The US government shutdown has now entered its fourth week with no clear end in sight. Air traffic controllers have now become the latest casualties of the ongoing chaos — set to miss their first biweekly paycheck for work performed during the first half of this month. Many federal workers have now turned to gig employment as a way to manage the financial crunch.
Air traffic controller Jack Criss began clearing both takeoffs and takeout orders earlier this month — adding a DoorDash delivery gig to his already hectic schedule. The single parent told NBC News that he was now spending weekdays manning the skies from 8 am to 4 pm before driving for DoorDash until he had to pick his daughter up from basketball practice. Criss said he was also clocking eight or nine hours driving for the company on the weekends. He also told CBS News that he had now tapped into retirement funds and taken out a high-interest, short-term loan to ensure there was enough cash if the shutdown persisted.
“It’s been incredibly difficult. You can feel the tension, and it’s heavy…and it hurts. It is hard enough just going to work. Now, when you add…not getting paid, that’s when you just like multiply the level of pressure. And you know, air traffic is a safety sensitive position. The margin of error is zero. So if you think about it as pressure on top of pressure, when you don’t know exactly when you’ll get paid based on politics,” he told CBS Saturday Mornings.
National Air Traffic Controllers Association president Nick Daniels told NBC News that “hundreds” of his union members have taken up side gigs amid the shutdown. He added that the number was “growing rapidly” without divulging details. Members of the Trump cabinet appear to be aware of the issue but largely unbothered by the growing hardships triggered by the shutdown.
“They have to make choices, and the choices they’re making is to take a second job. Well, I don’t want my air traffic controllers to take a second job. I want them to do one job,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a Thursday news conference alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Is Trump using shutdown to take more power?
The ongoing shutdown — rivalled only by the 35-day shutdown during the first Donald Trump presidency — has rapidly devolved into a bizarre new way for the POTUS to exercise command over the government. The Department of Defense has tapped research and development funds to pay active-duty service members. Trump has tried to initiate layoffs for more than 4,000 federal employees who are mostly working in areas perceived to be Democratic priorities.
During a luncheon at the White House with GOP senators this week, Trump introduced his budget director Russ Vought as “Darth Vader” and bragged how he is “cutting Democrat priorities and they’re never going to get them back.”
Republican president has used the funding lapse to punish Democrats, tried to lay off thousands of federal workers and seized on the vacuum left by Congress to reconfigure the federal budget for his priorities.
“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” Trump posted on his social media platform at the outset of the shutdown.
