Flights to LAX were temporarily halted Sunday as the FAA cited a shortage of air traffic controllers linked to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
The Federal Aviation Administration said flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted Sunday morning due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility.
The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed and canceled in the coming days as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown.
During an appearance on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures,” Duffy said more controllers were calling in sick as money worries compound the stress of an already challenging job.
Holy crap Americans are so complacent.
They are so against union action or workers banding together to do anything meaningful for their workplace or themselves that it takes another outside circumstance to cause them to stop working.
Unionize and work together to force all levels of government to do something about this problem!
Air traffic controllers once did have a union, they went on strike, and then Reagan fired everyone. The union was decertified by the government and dissolved.
Might happen again at Thanksgiving.
That would be such a hilariously sad type of self harm. I don’t think the staffing has even fully recovered from the Reagan layoffs.
The FAA also never fully recovered and has been short-staffed since Reagan.
Which means they can’t ever do that again, which should have given the power back to the ATCs to simply ignore the law and strike anyway.
Even Trump can’t make new ATCs appear out of thin air.
Well that’s the thing, just like Reagan, he can use the military to temporarily replace them.
Military airfields have the same procedures
Then they should do that so they earn pay more honestly than invading people at home and abroad.
They still do have a union. It’s just illegal for them to strike.
Nah they still have the union, but it’s illegal for them to strike so it’s pretty toothless.
“Illegal”
That’s what they thought last time they striked. Reagan fired them all even knowing the chaos it would cause.
I doubt Donny could pull it off though.
like, what i don’t get, is how you’re imagining this.
people form a union, then strike, then what? simple, the company fires everyone who is on strike for “not fulfilling their work contract”. simple as that, the company hires new people. these can strike too and lose their jobs too. new people get hired. repeat until the people left working at the company are those who don’t strike in general.
what do you mean, “just strike”?
From where? The large pool of unemployed skilled air traffic controllers?
Military (who can’t refuse orders), retiree scabs (presumably lucratively paid), and those who can’t afford to go without a paycheck to support the strike (was ~10% of the controllers in 1981).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_strike
And staffing still hasn’t recovered since that.
The full FTE to serve the country is ~14,600 and there are 10,600 employed currently.
the reason why companies are chronically understaffed is so companies save money. why pay more employees when the existing employees can handle the workload?
This isn’t some night stocking retail job they can pull people off the streets for.
Vetting and training ATC takes actual years.
Reagan pulled off mass firings last time they tried striking by pulling in military ATC to do the job.
But yeah if it’s a skilled industry and the strike is big enough it can and does force the company’s hand.
I mean, it works everywhere else. If there was an unlimited pot of ATCs then flights wouldn’t have been cancelled today.
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