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Air traffic controllers receive $0 paychecks as government shutdown stretches
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Lol there's no way I'd continue working. No pay? Guess the planes stay grounded. Tough titties.
When the ATC union attempted to strike under Reagan, he fired them all in retribution and removed their ability to collect their benefits from their service.
I would imagine this admin would do even shittier things to these people who work in conditions they don't deserve (Why the fuck is their budget not mandatory spending, Congress? Why have their facilities not have renovations approved for fucking decades?).
Who's he going to replace them with? There is already s massive shortage of ATCs with most airports below FAA guidelines prior to the shutdown.
I think when Reagan fired all the ATCs, they were temporarily replaced with military trained ones until they could hire and train replacements. But that was a time when there was significantly less air travel and less ATCs than we have and need now.
So maybe they might have the military take over some positions? There's no way they could fill every single airport and I doubt that they even have the same training and skill set as commercial ATCs.
But having a military take over of airports is the kind of dictator move that probably makes someone like trump salivate.
This actually isn't true, at least the "have" part.
There were ~14k ATC controllers employed before the Reagan strike. There are currently ~10,600 controllers. The required staffing level to fully staff all 313 facilities is ~14,600.
Interesting those numbers have largely not changed in 40 years. Honestly I was guessing that we needed way more ATCs since the strike because air traffic has increased so much since then. Do you happen to know why the need for ATCs hasn't really changed?
GPS, modern navigation and logistics technology is the biggest reason.
there apparently is less now, 4000 down from before.
The military is also not currently being paid.
But at least they can rely on the billionaires to throw them a bone, since they are the ones benefiting most from this arrangement. There was one just the other day that dropped $130 million just to keep the troops out of the red. I don't know if there are any billionaires with a soft spot for ATCs but i suppose we'll find out soon enough!
100$/soldier isnt exactly going to keep them out of the red. its just a bribe to trump.
That money'll go a lot farther if it's only covering ~10,000 ATCs rather than ~1,000,000 service members.
Well, then i guess we might just see another billionaire bailout. This is the stupidest fucking timeline
I mean, they should be the ones funding this stuff all the time (it should just be involuntary on their part)
Fully agreed. The billions they're hoarding is money that should be funding all the things the taxpayers need--the basics like food/shelter/healthcare... Things that countries with much smaller GDPs don't have nearly as much difficulty figuring out.
I also think it's worth noting that the states receiving the most SNAP benefits include New York, California, and Texas--it's very possible Trump is doing this especially because it stands to affect 2 states he's not entirely thrilled with. Across the country, 42 million people have been relying on the SNAP benefits they were receiving, which average approx $190/mo per person. Where are the billionaires lining up to help these folks in need?
Texas is thier sacrificial lamb and collateral damage they are willing to do.
they cant since the military also needs thier own ATCs to manage thier airfields and bases.
That was a problem in Reagan's time too. It didn't stop him firing them all. Air traffic control in the USA is still suffering the after effects of Reagan's action, as the generation that trained up to replace the workers he fired is all retiring at the same time.
nobody since, you cant exactly hire scabs on the fly, plus it take a couple years to train a atc, and source them from a program to do it. its a long grueling process, plus its super competitive, which is a natural gatekeeping for the ATC job. probably dont want to lower physical/medical standards to just ensure more would apply either.
Military ATCs is what they did in the 80s
They failed because the other unions didn't stand in solidarity. If every union in the country retaliated against Reagan they could have forced him to rehire. They kept their heads down to protect themselves instead of retaliation, which only accelerated the decline of unions.
Despite the decline it's still a viable strategy. If the air traffic controllers get fired, everything gets shut down. It's the only way.
S.24 - Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019
Sponsored by a Senator from MD, signed into law by Trump. Vote was 411-7 with the only seven Nays coming from Republicans. Trump either agreed with it at the time or knew he couldn't veto it as it has more than 2/3 support and would override his veto right after.
Legally they all will get paid, and acrue paid leave as normal during a government shutdown. The fact that the money isn't set aside and able to be paid for say up to a year in case of said shutdown is kind of a disgrace. Government shutdowns like this didn't happen until "recent history" (Ronald Reagan).
So congress was definitely behind the ball, but likely never knew they'd have to face a domestic threat like this until now. (Or presumably when Trump won president the first time and they decided to write the bill to mitigate damages)
And as we all know, this administration is all about obeying the law.
Yeah, that's why I had to put the word legally in there. Crazy times
Government shutdowns were largely developed by Newt Gingrich. It's a choice to hold the government hostage. Obviously Congress won't mitigate the damage, they could easily choose to not to do it in the first place.
hes also the one that developed to never work with the otherside, unless gop concessions are met.
It’s not a strike if you’re not getting paid in the first place.
At that point it's a slave rebellion.
Yes if I were an ATC I would definitely be worried about that. It just sucks because if the ATCs did strike it would actually significantly impact the 1%, probably moreso than almost any other labor strike could
Shutting down altogether is the best option for ATC but for the next best thing, I'd want to start redirecting planes to other airports - I can't imagine the logistics would work but anyway... One in ten flights gets a "surprise" location. If all other airports did the same thing. Each week it increases, 2/10, 3/10 etc until no one gets their destination.
But but ... Ronald Regan! Lol