Air traffic controllers with perfect attendance through the shutdown are not the only government employees getting bonuses for working unpaid during the longest federal spending freeze in U.S. history.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced on Thursday that an unspecified number of Transportation Security Administration officers would also be awarded checks of $10,000 for going “above and beyond” during the shutdown, acting days after President Trump recommended $10,000 bonuses for air traffic controllers who never missed a shift during the shutdown, while seeming to prod those who were absent to quit.
Ms. Noem handed out the first batch of bonus checks during a news conference at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where travelers experienced long security lines last week amid shutdown-related staffing shortages.
Ms. Noem did not define the exact criteria that merited the checks but said the eligible employees could include those who took on extra shifts during the shutdown.
The government required both T.S.A. workers and air traffic controllers to labor through the shutdown without pay, and as they began missing paydays, absences started rising. Trump administration and union officials attributed many of the absences to the need controllers and officers had to find outside sources of income to make ends meet through the six-week shutdown.
Per the terms outlined so far, it does not appear that employees who were so cash-strapped during the shutdown that they missed shifts to pursue side gigs would be eligible for the bonuses.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had endorsed Mr. Trump’s idea, calling it “brilliant,” and suggested that controllers who met the bar might receive their checks directly from the president at the White House. But he stopped short of echoing Mr. Trump’s exhortation that those who had absences should quit, saying he questioned the dedication only of controllers who missed work before actually missing a paycheck.
Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union that represents nearly 20,000 aviation safety professionals, told reporters just moments after Mr. Trump proposed the bonuses on social media that he would “take anything that recognizes these hardworking men and women.”
Johnny J. Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees’ T.S.A. Council 100, the union representing T.S.A. officials, said on Thursday that the bonuses were “great for some, but it’s better to give everybody a little something, because they all suffered and they all endured hard times during the last 43 days.”
Karoun Demirjian is a breaking news reporter for The Times.
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