Air traffic controllers are going without pay – but the bills don’t stoppublished at 11:29 GMT
“Like many families, we didn’t plan for a shutdown. Yet the bills don’t stop.”
These are the words of one air traffic controller who has had to take up a second job working for a food delivery service to supplement his income – or lack of – during the government shutdown.
Writing recently for MSNBC, the single father says he’s working this job after his daily air traffic shift ends and is “sleeping only two hours most nights”.
He’s one of thousands of air traffic controllers who have now been working without pay for two weeks. Yesterday, many received paychecks in the amount of $0.
The shutdown has exacerbated an already-strained body of federal workers. While some air traffic controllers are working without pay, others are furloughed altogether.
Some are looking for second jobs, like the man above, while others are increasingly calling in sick.
“The controllers are wearing thin,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News on Sunday.
Nick Daniels, the president of the labour union representing more than 20,000 aviation workers, put the situation into stark terms on Wednesday.
“Air traffic controllers are texting: ‘I don’t even have enough money to put gas in my car to come to work,’” he told CNN.
“We base what we do day in and day out on predictability,” he said. “Right now there is no predictability.”