Native Lampard is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. The Department of Homeland Security is currently without funding because Washington Republicans would rather see it shut down than past common sense, just common sense guardrails on ice. In fact, every Senate Republican present voted just this past weekend against paying our TSA agents. I arise yet again with a simple practical proposal to pay hard working TSA agents. Pay them right now. They
deserve it. If we cannot move forward with funding for the entire Department of Homeland Security, we should at least be able to come together on this. So today I'm asking my colleagues to take just a simple step, pass my legislation right now to pay TSAVOR so that commercial air travel remains safe and functional. Don't penalize TSA and the traveling public for the fact that you refuse to
rain on ice, and have them be held accountable. Having the trained, transparent and accountable like every other law enforcement agent in this country.
Cert objection object.
My Republican colleagues have the power to do something about it. They don't have to wait for the President. So if Washington Republicans, my Senate colleagues, really want to do what's right by their constituents, by the TSA workers, you would have passed my bill to pay TSFE TSA officers instead of punishing them and the American people because of your inaction.
Welcome home, y'all. This is Angela Raia. I'm your host of.
Today's solo pod, and today we are talking about Senate Republicans standing in the way of tsos that those are the Transportation Security Administration officers who are responsible for keeping our airport safe every single day, not funding them eight separate times separately, eleven times in total. I want to give you all this quick timeline because you're seeing a
lot of misinformation online. You know, right now there's a campaign from Republican leadership that says, thank a Democrat, and they're holding over the heads of the Democratic Party all of the airport congestion from Houston to Dallas to Atlanta, all of these airports. They are holding that over the head of the Democratic Party. But spoiler alert, y'all, Democrats aren't in charge of the House, the Senate, or the administration.
This is a Republican problem that needs to be resting squarely at the feeder of the Republican So let's walk this through a little bit. Thursday March fifth, Senate Republicans blocked a bill offered by Senator Patty Murray from my home state of Washington to fund all of DHS except for ICBP and the DHS Secretary's office. As you all can imagine, two hundred million dollars later into an ad campaign. No Christy Norman to be found. What's the point of
funding her office? And this would be again to carve out ICE and CBP. March eleventh, the Senate Republicans blocked Senator Patty Murray's bill to fund all of DHS Again, same bill. Thursday, March twelfth, Senate Republicans blocked Senator Jackie Rosen from Nevada her bill to pay TSA workers while broader negotiations continued on The next was a bill offered by Senator Andy Kim to fund SIZA while broader negotiations continued. Then they blocked a bill offered by Senator Chris Murphy.
This is now time number five to ensure members of the Coast Guard are paid while the negotiations continued. Then Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff.
Introduced to bill.
They blocked that bill to fund FEMA while broader negotiations continued. March eighteenth, they blocked a bill offered by Senator Warnock from Georgia to pay TSA workers. March nineteenth, blocked a bill from Senator Slatkin from Michigan to pay TSA workers.
On the same day, they.
Blocked a bill from Senator Brian Shatz from Hawaii to fund all of DHS except for ICBP and the dh AS Secretary's office. Again, just like Senator Patty Murray's bill on March twenty first, on Saturday, they were in session Saturday to vote.
They voted against.
Pure, straightforward, clear legislation to pay TSA workers while these negotiations continued. And just yesterday, yet again, this is the eleventh time we've been saying five times, eight times, it's all together eleven times blocked a bill offered by Jackie Rosen, who you just heard from in this speech floor speech in the Senate earlier and in the show. The block the bill offering to pay TSA workers again while broader
negotiations continue. Well, I have got had the opportunity, we all have the opportunity to hear from someone today who has been personally impacted by this shutdown. TSA workers have not received a full paycheck since February thirteenth. I want to get quickly to a video that talks about why from Senator Kennedy in an interview, and then I'm going to bring on our guest. We may not have that video, so I'm gonna go ahead and bring in our guests. We have the president of a FG Local five point
fifty four. He is also a lead transportation security officer. We're so grateful for his time. His name is Aaron Barker, and he joins us today.
Hi Angelas, thank you for having me on.
Thank you so much for joining us.
President Barker, most importantly for you just taking the time time to continue to keep the American public safe while we, you know, frankly, go through these political shenanigans. I know that it's no fun when they're playing with your life, quite frankly, with your livelihood. Can you talk to us about some of the impacts you've already experienced not receiving a paycheck now for two pay periods.
Well, so, first yes, I can talk about those things. And I want to make sure we clear this up because there's been some misinformation about that. So this coming weekend would be the third miss paycheck. The first paycheck which people are saying it was a partial paycheck. All of the deductions that you would normally have come out your taxes of course, stay in federal, your health insurance, your life insurance, all of those deductions came out full deductions.
So the paycheck that officers received the first one, and the first one was some of them were a dollar as little as a dollar five dollars. You know, what can you do with that? So you can call it a partial paycheck, but you can't do anything that. So this will actually be the third one that's coming up this weekend. Uh So, as far as me personally, I'm a single person. I don't have the same struggles as a lot of my colleagues who have families. Although my
bank account is down there, I'm a single. I don't have mouths to feed, you know, I don't. I do have mortgage, you know, rent to pay and car note and all of those other things. But my colleagues, they have children, you know, some of them are battling health issues themselves, you know, and they don't have the money and their bank accounts to you know, take care of their necessities that.
They have, you know, absolutely, and I'm curious to know how they're like what they're doing to ensure they make it. Like I'll just give you this example, Aaron I was in the ear airport and I make it a point to say thank you all so much for working.
I know you don't have to be here.
And one airport I was in, the officer said back to me, I don't know how much longer I'll be here.
I can't afford to be I need to go find a job.
And at the next airport, my home airport in Seattle, I was like, I have cash, I just wanted. I don't have gift cards, but I have cash. Can I give you all? And they said the supervisor has to come take it, and then they disperse it amongst all the working tsos. What are the things that we can be doing as the general public to offer support, Like, I don't think it's fair that y'all are working so hard to.
Not get paid.
Ice is getting paid to roam the halls of the airport and not doing anything. I saw one video, We'll play it later, but Ice was handing out water and I'm like, that's great, But we can get a little kid that's raising money for a basketball tournament to do that. So why do we have ice in the airports at all? But y'all need you to comment on that part. I do want to hear about what we can be doing, like, can we partner with AFG, is there some with our
local port authorities? What can we do to make sure that you all are getting the resources you need in this time?
Well, first, thank you so much for asking this question. A lot of people are confused about what they can do or not really confused. They want to know what they can do to help out. So, as federal employees, me and my TSA row, I cannot accept any money, but you can come to me as the AFGE president, and I can accept things from you on behalf of AFGE and distributed to my members. So that's the same
across the board. You can reach out to your local AFGE representative when you go to the airport, say hey, who's your local president? Can you give me their number, phone number or email address and you can reach out to them and they can you know, take whatever you have. You can also reach out to your central labor councils.
A lot of municipalities have central labor councils. They are one of the resources that we've been using to accept gifts and things like that to distribute out to our officers.
To do we reach them generally to partner with them.
The central labor councils. Yes, so you still you I don't know, you know, every city has a different name, so it's usually you can say, just google central Labor council for whatever city you're in and it'll tell you if you have one or the neighboring city. Most most metropolitan areas have them, and even the rural areas.
Okay, that's good to know, So we'll do that.
We'll add that to our show notes just to be helpful exactly, our producers and our thread thinking just like me on that to make sure we get that active.
And I think the other thing that I would ask you is.
One thing I'm gonna just be honest with you, Aaron, I can be prone to be a little short in the TSA line. I don't like germs, and so those little you know, the little but containers we got to put our stuff in and then y'all's gloves, y'all touch the same people's stuff all it's so nasty.
So I'm like, I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll touch it, I'll touch it.
What are some of the things we can do from a mental health stamp point to guard you all's mental health right now? Like, how can we be better customers?
Well, you know, I think the most passengers right now, thank god, continue this after this this fiasco is over.
But you said, don't let it be.
Right right right, But most passengers are actually being really really nice and understand what's going on, So keep doing that, keep that up. The officers appreciate the words of encouragement and the thanks and all of that, and and I don't want to sound unappreciative, but at the end of the day, you know that thank you is great for my mental but my bank accounts still over her startman overdrawn. You know. Uh So what we need the public to do is reach out and apply pressure to our congressional
members as well. It don't matter what Democrat, Republican whoever applied pressure to them, because this right now is insane. You know, TSA workers across the nation are pissed off, you know, and you know, I know, we don't want to go into the ice thing, but to have paid employees, federal workers come into the airport and say that they're going to help me out while getting a paycheck, also collecting with them, and you're paying for their hotel rooms.
That money could have went towards the offices that are already employed. You know, you could have used that money to pay for these paychecks instead of deploying people out to these airports. So just keep up, you know, the words of encouragement and applying pressure to Congress so that they can do their jobs.
Yes, sir, well, we're also going to try to make sure we get some money in that overdrawn account.
Aaron, and thank you for your work with af G.
We'll make sure that we put whatever information you have for how our community can reach out to AFG locals and help to provide resources during this time.
We are so grateful for y'all.
I hate that every single thing about our government feels like a protest right now, but thank you for holding the line and thank you for holding that smile.
I will do better at the airport, I promise I got to go tomorrow for joining us.
One more resources. Yes. Also a lot of airports themselves they are not they're not federal employees. The airports themselves have some of them have set up donations and things like that. So reach out to your airports as well, just as another way to help out officers.
Yes, and I want to shout out my local airport se Tac where we have two amazing commissioners and some other folks. We have Hamdan to Chico and they have been putting that information out as well.
So we got you. We'll be partnering with them as well. Thank you so much. Erin drive safely, okay, thake here?
Uh well, before we get to our next guest, first of all, y'all, Aaron was fantastic, I think, and for his candor, for his humanity, for representing his members so well, and for telling us exactly what we can do. He said, y'all, don't cut up when this uh this this holdout is up, as we can't call it a strike because they're still going to work. But when this holdout is up, don't come through my airport line and got attitude. I'm gonna work on it, Aaron. But I just don't like when
people touch my stuff. It's my anxiety. Before we get to our next guest, I want to just take a moment so that we're clear. I know I walked through the timeline earlier, but I want to hear from Senator Kennedy on why this particular holdout is happening, very very important for you ought to know. It is bigger than ICE, it is bigger than CBP. Let's hear what Senator Kennedy says, and then we'll bring up our next guest.
Uh shen up the cruise and I came up with a plan. We said, well, gets a two step process. The Democrats have offered opened up everything but Ice. UH, and I said, okay, let's accept their offer and then at the same time, we would offer a bill for reconciling where we don't need any Democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE, and that way we're out of the shutdown. On DHS's back open. We submitted that son of crafone submitted that to President Trump,
as is his right. He said, no, no deals with the Democrats. So we're back to square one.
Now here's what's important here.
I hope that you all heard where he said through reconciliation, we could do whatever we wanted to do with ice. But it's not just with ice. The thing that you all should know is that the Republicans in the Senate are plotting on using the reconciliation process to also pass the Save Act. And that is the biggest conundrum that folks who are of goodwill, because I don't just think
this is a political lines thing, are struggling with. And I think what is so unfortunate is that our workers, folks who look like me and you at home, y'all, are having to carry this heavyweight because there are people who are irresponsible in the House and in the Senate trying to force the Save Act down our throats and also forcing TSA workers to hold the bag. Joining us now is President Everett Kelly. He is the president for the American Federation of Government Employees. Of course we just
heard from Aaron Barker, but this is Everett Kelly. He is over the he's the big boss running all.
The things for AFGI. Mister Kelly is always a pleasure to see you. How are you.
I'm doing great, Angela. I could be doing better.
I know you could.
I can only hurt from my people heard right.
Yeah, how many of the TSA workers are members of ACGI. How many members do you have that are tsos?
It's about twenty seven thousand. I think about twenty five to twenty seven thousand.
So twenty seven thousand people who have not received a paycheck.
Now you talked about membership.
Yeah, I was going to stay in your union represent.
About forty seven thousand of those employees.
Okay, yeah, so forty seven thousand who have not received a paycheck since right before Valentine's Day and are right up on the third pay period where they've not received a paycheck. I got to ask you, President Kelly, You've had to work both sides of the aisle for many years on these issues impacting your workers. You know, I think you know that I was a former I'm a former Homeland Security Committee staffer, so I have never seen
we had labor issues. You know that we had to negotiate with the other side of the isle.
But I've never.
Seen folks so blatantly willing to force people to work without being paid and then bring it along ice to come to the airport to get paid to just stand there.
It is.
It's like a thumb in the eye of folks who are working so hard across multiple pay periods.
What is your feeling about that?
Well, first of all, I don't think that ICE has.
The skills to perform those duties. Number one, I think
it's also a stap in the face those employees. Those employees just out there coming to work every single day, making a sacrifice to perform the duties that's necessary for the Americans to fly through the skies, you know, safely, and then you bring someone in that's not even skill, pay them, pay them, you know, actually, like Aaron said earlier, you know, they get paid per dim and all of these extra money is to be there, and what are they What function are they really performing.
They're not performing a function.
They're just you know, walking around people see their uniforms and stuff like that, but they're not performing a duty that makes life better for the fly in public. So, you know, I think that it is a it's a disgrace. It's to see what we're seeing as relates to the ICE operation inside of TSA.
I have to ask you.
You talked about the pain you're feeling because your people are hurting. Can you tell us about you know, one of those stories that's standing out for you, the thing that is driving you to fight for them every single day. I know you do it anyway, right, but I think it's important for people to connect with their humanity in this hour. We can't just continue to watch people not get paid and work so hard.
One story that sticks out with me, and I've been plundering over it all night. There is a single mother five children. She purchased a card off of Amazon for fifty dollars to buy food for her five children, but she had to set it up into four installments. She had to pay twelve dollars and fifth cent per payday just to get a fifty dollar.
Worth of groceries. That is not American, you know.
And it's sad that we find people in these type of situations. People are, you know, losing their homes. They haven't even recovered from the last shutdown. I mean this is the third shutdown in six months. And they help them recovered. They said, well, you know, they'll be made whole, they'll get their pay you know eventually. But when you start talking about the interests that they have to pay for the moneys that they borrow, you know, they'll never recovered.
They're never fully recovered, and that's what bothers me more than anything, you.
Know what, President Kelly, you's saying that now. I remember asking another rep from AFG around the time when former Secretary Christy Norman announced that there would be bonuses for tsos. Do you know if those bonuses were ever received?
You know, I don't know if they really were.
Yeah, you know, I know that was some photo ops, but nobody knew that's what getting a bonus and why they was getting a bonus, No rationale, no information whatsoever. So I know that was a few photo offs, but I don't know that you know of case theyre for certain that you know, one received real bonuses.
And I think that's the point here now too, Right, we're talking about a very subjective standard for who at DHS is worthy of paying according to this administration. And so when you think about that, I still believe there's a human response. Obviously, we want members of Congress to do their job, But what would you encourage all of us at home to do. Those of us who have to walk through airport security regularly, those of us who
are doing okay and might have something to offer. I'm curious to know, and we may have lost President Kelly. President Kelly, can you hear me? I think we lost them. Well, I'm gonna tell you all this in case we don't get them back. There is something that we can still do at home. We heard earlier from President Aaron Burr, who also is a tso that we can partner with our local port authorities to ensure that we get resources to these tsos. Again, these are transportation security officials. We
can provide gas cards, gift cards. To hear President Kelly talk about this single mom of five, five children having to put twelve fifty aside to ensure that she could feed her children through multiple pay periods.
We've got to do better.
I think we have President Kelly back, so we're going to have a theory is high, President Kelly, I.
Think it was the devil. The devil did not want you to kid come through. But what we could do to help the people.
So that was my We normally end our shows with calls to action, and so I wanted to know if there's something that our podcast, Native lampod can do to partner with AFG to help to get money and resources gift cards to your members to ensure that they are made whole, or at least, you know, we can fill in the gap a little bit during this really difficult time.
Well, first of all, let me say thank you for even this suggestion of trying to help the people that I represent. They certainly appreciate it. But more than anything, when you go through the airports, be sure to tell them thank you, right, I mean, it matters to them the fact that people will stop and say, hey, I appreciate what you do.
But no, we lost them again.
Y'all. I am going to give it just a second. I really want him to have this closing, final moment. I really appreciate your patience. There he is, he's back.
We got it. I am so sorry.
But you can always give to the central Labor councils to state fans and ask them to share with the tsos. You know, these are very patriotic employees that deserve any kind of recognition that they can get. You know, I just know this. I'm still calling on Congress right now to get together today and pass a bill so that these employees can get paid. I submit to you that it will be any humane it will be. And we live in a country that people fessis to read their
Bible and read their Koran and all this stuff. But if they read the book, it will see that the book says that we should not wait until tomorrow to pay people for the work that they perform.
And I think that we need to adhere to that.
I think that those people that really believe that need to step up and pass legislation tonight to pay these tsos.
I hear it.
So then it sounds like one of our duties is to call two zero two two two four three one two one. Let your member of Congress know that you want to ensure that these folks who have been working so hard now for almost three pay periods get paid. We're going to reach out to our state central Labor councils and make sure that we get resources over to these folks as well, and we will say thank you with a real smile.
Thank you so much, President Kelly.
Thank you, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
It's my pleasure anytime. Ah you all, this is such an important topic. I know that there are things that you know may seem juicier to you, but I want you to think about what you would want somebody to do if you were missing your paycheck, and the power was in somebody else's hands.
And the power that's in somebody else's hands is.
A call removed, right, It's an emotional plea removed. Share the story of that single mother of five and what she's having to do just to get a fifty dollars gift card, defeat her family.
That should not be how we live.
In the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary year of this country's alleged birth, I still say it was sixteen nineteen. But for those of y'all to subscribe, ascribe to seventeen seventy six. Is this the America that you think we should be? If it's not, put some money on it, put your words on it. Make sure that it reflects the type of country you want to live in and the one that you hope we would become.
Thank you all so much. Welcome home, y'all.
Native Lampard is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with Reais and Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.