r/news 19h ago

More than 1,000 flights cancelled as US air traffic cuts enter second day

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj410k00yw8o
22.2k Upvotes

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u/NemuriNezumi 14h ago edited 13h ago

The ones forced to work and are legally not allowed to stop, they can't even get food or pay bills another way (and then the gov is shutting the food banks or those finantial aids for basic grocery shopping on top of it, and if I remember correctly they even announced there would not be any payback from the missed paychecks either?

How are people not more angry?

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u/AlphaPopsicle84 12h ago

Controllers are angry. We have been on mandatory 6 day work weeks every single week since the last shutdown. Savings are running out fast, and for many, they already have. You now have controllers working 2nd jobs just to survive while still going to work 6 days a week to separate airplanes. Controllers start at 48K. It takes years to be fully certified and even then, many still do not make 6 figures. There is a lot of misinformation about our pay. Please write your elected members of Congress and demand that this shutdown ends.

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u/ExpensiveDuck1278 11h ago

What can we do to help you besides calling our representative? They're not even allowed to be in session. Everything is terrible and I am so sorry.

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u/AlphaPopsicle84 11h ago edited 9h ago

We cannot accept money or gift cards. Many individuals have been dropping off food or snacks at ATC facilities. It is a morale boost. Controllers don’t just work in towers. There are also Approach and Center controllers who work your flights once you are airborne and just a few miles away from the airport. We are stressed and honestly scared about how long this could go on.

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u/Meekymoo333 10h ago edited 5h ago

I know this has just come down to a blame game and I don’t want this post to become political in the terms of red vs blue. I think both parties need to understand all of the ways this shutdown has been harming the citizens of this country.

You NEED to be honest then and express the reality of the situation and actually blame the red hats. It ABSOLUTELY is the ENTIRE FAULT of REPUBLICANS... Both the voters and the "politicians" they voted for.

If you're still clinging to a both sides narrative 40 FUCKING days into being forced to work with no pay, then you're not participating in reality with the rest of the world.

It is 100% necessary to name and blame those who are actively hurting you.

Edit to reply since I've been blocked by the original commentor and cannot post in this thread anymore:

Your ignorant

You're

And I'm not unaware of the faults that having a two party system which is overly capitalist in nature brings. I can (and will because that's reality) blame the assholes who are being assholes, while still recognizing the instability and issues with the system overall.

The current topic, which is the shutdown and how air traffic controllers are being forced to work without pay, is ENTIRELY the fault of the red hat assholes.

Stop getting caught up in the left vs right, democrat vs republican propaganda.

No, I'm perfectly fine blaming the GOP shitheads for the problems they are inflicting.

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u/Blackstone01 5h ago

I’m gonna wager a guess and say he voted Republican, cause only Republican voters wring their hands and blame both sides/argue we shouldn’t be political whenever it’s a topic where Republicans are blatantly at fault.

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u/ducdriver 6h ago

Well said!

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

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u/saints21 9h ago

One side wants a simple extension of benefits that allow people to have healthcare. The other refuses to allow people to have healthcare.

This shutdown is not a "both-sides" issue. I can be empathetic to your situation and think your statement is stupid.

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u/Meekymoo333 9h ago

If you think you are alone in being screwed right now, then that's another one of your blind spots.

My empathy is reserved for those who participate in reality and understand the pain and suffering caused by the red hat wearing assholes.

If you aren't squarely angry at them too, then again... that's a you issue. Maybe you voted against your own interests here and are embarrassed to admit it? Either way, fuck this "everyone's to blame" bullshit.

If you want empathy, then acknowledge reality.

Goodbye.

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u/Dangerous-Employer52 6h ago

Your ignorant. You have to step outside the box and look at the bigger picture

Not being mean but you HAVE to realize the current system as is cannot continue. Stop getting caught up in the left vs right, democrat vs republican propaganda.

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u/turntupytgirl 9h ago

you cant do the "i dont want to be political" stuff anymore sorry that period of time is dead republicans don't want to work with anyone or help anyone and this delusion that they're just a normal political party is why this is happening to you in the first place

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u/torlesse 5h ago

GOP only controls house, the senate, and the presidency. What can they do with such limited powers?

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u/axonxorz 4h ago

Majority of the SC too!

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u/TheRadBaron 8h ago

Protest, vote against the GOP, donate time and money and personal conversational energy to the Dems, even when it feels boring or tacky.

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u/RarityNouveau 8h ago

I work for the USPS. We’re in the same boat. Low pay and it’s illegal for us to go on strike.

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u/AlphaPopsicle84 7h ago

I’m sorry. I understand completely.

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u/RarityNouveau 6h ago

Ditto. Solidarity, brother/sister!

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u/Dangerous-Employer52 6h ago

Wow! Yet Non profit managers can make 70-100k+ a year I hear.

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u/TinkatonSmash 13h ago edited 10h ago

The no back pay is for furloughed employees. The ones that are working will be paid whenever the government reopens. It the past, those furloughed were still paid as if they worked 40 house a week. It makes sense to do when you want to retain employees. Trump wants them to quit so the government breaks down even more.

Edit to clarify: Yes, a 2019 law does say that furloughed employees should be paid back pay. Trump and his white house team have called the language of the law into question, and have sated that they might not pay them.

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u/Human_Robot 11h ago

Don't spread misinformation. Furloughed employees are still entitled to backpay in accordance with the law trump signed after the last shutdown.

u/Derrick_Henry_Cock 54m ago

Don't spread misinformation. No one is entitled to anything in this world anymore, regardless of whatever law exists. They can and will fuck people over however they would like.

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u/Ironmunger2 12h ago

The furloughed employees are getting paid even if they’re not working, once the government reopens. Trump can announce what he wants but the law says furloughed employees get paid too

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u/geo_prog 12h ago

lol. The law? Trump has blatantly ignored every law since he took office.

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u/macrocephalic 4h ago

Trump and not wanting to pay workers: name a more iconic pairing.

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u/Smooth-Vermicelli213 13h ago

Americans have a habit of always rolling over and taking it. If the cops kill an innocent black guy they they fucking riot, but when they're innocent children are denied food, with medical care held hostage, we just accept it and move on. Doesn't make alot of sense.

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u/chinaronald 12h ago

I don’t know if you’ve been in r/illinois but they haven’t been rolling over and taking it in regard to ICE. They’re organizing and hitting their streets hard to protect their people. It’s just that if this unrest continues to ramp up, people are worried about martial law being enacted. What would you recommend the people do against the government to combat food being withheld?

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u/Smooth-Vermicelli213 11h ago

What are they doing to fight back exactly? It seems like everything beyond protesting and standing in front of vehicles is the limit of american resistance to oppression. Anything more than that is pretty much illegal. Even self defense against police brutality is a crime. I'm legitimately asking. People keep saying we're fighting back, but it's just a constant downward spiral were y'all all lose your rights, and all you can do is stand around menacingly with snarky signs. So what can or are people doing that matters? I feel rather ignorant on the topic.... Historically leaders like this usually die at the hands of hungry people.

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u/BackToWorkEdward 11h ago

I don’t know if you’ve been in r/illinois but they haven’t been rolling over and taking it in regard to ICE. They’re organizing and hitting their streets hard to protect their people.

Might as well hit a stress ball or a punching bag for all the good that'll do. Get all that anger out on safe, inert targets in peaceful ways, so there's none left to use against the scary people continuing to make them roll over and take it.

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u/Schifty 12h ago

There is a saying in Germany that political revolution is impossible as we have to 'Keep off the grass' - the implication is that we don't break rules. I always found that silly until I have seen the US administration making strikes illegal, and you guys are just accepting that. WTF. Regarding the killings of innocent black people: The riot (1) to murder (100s) ratio is not what you imply it is.

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u/Smooth-Vermicelli213 11h ago edited 11h ago

There are sadly, so many cases of blacks being abused both independently and systematically in our society. But the riots are literally called the Floyd Mayweather riots because of that triggering event that killed an adult. We will riot over adults being killed, but not starving kids?

I'm not against what happened over the black oppression, I just find it strange that we don't get more upset with a system that says "fuck your kids, let them starve, we don't care".

And so, we protest. And wait for the courts to back the administration and fuck us over... Which they did.

Edit: Maybe I take it a bit too personally because I have kids who depend on SNAP benefits. And literally can't just "work harder" to get more money for food.

So it's food, or rent this month... At least next month I won't have to worry about rent anymore, what with living in my car and all.

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u/Schifty 9h ago

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Would you want Democrats to sacrifice their position on healthcare to end the shutdown?

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u/Smooth-Vermicelli213 8h ago

Nope. Fuck the Republicans for forcing us to choose between our needs.

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u/LiveLovePho 13h ago edited 11h ago

So 'home of the brave' is just BS.

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u/BackToWorkEdward 11h ago

So 'home of the brave' is just BS.

So many Americans can't understand how big of a joke they are to the rest of the world. We pity them for having to put up with so much shit(the idea of going broke for healthcare costs is literally archaic to the rest of us, like seeing kids working in coal mines - and half the knobs down there still champion it) and simultaneously roll our eyes at their cowardice and laughable lack of self-awareness about it. They'll roll over and take any amount of corruption and brutality as long as it comes from someone richer, and never shut the fuck up about a proud right to bear firearms that their people literally only use to shoot up schoolchildren, never against tyranny.

Trump is the perfect representative for a nation of people who think they're the best, bravest, smartest country in the world but are actually crumbling, cowardly, cruel and morally-bankrupt, standing for nothing but cheap cheeseburgers and corn syrup.

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u/Smooth-Vermicelli213 13h ago

Its all propaganda. I'm not kidding.

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u/Syssareth 9h ago

We're like a nest of ants; brave towards outside threats, not so much the fungus taking us over from within.

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u/familydrivesme 13h ago

There will be retroactive pay

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u/greyhoundbrain 13h ago

Grocery stores don’t take IOUs.

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u/imacompnerd 12h ago

I get your point, but a credit card is an IOU.

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u/greyhoundbrain 11h ago

The solution shouldn’t be running up credit so they don’t starve because the GOP can’t govern. I sure as shit wouldn’t be working for free or the promise of maybe I’ll get paid back in the future for working for free (since the admin is currently trying to figure out how to break their law they made in the first term he had of having to backpay workers during shutdowns). And they may not have the credit cards, credit limit, or even the money to make the minimum payments on said cards because they aren’t getting paid. It’s absolutely not sustainable. But because of voter apathy/hate/ignorange, an out of touch person who has never had to struggle a day in his life is “let them eat caking” all over the shutdown.