A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
As Congress inches closer to a deal to end the shutdown, we wanted to hear how some TSA agents are getting by. So we've called up Maggie Sabatino. She's the executive vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 333, which represents TSA employees at the Philadelphia International Airport. Maggie, how have you and your colleagues been making ends meet without a paycheck this long?
MAGGIE SABATINO: We're running on fumes. We're running on sense. Most of us are in the negative in our bank accounts. Some officers are doing - coming to work not getting paid, and then after their eight-hour shift with TSA, they're running to do Uber, Uber Eats, DoorDash, something, just to bring home a little bit of money to keep the day going for them and their families. It's not paying the bills. It's not a full paycheck, but it's getting them from point A to point B.
MARTÍNEZ: And it doesn't sound like a sustainable way to live or make a living. I mean, last year, there was another 43-day shutdown. I mean, is there a possible way to get used to this kind of instability? It just doesn't seem like it could be.
SABATINO: No, we are not. We - have we been through shutdowns before? Yes, we have - multiple throughout the years. But none were like this, where your paycheck is impacted. These are trying, trying times. Within the past six months, it's been 89 days that we have gone without a paycheck under this administration. And in 2018, under President Trump's administration, then 37 days. It's a lot to have to deal with, to not know when it's going to be lifted, when you're going to be getting a paycheck. And you just feel like you're a pawn on a chessboard between two players who don't know how to play the game.
MARTÍNEZ: How optimistic are you that the shutdown may end today after the Senate voted early this morning, and now it's going to go to the House?
SABATINO: I'm not that optimistic. We've been seven or eight other times within the past few weeks at the same point. And it makes it to this point where it's passed on one side, then it gets to the other, and it's automatically denied because someone's not getting what they want. And then it goes back to the...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
SABATINO: ...Drawing board again. It's just a - it feels like a hamster wheel. You're just turning on the hamster wheel. It just keeps going and going and going.
MARTÍNEZ: But how about this, though? Because this was different. Thursday, President Trump said he was going to order DHS to pay you even without Congress' approval. Did that factor in, or does that make it a little different?
SABATINO: That makes you really, really think, and it makes you think hard. If you - if he can order DHS to pay us now, why wait 42 days? Why wasn't - why wait the last time 43 days? Why have a four-day stint in between? Why wasn't this done automatically? And if you can pretty much force DHS to pay us, are you giving them the funding to do so? 'Cause they don't have the funding to pay us. If they did, we'd be getting paid.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And then it goes back to your earlier point, where it sounds like it's - you're pawns, right? You're pawns in a game that (laughter) that some people...
SABATINO: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...May not know how to play.
SABATINO: Exactly.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. What message do you have to all the lawmakers who are negotiating to fund DHS?
SABATINO: Do your job. Get it together. You are playing with people's lives. People who come to work, they do their job. Working-class American citizens. We are what this country is built on, the working class, and we're not getting a paycheck. If you could still get your paycheck and take all these retreats and recesses, then we should be getting paid when we need to show up. We don't have a choice. If we don't show up, there's discipline on the table for us.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Maggie Sabatino, executive vice president of AFGE Local 333 at Philadelphia International Airport. Maggie, thanks.
SABATINO: Thank you so much.
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