Being a civil servant carries some unique obligations and benefits that people in the private sector do not enjoy. If these obligations are deal breakers for some civil servants then they can resign and move on.

TSA employees should realize how important national security is so I suspect they have a good understanding of the dynamics in play.

They are not working without pay. They are working under a delayed pay schedule.

There's nothing sacred about a pay schedule. People get paid daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, at the completion of a contract.

They are actually more secure than non-essential federal employees, because TSOs are guaranteed all back pay. Non-essential federal workers have to wait for Congress to say they can have their back pay. They've never been denied back pay before, but there is no guarantee if Congress doesn't act.

There are 420,000 'essential' workers currently on furlough. 55,000 are TSA - why aren't we hearing about non-TSA workers calling in sick in large numbers?

Worth remembering: in most states, furloughed government employees can file for unemployment to tide them over. They will have to pay it back when they receive their back pay.

I would say that working under a disrupted pay schedule with delayed payment is a form of working without pay or of working for reduced pay without employee consent. If this happened in the private sector, you can bet there should be some heads rolling, and there would be more heads rolling if it involved federal employment taxes deliberately not getting paid in a timely manner.

TSA employees and other groups of shutdown-impacted federal government employees who are on the lower end of the wage/salary scale are probably also having increased levels of workplace absenteeism. As much as I dislike a bunch of the things TSA employees do, I do think that employees should be paid on time by all employers for the work employees perform and that an employer-employee labor contract should include getting paid on time for the regular work being done.

Unemployment compensation in the US (at least in most of the areas most heavily impacted by the shutdown) is most often inadequate for a family of four to live comfortably without seriously dipping into savings or even debt financing.

As much as I dislike the TSA as an organization and am a critic of a lot of its employees for doing what they do under color of authority too, I think it's important that employees can rely upon employers paying them on time and in full for as long as they are fully employed. Even when it comes to DHS/TSA.

A lot of childcare cost arrangements are pay-as-you-go/use or include elements of such, and even the more formal arrangements often have elements that provide for being able to get out of obligation to retain services in the event of what some may term to be "life events".

Not only does it cost to retain childcare services, it also costs to get the child and hired childcare services co-located. You don't need to be a parent to understand this stuff, just understand economics properly, right? :D When in financial distress, you try to cut your loses and variable costs even with fixed and sunk costs being part of the picture.

Child care is a bit tangential to this discussion but I would bet in most cases if a couple have kids in daycare they probably both work. If they are forced to pull a kid from daycare then I would think someone is having to not work to care for the child.

I have little regard for TSA as an agency but its employees still have bills to pay and have to put food on the table. Maybe AFGE can use some of its funds to help represented workers get by.

Today is the first day the paychecks weren't issued.

Up until a day or so ago (not sure when payroll cutoff is), it was still possible that Congress would come to some sort of resolution and the checks would have been issued today.

Why were people already calling in sick?

Do you understand what living paycheck to paycheck means? Clearly, many posters here do not understand how a majority of the country lives.

Joe TSA makes $16 an hour. Joe was expecting a $1,200 check today. He was going to use that check to pay his car payment, buy gas, pay the heating bill, make the minimum on the credit card, and go grocery shopping.

Joe got a $0 check. Most of those bills cannot be deferred.

Joe was smart. He took off TSA work Monday and Wednesday to do 12 hour Uber shifts.

Uber sent Joe a check for $270 and now he can pay off some of those bills.

Be like Joe. Be smart.

I would think so they would have some income today.

Yes, I've lived paycheck to paycheck, and I've worked as an 'essential' worker under both 'threat' and 'bonus' situations - and declined a promotion to an 'essential' job precisely because I'm risk averse and as unlikely as a crisis was, it wasn't fair to my potential co-workers or to me and my family for me to commit to something I wouldn't honor.

One BIG problem with your story: today is the first day Joe didn't get a check.

When Joe called in sick Monday and Wednesday (and put my security at risk), he had no way of knowing that the shutdown would not be resolved and he wouldn't get a check today.

I don't want to go OT or stray into OMNI territory. I know someone who was working for the VA and applied to TSA. She was turned down two years ago because of bad credit - you can't have someone subject to financial pressures and possible blackmail in a job like that.

I think that's a generally good idea - people with bad credit (or living paycheck to paycheck and panicking days before payday because they're going to run short, be evicted, etc.) probably shouldn't be in critical jobs like aviation security.

I don't feel sorry for any individuals who were pre-emptively calling sick before they even knew if they wouldn't get a check today. They were compromising my security and I have done nothing to them except contribute to their salary and very generous benefits. Their beef is with Congress (and themselves for agreeing to be an 'essential' employee when they weren't prepared to do so). They need to stop taking their anger and frustration out on innocent pax like me.

I wonder how many of the 55,000 have bothered to sit down and call their elected representatives? How many have sent an email to their elected representatives? 55,000 emails and phone calls is more likely to get action than sick-outs.

You just called yourself risk-averse, but don't understand someone not wanting to risk their home, car, etc. payments betting that this Confess and this...guy... were going to get it sorted by today? Maybe they read the news and can add up 2 plus 2. And it turns out they were right.

FYI...not personally inconvenienced at all and hardly the definition of a frequent flyer in recent months. Purely a spectator at the moment. ;)

Better to lose everything (because one paycheck was late) than to lose one's life in a plane because security was compromised by employees who didn't honor the commitment they made when they accepted a critical role in our nation's security.

You continue to repeat this ridiculous nonsense.

If there is not enough staff, they close a checkpoint, not wave everyone through.

That creates long lines, which is an inconvenience. Nothing more.

If it's life and death critical, either pay them enough that missing paychecks won't throw them into a tailspin or create an exemption from shutdown consequences. Or both.
The way the government treats these people puts
​​​​​the lie to your characterization of their role in national security. At least as far as the government is concerned.
(Oh.. and that second "you" in my earlier post was the general you. Not specifically you, chollie. ;))