'That first $0 paycheck has a big impact': Concern for air traffic controllers is mounting

The ongoing federal government shutdown has led to flight delays at some airports across the country, as air traffic controllers have called in sick.

Their union is telling members not to do anything that would reflect badly on the profession, but as Joel Ortiz explains, not getting paid means some controllers cannot come to work.

Ortiz is the western Pacific regional vice president for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. The Show talked to him about what he’s hearing from his members.

Full conversation

JOEL ORTIZ: There's a lot of concern, a lot of fear. I think concern is the biggest thing right now. We have a lot of controllers that are new into the agency that have been in the AC, you know, less than four or five years.

When you haven't been in the AC that long, In some cases, they're not certified. In some cases, you know, they're starting off in the lower part of the pay base that we have. They're starting their families. They maybe got their first home. And, you know, when you first start any career, you don't have a big savings readily available to rely upon for an undisclosed amount of time.

You know, it would be one thing if they knew they were going to miss one paycheck. But we'll get that paycheck back to you two weeks later. They have no idea when they're going to get paid. And for example, those controllers that have children that are in childcare, some of them are having to miss work because the childcare provider isn't taking IOUs.

And we're getting told, we’re going to get IOUs. But the phone company, the water company, the gas company, the mortgage company, the childcare providers, we got to put gas in the car. That doesn't work on IOUs. You need to have money to pay for those things, and they're concerned about how long they're gonna have to go without the certainty of knowing that they're going to get paid.

MARK BRODIE: I'm wondering if the concern about pay has maybe even increased this week. As you know, your members miss their first paycheck. 

ORTIZ: It has. So they missed two days of their pay period. And for a lot of them, that two days was a big difference. You know, I was at the Oklahoma City Academy yesterday, talking to all the new controllers who are going to be graduating, you know, from the academy going into the field. Their fear is as it was yesterday, they're only funded until Oct. 27. And then on Oct. 27, what ends up happening is they get sent home.

So where they've gone through maybe half or three quarters of the academy in the curriculum, if there is no more funding for the academy, their training stops, they get sent home and they get told probably in about six months that they can come back because all the classdates already have students lined up to go to them months in advance, so they're not going to bump the other students that are already scheduled to go to the academy for them.

So their concern is they put in a reasonable amount of time at the academy to become an air traffic controller. It's going to stop. They're going to have to go home, and they have to start the process all over again.

BRODIE: And that's probably not all that helpful in an industry that is not, you know, overflowing with people doing this job, right. It's not like your staffing is where it really needs to be anyway, right? 

ORTIZ: That is correct. We had that 35-day shutdown. You don't really know the impact it has until years later, because the process to make an air traffic controller takes years. There is attrition that happens every step of the way. And you don't really know who would have been a certified controller at the end of those processes until you go through them.

And when you stop 35 days worth of classes, you have a void in staffing that you should otherwise not have.

BRODIE: So I know that the union is encouraging its members not to, for example, call in sick or, you know, do any kind of action, you know, sort of as a protest to, to having to go into work and not get paid.

But you also alluded to the fact that some members may have to take time off because they can't pay for childcare, for that kind of thing right now. 

I'm wondering what you're seeing and what you're hearing from your members in terms of their ability and, maybe to some extent, even their desire to go to work while they know they're not going to get paid.

ORTIZ: So it's definitely a distraction. Calling in sick deliberately to slow the system down or to cause delays or to cause, you know, cancellations. It's called a job action, and that is illegal. So we remind them, like, even though you may want to do these things, we don't do these things.

And you know, what we don't want to do is for the flying public. You know, they rely on the air traffic controllers to be at work so they can get to point A to point B. We need to be reliable to the National Airspace System. So the flying public, you know, has a good choice there to rely on to know that the professionals are going to show up every day. They're going to remain vigilant. They're going to do their jobs.

But to your point, I mean, they got a partial paycheck last Friday, but on Oct. 28, when that next payday comes and it's $0. There are some people that do have to make decisions, not because they're bad employees, not because they willfully want to do something that's going to put their careers in jeopardy.

But because if you don't have money to pay for gas. You don't have any more credit on the credit cards because you put the rent on the credit card. You put the gas on the credit card, you put the electricity on the credit card you're going to run out of, you know, lines of credit to make it work.

So that first $0 paycheck has a big impact on the controllers.

BRODIE: Well, so you mentioned earlier on how so many of your members are, you know, a few years into the job, which means that they were not around during the last shutdown.

I wonder if it would help in some way if you had some percentage of air traffic controllers who had kind of been through this, and it doesn't make it any easier in the moment, but just sort of knowing that there will be an end to it. And having been through that.

I wonder if that's adding to sort of the concern and the anxiety among your members that they haven't been through this before.

ORTIZ: Oh, certainly. I mean, I would say probably, and I'm guesstimating, but I'm not, I'm, I'm in the ballpark. I would say 35% of our workforce was not around in 2019 for that shutdown. Fortunately or unfortunately I've been in this role for a little while, and I've been around through all five of the shutdowns as a controller.

And to your point, they do inevitably eventually end. But this one just feels a little different than previous shutdowns.

BRODIE: How so?

ORTIZ: The partisan politics seem to have a bigger role in this. And you know, throughout the course of all the other shutdowns, you would feel like at least on a daily basis, there were conversations that were occurring.

You know, generally speaking, it feels like both sides have kind of held the line and there's really no movement that's been made. And we're on the third week, and I don't have any indication that this is close to ending.

BRODIE: Well so, you mentioned that you've been around for all of these, and obviously, you know, you are a member of this community. 

How are you doing not getting paid?

ORTIZ: You know, I've been doing this for 25 years. So fortunately for me, I've had the ability to endure some of these shutdowns before. And, it doesn't hurt me, inevitably it will, but I can go one or two paychecks and I'll be okay.

But once the third and forth coming, then you're wondering when is it going to end? So I'm OK, right now. But again, I've been in control for 25 years.