break Begins

Travelers passing through Denver International Airport are being urged to drop $10 and $20 gift cards into special bins to help out Transportation Safety Administration workers who are going unpaid because of the partial government shutdown.At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, passengers are advised on X that they can drop off donations of non-perishable food, hygiene items, and diapers for the federal employees at the airport’s SEA Conference Center daily between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.Similar “Food & Essentials Pantries” have been established at major airports in Las Vegas, Portland and Salt Lake City, as the nation braces for long airport security delays during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year, with many major universities heading into Spring Break.Other efforts to help the TSA workers, who are missing their first full paycheck this weekend, include offers of free or discounted meals at local restaurants and businesses in many airport cities. The creation of GoFundMe pages has also been reported, although federal law regarding gifts to federal workers makes those legally risky.“We are calling on the public, our passengers, and other airport employees to donate grocery store and gas gift cards to help make this moment a little more bearable for these federal workers,” says a press release announcing the donation drive in Denver. “Ideal gift cards include those stores that sell both gas and food.”For the estimated 50,000 TSA workers who also labored without pay during last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, the current impasse is even more galling because this time, only agencies under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella are affected, leaving most government functions unaffected.“It seems like nobody even knows we’re not getting paid this time,” a TSA officer in Boise, Idaho, Rachel Burnett-Parker, told the Huffington Post. She said she has pulled her 1-year-old out of day care to save money while other agents “talk about how they’re trying to do Uber Eats and stuff like that to make enough money to get by.”About 95 percent of all TSA workers are classified as “essential” and required to continue working, even though they will not receive their pay until Democrats and Republicans in Congress resolve a dispute over proposed immigration enforcement reforms.With starting salaries for most TSA workers ranging between $40,000 and $55,000, “numerous employees have reported to me that their bank accounts are at zero or negative,” the secretary-treasurer of the union division representing the workers, Johnny Jones, told USA Today.“There is a significant part of the workforce that is working other duties outside of their duties at TSA,” he added. “I hope they’re not panhandling at the airport. There are people who are staying at the airport, not leaving; they’re sleeping in their car to conserve gas, consolidating their work life.”During testimony to a House Appropriations subcommittee in early February, a senior TSA official, Ha Nguyen McNeill, said many employees “were subject to late fees and penalties for missed bill payments, eviction notices, loss of long-term childcare arrangements, and more” during the previous shutdown.“Some are just now recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown, while many are still reeling from it,” he said.The hardship is also being visited upon the traveling public, with long delays reported at major airports because of high numbers of TSA workers failing to show up for work. Passengers are being urged to arrive at some airports as much as three to four hours early for flights during the Spring Break period peaking Sunday.Internal TSA statistics show that at least 300 TSA workers have quit their jobs since the current shutdown began while unscheduled absences have more than doubled, CBS News reported this week.Some of the highest sick-out rates have been reported at Houston’s Hobby Airport, where 53 percent of agents failed to show up last Sunday, and at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the absence rate has averaged 21 percent since the shutdown began.

Airports Promote Food Banks, Gift Cards for Unpaid TSA Workers as Spring Break Begins

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