Atlanta TSA employees begin receiving back pay. Future pay remains uncertain.
Some Atlanta Transportation Security Administration officers have begun receiving promised back pay for their six weeks of unpaid work.
George Borek, an American Federation of Government Employees union steward representing Atlanta area TSA employees, confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday he has received a paycheck for most of his recent hours.
But there are about 30 hours missing, he said.
“I know a lot of other officers are missing a lot more. There’s going to be a need for a lot of corrections,” he said.
“I know people that worked overtime … but haven’t received the overtime,” he said. That isn’t likely to incentivize them to continue to do so, he noted.
Hydrick Thomas, the national AFGE union’s TSA Council 100 president, said in a statement Monday that members are “grateful to receive some back pay today.”
“But many of our members have seen bills pile up, interest and late fees add up, cars repossessed, and families thrown into disarray because Congress has failed to do their jobs,” he wrote.
Officers have only been paid for two of the three missing pay periods, the union says, and many have issues with inaccurate pay amounts, tax withholdings and missing overtime.
“Over 500 of our colleagues had to quit, and those who couldn’t make it to work have disciplinary actions looming over their heads. Back pay alone does not fix those problems,” Thomas said.
AFGE also said it’s concerned about new agency guidance issued over the weekend, which said officers who fail to show up to work can no longer claim furlough status. This makes officers vulnerable to disciplinary action if they continue to call out during the shutdown for lack of child care or transportation, the union argues.
In a prior statement, acting Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis previously confirmed to the AJC that TSA officers will “begin seeing paychecks as early as Monday, March 30.”
Although this is welcome news for officers who have been working without pay for six weeks — caught in the crossfire of a Congressional stalemate over immigration funding — the question of whether they will receive future paychecks remains unclear.
“If you read the president’s executive order it says ‘accrued.’ It does not say going forward,” Borek noted.
“We want stability. We as TSA officers, we don’t have stability. We have nothing,” he said.
“I’m glad we got some money, but it still doesn’t resolve the problem. People are still in debt, they have backed up bills.”
A Friday memo from President Donald Trump directed the secretary of Homeland Security “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown.”
The larger issue of TSA funding, AFGE says, remains at the feet of Congress.
“Today, AFGE members are continuing to show up, because we are proud of the critical work we do. Today, Congress is continuing their vacation, while their work goes undone,” Thomas added.
Early Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to fund most of DHS, except for certain immigration enforcement functions.
Democrats have been pushing for significant changes to immigration enforcement practices after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota.
The House late Friday passed a bill requiring 60 days of funding for all of DHS, including immigration enforcement.
That bill now returns to the Senate, where Democrats have pledged to block it.
Republicans in the Senate did not take a procedural opportunity Monday to try to push that bill through, meaning any compromise is unlikely to happen until lawmakers return from a two-week recess.
In the meantime, Georgia’s K-12 spring break and a possible surge in travel crowds loom next week.
— Staff writer Dylan Jackson contributed to this report.
About the Author
As a business reporter, Emma Hurt leads coverage of the Atlanta airport, Delta Air Lines, UPS, Norfolk Southern and other travel and logistics companies. Prior to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution she worked as an editor and Atlanta reporter for Axios, a politics reporter for WABE News and a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
