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The GP comment was about accident investigators rather than air traffic controllers but the consquences are the same, a lot of regular gov. employees are distracted by a current situation with no prior occurrence.
It was largely a matter of precedent, rather than law. It's unclear how much of the current path is legal. And, of course, whether it's good judgment is completely orthogonal to whether it's legal.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/keep...
And this is in the context of a Republican argument that DEI hiring at the FAA for Air Traffic Controllers is a big problem.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240308145022/https://ag.ks.gov...
I don't believe the environment Mary Schiavo experienced in the 1990s was the same as today's environment.
FAA-employed ATCs are like any other non-appointed federal employees - politics should have no impact on their employment and this arrangement is protected by federal civil service laws.
Which Trump is roundly ignoring because he wants to appoint every agency with burrowed MAGA loyalists, top to bottom.
If you haven't been following what this administration has said and done with a painful degree of critical focus, it's probably bleaker than you imagine.
"Trump reclassifies thousands of federal employees, making them easier to fire":
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/20/trump-execut...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy/Career_appointment
> The federal civil service system exists to ensure that hiring and firing decisions are based on merit, not political favoritism. Legal and procedural standards, enforced by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, require managers to provide a reason for taking disciplinary action, give employees the right to respond and mandate that decision-makers consider both sides before taking action against a federal employee. This system is crucial for maintaining fairness; it prevents arbitrary and unjust terminations.
> Before this system was established, many new administrations fired their predecessors’ civil servants and replaced them with donors and cronies. This practice led to instability and inefficiency within the federal government. To address this issue, Congress established merit-based hiring and firing procedures that apply to civil servants who are not political appointees, ensuring that government agencies are staffed with qualified individuals who can effectively serve the public.
* https://thehill.com/opinion/5107846-federal-employees-civil-...
Trump et al seem to want to go back to the system where folks can be hired and fired at will:
* https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex...
Do a search for "Schedule F" for more on the topic.
source: my uncle was an ATC during the strike. I believe he was a shift lead/supervisor and was NOT part of the walk out. He was appalled at how bad the replacements were and was going crazy trying to get them up to snuff.