Don't focus on your views of the TSA as that is a separate policy issue and perhaps OMNI territory. Air traffic controllers face the same problem and they are a lot better paid, have a lot more skills and there are few, if any, who argue against the need for them (at least in the near to mid-term).
Instead, focus on the question of whether it is fair to require someone to work without pay. That is where the comparisons to private sector layoffs fall apart. One can work for 40 years at a plant, the company becomes insolvent and is dissolved and all one gets is a priority claim in bankruptcy on the last week's wages. That may be terrible, but nobody shows up and tells those workers that they must continue to work and support a family but also not be paid.