Thousands of TSA Workers Work Without Pay Over Holidays

Thanks to the ongoing government shutdown, thousands of Transportation Security Administration officers are working through the holidays—the busiest travel season of the year—without any pay. They’ll only be paid retroactively once the government shutdown comes to a close and normal operations resume.

Due to the government shutdown, some of the country’s busiest workers aren’t getting paid this holiday season. The shutdown began last week over arguments regarding allocation of government funds for the proposed border wall. It is expected to continue into the new year, until the new Congress takes their positions in January.

Unfortunately for the roughly 400,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, that means working through the holidays without getting paid. The TSA will remain fully staffed throughout the government shutdown, U.S. News and World Report said. And although the workers typically receive the pay for time they worked once a government shutdown is over, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told TIME that there’s not really any guarantee that they will actually get paid.

The TSA expects this to be a record-breaking holiday travel season. About 2.3 million travelers will be heading through airports every day, with about 41 million going through the TSA checkpoints between December 19 and January 5. Compared to last year, that’s a 6 percent increase in passenger volume.

For the TSA agents’ parts, they seem to be handling the lack of pay with grace. Travelers have overall been reporting that the agents all seem to be pretty friendly, including on Christmas day.

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