- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
Overtaxed and unpaid air traffic controllers are resigning “every day” due to stress from the government shutdown.
“Controllers are resigning every day now because of the prolonged nature of the shutdown,” Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told CNN.
“We hadn’t seen that before. And we’re also 400 controllers short—shorter than we were in the 2019 shutdown.”
Air traffic controllers are federal workers, which means they are part of the approximately 730,000 federal employees working without pay since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
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At least I’m guessing those unpaid federal workers won’t vote republican for the rest of their lives
I hope we can all agree that people should not be furloughed or working without pay during this shutdown but something I haven’t seen reported on is the effect this will have on economies locally and nationally.
Napkin math so someone correct me if needed:
- 4.5 million furloughed or working without pay.
- Average salary I found was $68,000 but let’s use 50,000 to account for the top paying jobs probably still getting paid.
- That gives us $4,166 monthly.
- For each month of shutdown that comes to $18,747,000,000 that isn’t being spent
While I’m sure most of us Americans could do with less consumption, I can’t help but wonder how many small businesses are going to suffer from this. This is especially true for areas with large amounts of federal employment.
There are actually projections for the economic downturn to come that do and don’t factor in the government shutdown reaching thanksgiving, then Christmas. So it is being considered in terms of consumer spending as a whole, but you mentioned small businesses specifically, and they are the ones that will be hurt more than anyone in what’s to come. Although, I’m seeing more and more local-only-economies pop up, where you all try to keep money within the network of the community.
The projections I saw were for the economy to level off by 1Q 2026, but if the shutdown reaches Christmas, it’ll actually shrink an entire point.
The retired controllers should unionize, and put forth an option for future non-Turdpublican administrations to rehire them for fair wages, compensation, and benefits. It would be cheaper and easier than hiring fresh faces and hoping for the best.
That worked out well in the '80s…
Were they already very short with no hope of hiring enough for years when fired a bunch of them?
Yes
I don’t believe they “resigned” in the 80s. They went on strike.
And then were fired.
A plane is gonna crash because of overworked atc and then they’ll declare it terrorism and invoke martial law.
Mark my words.
We all know the real reason is DEI! /s
Bah, they will just blame democrates…
Good. I hope America grinds to a fucking standstill. And that as a result of it, traitorous cowards like Fueher Shitshimself never see the light of day, let alone any position of authority.
Does AF1 use civilian or military ATC? Would be hilarious if the fat bastard got grounded as a consequence.
Just use jets to shoot down anything in the flight path. Then a helicopter follows behind sprinkling Crack on each crash site.
Pedo Antoinette might just get the ending he deserves sooner rather than later
The minute that the controller shortage fucks the wrong wealthy person’s private jet trip suddenly everything will magically be fixed.
He picked a terrible time to frontload this issue by giving rich people extra tax writeoffs on private jets. Theyre gonna be pissed if their new private jets become useless
I’m sure this is Bidens fault somehow right? Isn’t that usually how this goes, blame Biden for some shit that has nothing to do with him?
It’s clearly Obama’s fault!
Yup!
Well…if he had gotten the justice department to actually nail Trump, then we might have avoided this.
If Kamala had declined to support genocide… If Obama had prosecuted the 08 banking criminals… If Gore had contested the 2000 election…
As awful as the Republicans are, we must remember that the Democrats have always succeeded at making sure their colleagues across the aisle never face too severe consequences. After all, that would make dinner on Thursday quite awkward.
Thanks Biden
As long aa you can squeeze a “DEMS” in there you’re good to go
Lol, lmao
Well shit. Looks like we have to make HSR and Transit happen now. It’s definitely not a good way to get the ball rolling for it even though HSR/Trams/Trolleys/Transit are a good thing but now there is no choice really if people want to get around the country
Being in airplanes at all currently in this country is not viable
So, how good is ChatGPT at doing air traffic control?
I had an Uber rider yesterday that brought up a fairly profound prediction about AI. It’s clear it is poisoning the Internet, but he said “what if this gets people to get off social media and start being social IRL?” I’m paraphrasing and he was much more verbose, but it’s a pleasant thought I’ve been holding onto.
“United 123, turn right 360 lol noscope.” Source: reddit.
“Sounds great! plotting crash course now”
“Uh… attention all aircraft in the vicinity of JFK… ChatGPT Tower’s got this under control… mostly… just, uh, maintain separation and good vibes.” 😅
“Flight 4131 to tower, do I have clearance to land safely?”
“That’s a great question!”
I already do lots of cringing at people doing “vibe coding” for non-lethal things…vibe ATC would be next-level.
Democrats proposed a bill that all Federal employees get paid during the shutdown. GOP said no.
The first time I’m reading about this. If the situation were reversed Republicans would be on every show everywhere repeating this taking point.
Democrats need to fucking hammer the Republicans on this 24/7 on every outlet possible.
“Best we can do is fund spoiler candidates after our boy lost the NYC democratic primary”
As with most dishes, a sauce would be wonderrful
The bill is called “The true shutdown fairness act”, and it is a poorly named response to the republican “shutdown fairness act”.
The main differences between the bills (which aren’t really covered in the news, but you can read the bills) is that the shutdown fairness act was limited to excepted employees (those who have to work without pay), as well as some military personnel and some contractors. But it gave trump discretion about who could get paid, and did nothing for furloughed employees, nor guarantee all service members or contractors get paid (again, because it allowed trump to pick and choose)
The true shutdown fairness act aimed to ensure all federal employees and service members get paid, and prevent mass firings during the shutdown. I don’t know/understand why this bill was rejected (I’ll edit if I can find anything)
This post and this post go into a bit more detail.
Edit: I can’t find a news article with direct quotes, but this is part of the ai overview (so take it with a grain of salt)
Underlying reasons: Democrats opposed the Republican bill because they felt it would grant the President too much power to decide which employees would be paid and which would not. Republicans, in turn, blocked the Democratic bill, with Johnson expressing concern that it would limit the President’s ability to manage the government and potentially reduce the workforce.
I fully expect the regime to announce they’re arresting ATC personnel who quit.
I just got off my flight to Mexico. I have no idea if I’m getting home. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for the trip…
Espero que hayas estudiado tu español.
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