Air Traffic Controllers Union Files Lawsuit Over Shutdown Pay
BLACKWELL: We're pushing forward on the "BREAKING NEWS" out of Washington this morning. We've learned the FBI opened an inquiry into whether the president of the United States' actions were a threat to national security.</s>PAUL: And that counterintelligence probe was prompted by the firing of former FBI director James Comey. Now, The New York Times broke this story last night. The FBI tried to figure out -- The Times says, if the president of the United States of America was acting on behalf of Russia, and if he was putting U.S.' interests at risk. The president responded to the reporting with a tweet this morning, claiming the FBI opened up an investigation for "no reason." Now this morning, President Trump has reached a bleak milestone. He is presiding now over the longest government shutdown in American history.</s>BLACKWELL: Day 22 now. For more than three weeks, lawmakers have failed to find a compromise to reopen the government. But it's the 800,000 federal workers from across the country who are paying the price for the inaction in Washington.</s>PAUL: Democrats, who control the House, have passed a bill to fund the government, one department at a time. The president insisting funding for a wall at the U.S. -Mexico border, has to be a part of any deal. Without his support, Senate Republicans have refused to call votes on any of the measures. 30 furloughed workers, meanwhile, must have been shocked when they received their full paychecks yesterday. But listen to this, according to The Washington Post, they were paid due to a clerical error and were quickly told not to spend any of the money the people</s>BLACKWELL: Can you imagine, getting the money you're owed that you're due on payday. And the government says, give it back. A union representing thousands of air traffic controllers is fighting back after being forced to work without being paid. Filing a lawsuit against the federal government. Joining me now, Dan McCabe, representative with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Dan, welcome back to the show.</s>DAN MCCABE, FACILITY REPRESENTATIVE, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: So, let's start here. Your group says that the government unlawfully deprived your members of their earned wages without due process. What's your case?</s>MCCABE: So, we did file yesterday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. It's really got three prongs to it. A couple of Fair Labor Standards Act violations. One, which is our membership that's working is not working for a minimum wage. The other is that overtime has not been paid promptly, and then, the one you just addressed which is actually a Fifth Amendment violation. Saying they've been deprived all their wages with no due process to go get them.</s>BLACKWELL: Now, essentially, this is on behalf of your members.</s>MCCABE: Correct.</s>BLACKWELL: But, I mean, if you're successful, this would affect obviously the all of the people who are working with --</s>MCCABE: I mean, it's got big implications out there.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>MCCABE: And this really goes to the ones that are what we call excepted employees or the ones that are forced to go in to do work, and not getting a paycheck for it.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes, let's talk about -- we were talking during the break about the moral. Specifically, of those who are going in, doing the job, those essential workers as the government says, but are not being paid.</s>MCCABE: Yes.</s>BLACKWELL: What's it like?</s>MCCABE: So, we came in last week. We talked about it, everyone was fearful of the unknown. Well, it's real now. It happened yesterday. People open their pay stubs on Thursday, saw zeroes, which is like pouring salt in the wound. Moral is as low as I've seen it in 13 years, and getting worse. So, I'll bring up a little statistic we figured out. Some of 400 people work in the building that I represent.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>MCCABE: Just south of Atlanta. So, we'll say just for the sake of arguing that the average paycheck was $10. Some people got some money in the paycheck for overtime they'd work prior to the Christmas holiday. So, that's $4,000 dollars. You take 400 employees times 10. Our traffic count in one facility of 314 facilities in this agency, the Atlanta air traffic control center worked 8,636 airplanes, Thursday, two days ago. Meanwhile, the 400 people that work seven days a week, 24 hours a day to work those airplanes, $4,000 for two weeks' worth of work.</s>BLACKWELL: So, by your math, that's 50 cents a plane for two weeks of work for the entire team.</s>MCCABE: Something's wrong with that, it's broken.</s>BLACKWELL: Let me ask you. There are projects, there is training, there are efforts that were stopped cold because of the government shutdown by your account from the organization 6,000. What does that mean? What do those projects mean to the people who pass through this airspace?</s>MCCABE: So, a lot of these projects, the majority of these projects, you never know about. You've getting on an airplane, sitting on the taxiway, you'd never know. These are things many of them safety related that make an already safe system better, more redundant, safer. A major project that's going on across the country or was going on is something called Datacom. It's something we're working on. The enroot centers are working on. And it's essentially text messaging between controllers and pilots to free up frequency congestion.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>MCCABE: That's stopped. We were in the process of -- in process of implementing it, supposed to go live in March. We will now have to retrain the entire facility on it. Which means more overtime, more people off the operation. More people work in six-day work weeks.</s>BLACKWELL: The president says that the people who are not being paid support him, and say that what he's doing is the right thing. Now, the White House has not been able to provide any evidence for that. What's your message to the president?</s>MCCABE: In the shutdown? Immediately, it's not worth it. We are tired of being pawns in the shutdown.</s>BLACKWELL: All right.</s>MCCABE: There is too much at stake.</s>BLACKWELL: Dan McCabe, thanks so much.</s>MCCABE: Appreciate you having me back.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Christi?</s>PAUL: Well, Representative Steve King facing backlash from both sides of the aisle for his white nationalist comments. We're going to tell you what GOP's Tim Scott, an African-American Senator from South Carolina have to say about it.