Soup kitchen delivers meals to O’Hare TSA workers as government shutdown leaves them without pay
By Tara Molina
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Elgin, Illinois (WBBM) — Transportation Security Administration workers and air traffic controllers won’t be receiving paychecks starting Tuesday as a result of the government shutdown.
A local soup kitchen delivered hundreds of meals to O’Hare to feed those who are working and not getting paid.
They make sure you’re safe traveling through our airports, but it’s a job TSA agents in Chicago are officially doing without any pay now due to the shutdown.
It’s why the Elgin’s Holy Trinity Soup Kitchen is making sure those workers are fed on Tuesday.
“With the struggling that’s going on, we just want to give back,” Vee Armer said.
Their generosity means one less worry on the workers’ minds.
“It’s causing people to go get loans and create other credit problems down the line,” Darrell English said.
“Our officers are coming to work. They’re coming to work to get a paycheck, and they’re not getting a paycheck,” Christine Vietel said.
English and Vietel are with the American Federation of Government Employees Local 777 and represent around 1,400 TSA workers.
As workers themselves, they said they, too, are going without pay and are stressed. They said they coordinated lunches, like this one, to try to alleviate that a bit, pointing out that TSA officers are among the lowest-paid in the federal workforce.
Delivering after 200 hot meals to workers at O’Hare, they’ll do this again on Wednesday and could extend into next week.
Their ask from those traveling right now? kindness.
“Our officers are scared,” Vietel said. I have officers who are scared who have to drive an hour to get to work. They’re doing the best they can, but, you know, the morale is bad. Morale is bad, they’ve given up.”
Operations at Chicago airports have not been impacted, but travelers should give themselves more time to get through security for safety.
The church said the food is being paid for by the TSA union and private donors.
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