Letter to the Hon. David Pekoske, TSA - Demanding Overdue Back Pay for Federal Employees

Letter

Dear Administrator Pekoske,

We write to express our deep concern about reports that 1,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees nationwide have still not received the entirety of back-pay they are owed from the 35-day government shutdown. This is unacceptable and must be fixed immediately.

Thousands of TSA employees reported for work during the holiday season and into January knowing they would not receive pay for their labor in a timely manner. During that time, we heard many reports of dedicated TSA employees who already live paycheck to paycheck being unable to cover personal expenses like rent or mortgage payments, car payments, and grocery bills. Communities throughout the country came together to set up food banks to help ensure unpaid TSA workers could keep their families fed during the government shutdown.

Throughout the duration of the shutdown, these front line national security employees worked to ensure our airports were safe for passenger travel and commerce. And yet, according to a CNN report published March 1, 2019, approximately 1,000 of 60,000 TSA employees, still require some sort of pay correction. CNN quoted an unnamed TSA official as saying, "The administrator used Fiscal Year 2018 money to partially pay TSA employees. This cheated the purpose of the shutdown. They were scrambling to keep people on the job because you had a number of sick outs taking place, but in fact, they created more problems for employees. And they're dealing with it one month after the shutdown is over."

Your first responsibility must be to identify all TSA employees who are owed back pay and to ensure they are all made whole by the next scheduled pay day -- the third since the end of the shutdown -- on March 8, 2019. If this is not practicable, please advise us on what date every TSA employee will be fully compensated. TSA needs to take responsibility for paying all employees correctly. It will be important to identify and fix the administrative process that led to over 1,000 hardworking employees not receiving their full earned pay.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this very important matter. We look forward to hearing from you as to when all TSA employees will be fully compensated.

Sincerely,