The ongoing government he shutdown is putting a damper on Monday's International Day of the Air Traffic Controller. Instead of a day to celebrate the 24/7 nature of their jobs, union leaders are now providing members with ways to survive the shutdown.
Controllers are working now, but they're not getting paid. There are also threats from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to show up or else.
The upcoming holiday season is also fast approaching and controllers may have to continue working without getting a paycheck.
Nick Daniels, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, spoke with Scripps News about the current impasse.
"NATCA advocates for every excepted employee, every federal employee that's out there, to be paid no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the shutdown. And we're ensuring that our message is loud and clear. There's one way to do it. And that's by ending this shutdown and putting everybody back to work and having them compensated for the work they do day in and day out, especially air traffic controllers."
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Flying remains safe, Daniels says. "But it's safe because of the hard working men and women that do this job 6 days a week, 60 hours in that week, only 4 days off in a month. They're operating with the lowest staffing that we've had — only 10,800 controllers where there should be 14,633, they're working on unreliable equipment and they show up every single day to do an amazing job."
"But what we have to do is ensure that they're protected as well," Daniels said. "And this risk is building in the system where their focus — where they have to be 100%, 100% of the time — their focus is shifting to 'how do I survive next week when I don't have any money? Do I put it on credit cards? Do I have to try to take a side job?' And that's completely unacceptable, not only for the air traffic controllers, but for the flying public as well."
Watch the full interview with Daniels in the video above.
