Lingering federal shutdown may cost airport TSA workers

The paychecks that Transportation Security Administration workers at O’Hare International and Midway airports getMonday will be their last until the federal partial government shutdown ends, a union spokesman said.

Security workers remain on the job at airports even though the Department ofHomeland Security isn’t funded while President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats fight over the shutdown and border security. Workers will be paid Monday for the pay period before the shutdown began, but they won’t be paid in two weeks for thework they’re doing now unless a deal is cut to end the shutdown.

“They are now uncertain how long they will have to stretch it,” Dorothy James, an American Federation of Government Employees vice president, said in a statement. “Many federalemployees livepaycheck to paycheck.”

“Federal Employees impacted by the shutdown are not guaranteed to be paid for time that they work or are furloughed during the shutdown,” she said. “In prior shutdowns, Congress agreed to back pay, but there is no such guarantee now.”

Hours after a new class of lawmakers was sworn in Thursday, House Democrats advanced bills that would reopen the government but would not pay for the border wall Trump wants. The president, meanwhile, showed no signs of giving in.

“The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump tweeted. “The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of the achievements of ‘Trump,’ so they are going all out on the desperately neededWall and Border Security — and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!”

The Washington Post reported Friday that top Trump appointees would get raises of about $10,000 per year Saturday unless Congress acts to block them.

And despite the shutdown, most people won’t see effects in their daily lives.

Packages continue to move through the mail. Courts are open. Many federal agencies’ spending bills already have been approved, so they aren’t in danger of closing. Others keep essential workers, such as airport security personnel, on the job.

“In terms of security screenings, the officers screening at the check- points will continue to work through the shutdown,” TSA regional spokesman Mark Howell said last month.

The shutdown did, however, have a small cameo in Chicago on Thursday.

In sending reporters a federal criminal complaint charging Ald. Edward Burke with attempted extortion, U.S. Attorney John Lausch’s spokesman Joseph Fitzpatrick wrote: “Due to the lapse in federal government appropriations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is not separately providing case information to the media or updating its website and social media accounts. The office’s essential law enforcement functions, including criminal prosecutions, will continue.”