TSA Expects A Doctor’s Note When Agents Call Out Sick During Shutdown

Transportation Security Administration officers who call out sick for a single day during the partial government shutdown can be disciplined if they don’t provide a doctor’s note documenting their illness.

Union representatives say the policy seems designed to pressure workers not to take absences while they continue to work without being paid. The Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA, hasn’t been funded for 25 days due to a stalemate on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t know of any [workplace] that has you bringing a note after one callout,” said Joe Shuker, regional vice president at the American Federation of Government Employees and recently retired TSA agent at the Philadelphia airport. “They’re forcing these people to go to the doctor and pay $40 for a copay. They’re creating bigger problems for us.”

Callouts are a perennial problem at TSA whenever its 50,000 security officers are forced to work as “excepted personnel” and forgo pay due to a funding lapse. Absences are expected to increase if the shutdown continues beyond Friday, when workers will miss their entire paychecks for the first time since the shutdown began Feb. 14.

In a March 5 guidance memo viewed by HuffPost, TSA said that if a worker was sick for three days or less during the shutdown, management could require them to provide a signed and dated doctor’s note stating that the employee was “incapacitated” during the absence. An illness-related absence any longer than that could require more documentation.

Union representatives said during normal times, the agency’s collective-bargaining agreement allows workers to “self-certify” their illness for up to three days, unless they are on sick-leave restriction or suspected of abusing the leave policy. (The Trump administration has tried to eliminate union rights at TSA and throw out the agency’s contract, but a court injunction has kept it in place for now.)

Cameron Cochems, a union representative and TSA agent in Boise, Idaho, said the sick-note policy is pushing people to tap their paid vacation days.

“That’s just another way the agency is, I would say, intimidating people to not call out,” he said.

TSA did not immediately respond to questions about the doctors’ note policy on Wednesday.

Travelers are already seeing unusually long security lines at airports like Atlanta and Houston as spring break travel ramps up. CBS News reported Wednesday that unscheduled absences among TSA officers had more than doubled during the shutdown, with callout rates reaching double digits in some places.

George Borek, a AFGE union steward and TSA officer at Atlanta airport, said the rate of callouts has shot up as workers feel the financial pressure of the shutdown. TSA officers start in the $40,000 range, and many of them live paycheck to paycheck. Borek suspects some workers may be trying to do side work to get by while they wait for their TSA pay to come through. He described the situation as a safety risk for air travel.

“Operationally, we’re nowhere near where we should be,” he said. “This is survival of the fittest right now. People are trying to not lose their apartments and cars, and to put food on the table. They don’t have the money for child care. It’s a vicious circle.”

He described the doctors’ note policy as “arbitrary.”

“They want to prevent people from calling out,” he said.

Unlike the record-setting government shutdown last fall, the current one only pertains to DHS. Democrats have refused to support funding for the agency until Republicans agree to put some curbs on President Donald Trump’s unpopular immigration crackdown, including removing masks from agents’ faces. So far, Republicans and the White House have refused.

Even within DHS, not all workers are treated equally during the shutdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents continue to be paid thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Republicans passed last year. But the work of TSA agents is not being funded, meaning they won’t receive wages and backpay until a deal is reached.

“The fact that you’re depending on officers to show up and not get paid, then treat them the way you do, it’s unrealistic for them to keep coming to work,” Shuker said. “At some point there’s a breaking point: I either feed my kids or put gas in the tank.”