(NewsNation) — Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., has called on the Transportation Department to expand its $10,000 bonus to include all air traffic controllers and FAA technicians who weathered the government shutdown.
The Trump administration announced last month that controllers with perfect attendance — that is, who showed up all 43 days without pay — would be awarded the bonuses. Around 775 employees qualified, the Transportation Department said.
In a letter first obtained by CBS, Duckworth demanded Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy dole out the bonuses to all workers.
“Excluding 96% of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Controller and Technician workforce from this bonus is unfair, divisive and disrespectful to the over 20,000 dedicated federal employees who worked under extremely stressful conditions to ensure our Nation Airspace System was safe during the 2025 shutdown,” Duckworth wrote.
Duckworth, the ranking member on the Senate’s Aviation, Space and Innovation subcommittee, points to personal reasons — planned or unplanned — that may have caused workers to take a day off during the shutdown.
“It is wrong to financially penalize these Federal employees for responsibly managing life events beyond their control while working without pay,” Duckworth wrote.
She also theorized that while an incentive like the bonus might encourage better attendance in the future, it could also “create a perverse and dangerous incentive that threatens to weaken NAS safety during future shutdowns.”
The record-setting government shutdown saw hundreds of thousands of federal employees working without pay, furloughed or laid off. Employees have since received full back pay, according to Duffy.