Disgraceful behavior by Newark employees worsens danger

[unicorn]

I heard on the news that 5 air traffic control employees took 45 days off of "trauma leave," blaming stress over equipment failures at that airport. That airport already suffers from understaffing, and this action will obviously necessitate more overtime and pressure from those who remain, as well as more danger to the public. I find this behavior reprehensible and irresponsible. Although I felt stress as a primary care physician (as well as real personal danger) during the COVID-19 pandemic, it never occurred to me to ditch my fellow health care professionals and take 45 days off due to stress. At the very least, I feel those employees should be required to get daily mental health evaluations to assess their levels of stress and determine their ability to return to work. It seems all highly unprofessional in my view.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/newark-air-traffic-control-lost-contact-pilots-least-twice-source-says-rcna205126

"...While the FAA has not said how many controllers are out on medical disability for stress, the controller who spoke with NBC News said the control tower is struggling to keep up with the flights because four experienced controllers and a trainee are now on leave. Replacing them will take time, an FAA spokesperson said, because any certified controller that applied or volunteered to move to the to the Philadelphia TRACON that guides planes into the Newark airspace would have to do additional training at the FAA's air traffic control training center in Oklahoma City. After which they would be required to do on-the-job training in Philadelphia.

On average, it takes about a year and a half to be certified as an air traffic controller in any facility, the spokesperson said. The FAA moved the controllers who are responsible for aircraft arriving and departing from Newark from a facility on Long Island to Philadelphia last year. The move was meant to reduce the workload of the controllers in that facility who were also handling traffic for New York City’s major airports. United CEO Scott Kirby said Monday the Philadelphia TRACON “has been chronically understaffed for years.”...".

https://nypost.com/2025/05/08/opinion/faa-workers-dont-need-phony-trauma-leave-after-newark-airport-disaster/

"The Newark Liberty International Airport mess just keeps getting more alarming: Now it turns out that an insane leave policy for air traffic controllers is adding to the chaos. Yes, controllers can take 45 days off to handle alleged “trauma” caused by … equipment failures. Yes, preventing plane crashes is a high-stress job, and it’s surely freaky when your radar cuts out — but that’s not trauma, and treating it as such is deeply irresponsible. One, it’s yet another major intrusion of therapy culture into everyday life, in which the slightest adverse event gets magnified into a life-altering disaster that requires endless healing time. Two, it’s literally putting other people’s lives in danger...".

[PeterRS]

Air traffic controllers not turning up really concerns me. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan's decision to fire 11,359 air traffic controllers after most had gone on strike for shorter working weeks, and hire new ones. How do you train someone to be an air traffic controller almost overnight? Sure, retired ones can come back to the job, but those who are older might suffer from slight eyesight and other ageing issues. To me, an air traffic controller is as important as the pilot of an A380 jumbo, if not more so.

[Keithambrose]

I don't blame them for being stressed. A really high profile job, and they must be wondering  when some 21 year old kid will come in, says he's from DOGE, and fires them!

[PeterRS]

I have never been inside an air traffic control centre and can only base my thoughts on what I see in movies. On that basis, the entire system seems almost antiquated. No doubt it works, but having controllers depend on moveable strips and old-fashioned radar screens is desperately out of date.

[vinapu]

3 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I don't blame them for being stressed. A really high profile job, and they must be wondering  when some 21 year old kid will come in, says he's from DOGE, and fires them!

I  think you hit the nail

[unicorn]

8 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

I don't blame them for being stressed. A really high profile job, and they must be wondering  when some 21 year old kid will come in, says he's from DOGE, and fires them!

No one is suggesting it's not stressful. However, the event didn't merit abandoning one's co-workers and the public for over 6 weeks. Hopefully, they're at least keeping tabs on these 5 shady people, to make sure they're not living it up on a nice paid vacation. During 2020, most of my colleagues and I felt we were in grave (even mortal) danger at our jobs (and I would have felt even more frightened had I known at that time that the N95 masks I wore for protection were essentially useless). I didn't hear of a single person where I worked who took off due to "stress." It was our job to help save the lives of others, and we knew the risks involved before we started our training. 

What would our society be like if people whose job it is to ensure public safety took off at the slightest hint of danger? How about fire fighters or police officers? I think most people can see these 5 employees' actions as an opportunity for some paid time off--with serious consequences. I just hope there are consequences. I wouldn't want to work with someone who high-tails it when the going gets rough. Like fire fighters or other first-responders, this is probably not the appropriate job for someone who can't handle pressure. 

[floridarob]

7 hours ago, PeterRS said:

I have never been inside an air traffic control centre and can only base my thoughts on what I see in movies. On that basis, the entire system seems almost antiquated. No doubt it works, but having controllers depend on moveable strips and old-fashioned radar screens is desperately out of date.

I've been to the tower and TRACON room at MCO- Orlando airport....prior to 9/11 when they allowed visitors. 2 of my neighbors worked there.....they shared some interesting stories, I can't fathom what it's like today with so many more flights and working under this administration.

[vinapu]

15 hours ago, unicorn said:

No one is suggesting it's not stressful. However, the event didn't merit abandoning one's co-workers and the public for over 6 weeks. Hopefully, they're at least keeping tabs on these 5 shady people,

what about giving them some benefit of doubt ? 

[Riobard]

I don’t disagree that judicious stoicism and collegial commonality / support may be an effective means of occupational stress endurance and recovery for many. Health care, first response, armed forces, etc etc. 

BUT the policy looks very complicated and it’s easy to get into the weeds trying to interpret it. However, as I understand it, the only way to not lose pay for absence due specifically to a stressful workplace event (ie, “trauma”, however broad the definition) whether explicitly including bodily injury / illness or not is to trigger the 45-day max absence pay via standard application.

Having a high fever or slipping and falling hard would trigger legitimacy for sick leave without question; it might be a few days of medical leave but could be up to 45 days of temp leave and bridging pay. If shaken up by failed radar infrastructure, in contrast, not staying at post or failing to coming in for next scheduled shift seems to be considered AWOL if not initiating the trauma leave adjudication formally. It would not necessarily be arbitrarily 45 days and would be subject to approval but the adjudication takes time and guarantees not being docked pay up to the point of disposition if rejected or truncated prior to the 45 calendar days.

I don’t think any of the applicants asserted the entitlement of the full discretionary period, upon eventual formal adjudication, of 45 calendar days. Media hyperbole, generating uproar, is the prevailing trend. In addition, paradoxically, the only way for them to extricate self from being castigated for apparently exacerbating faulty infrastructure by amplifying personnel shortages would be to uptick expressed trauma symptomatology since such is largely based on self-report. I’m certain there is no lack of YouTube vids demonstrating how to come off as dissociating.

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OWCP/dfec/icstraining/cop/cop.pdf

[unicorn]

5 hours ago, vinapu said:

what about giving them some benefit of doubt ? 

Even if we were to give them the benefit of the doubt, if it were true that the 90-second blackout resulted in 45 days of trauma (and how do these people know they won't be better in a shorter period of time?), then they're simply in the wrong job. What's almost certainly going on, however, is that the union got the 45-day clause into their contract of Memorandum of Understanding, and these people took unfair advantage of that loophole. I wouldn't believe for a fraction of a second that these five people all suddenly woke up the next morning thinking "I'm really shaken up, and will need exactly 45 days to recover!". But, then again, if it really were the case that this equipment failure caused such prolonged mental trauma, then these people really should not be doing this job. Would we want to have fire fighters who took 45 days off because a fire hydrant wasn't working?

[Riobard]

I don’t think it’s employee union specific for that job class, and may apply to non-unionized management as well, assuming everybody has a superior within hierarchical structure, but attempts to investigate patterns go back decades. I just skimmed the appended document but it appears there is a range of leave in which the mean or median is under 45 days at the time of this dated analysis. Hence, 45 days is apparently both discretionary and arbitrary for the sake of delimiting within stages of occupational leave compensation. 

Air traffic control personnel may be backed into a corner if longstanding expressed infrastructure concerns go unheeded, in contrast to firefighters that may face drought as a natural disaster more than the inadequacies of water supply leadership where scarcity could possibly be mitigated.

https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/av2003011.pdf

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

Would we want to have fire fighters who took 45 days off because a fire hydrant wasn't working?

but if they asked 127 times to repair / connect that hydrant and noting happened  perhaps only such action   would cause starting mitigation. 

I agree in general with your sentiments as often   jobs perks and entitlements are abused  and over used  ( my friend , the letter carrier,  in his 25 years of work never failed to use ALL yearly allotment of paid sick days so I get your drift  ) but I'd still be reluctant to heap abuse on  those workers before we know all truth

[unicorn]

59 minutes ago, Riobard said:

...Air traffic control personnel may be backed into a corner if longstanding expressed infrastructure concerns go unheeded...

5 minutes ago, vinapu said:

but if they asked 127 times to repair / connect that hydrant and noting happened  perhaps only such action   would cause starting mitigation...

 

OK, so both of you seem to agree that this constituted a work action, rather than a genuine mental health crisis. At least we're being honest now. 😉

[vinapu]

3 minutes ago, unicorn said:

OK, so both of you seem to agree that this constituted a work action, rather than a genuine mental health crisis. At least we're being honest now. 😉

why ' rather " , one doesn't invalidate other. 

In any case it's 2:1 against your reasoning 

[Riobard]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

OK, so both of you seem to agree that this constituted a work action, rather than a genuine mental health crisis. At least we're being honest now. 😉

If it’s in some way integratively multi-axial, one’s perspective transcends the notion of honesty. The reason this discussion even exists is that workplace stress in general is incontrovertible but in this case exacerbated by unresolved systemic problems within this domain of safety / security.

Surely the phenomenon of inertia with respect to identified and uniformly agreed upon infrastructure failings will elevate workplace stress and its expression. That said, the word “trauma” has no place in the discussion but is unfortunately the overarching term for workplace injury. A disaster would legitimately be deemed to produce trauma. Otherwise, what is traumatogenic sits on a continuum and the possibility of disaster based on systemic neglect has made its way on to the continuum. Such conceptualization muddies true clinical trauma because anticipatory disaster is stressful yet gets folded into definitional criteria for trauma, criteria for one word that by the way happen to be arbitrary. 

If an employee is sexually harassed it would be deemed stressful at minimum. A clinically supported leave would acknowledge both psychological impact and workplace dynamics. The systemic inadequacies combined with individual discomfort get labelled as traumatogenic. The language that conveys that air traffic control requires a huge and expensive overhaul is understandably going to put a particular spin on stressful events that exemplify the need for same. The workers in question are receiving the meta message that the triggering events are stressful and that associated leave aimed at rebalancing falls under the jurisdiction of trauma because even a single day of stress leave hinges on fitting into the trauma leave mold in order to receive pay; in fact, failing to acknowledge and live up to the associated symptoms may be labelled as a type of denialism that itself represents psychological disturbance. Be entitled or be a pushover. 

So, yes, true stress say hello to indignation. How very dare you apparently wilfully sustain the conditions that generate my authentic stress? At this point there is lacking an identifiable threshold at which solutions to systemic problems will alleviate trauma leave patterns to a degree in which consensus may manifest in terms of compensation contingencies perfectly commensurate with stress. It doesn’t help matters when a reductionist claim is made that exactly 45 days paid leave is demanded as a penalty for transient radar blackout.  

 

[unicorn]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

why ' rather " , one doesn't invalidate other. 

In any case it's 2:1 against your reasoning 

First of all, it's not at all clear that he agrees with you. He seems to be agreeing with me that these 45 days don't represent bona fide severe psychological trauma. He might shed light on his posts more clearly, but that's how I understand it. Even if he did agree with you, however, only a fool (or very young child) would believe that they are "right" because they know of someone who agrees with him. The staff of the New York Post agree with me. I'm mature and intelligent enough to understand that this doesn't necessarily mean I'm "right." In this situation, common sense has to come into play.

(For what it's worth, I don't believe that you believe what you said about these leaves of absence representing genuine metal health trauma either, but that's a separate issue. Some people will spout nonsense because they can't admit they were wrong)

And, as I've said earlier, even if it were to be the case that these 5 employees were so severely traumatized, which is highly unlikely, that could only lead to the conclusion that they're unfit for this job in general.

[Riobard]

The New York Post article is one of the most manipulative and distorted media articles I’ve read this year. All it suggests is the degree to which indignation shapes perspective and undermines objectivity. There is no a priori loophole that underpins the automatic allocation of 45 days of paid medical leave for the events that transpired and for this particular job class. 

The article is intended to undermine the current or recent FAA administration, exaggerating the labour-wide federal policy of any prerogative for stress leave as misguided “woke-ism”. The employees involved have no choice but to apply officially for trauma leave because the policy language is such that any medical leave is subsumed under the nomenclature heading trauma. This is an artefact of the language that was chosen to categorize being off due to illness or physical injury of any federal employee, not a misappropriation of therapy culture. Breaking a limb due to accidentally tripping at work will generate trauma leave if job capacity or light duties are rendered impossible. The associated misnomer of trauma in the case under discussion easily gets conflated with staking claims to such terms as PTSD. 

The article conveys a hair-trigger tendency to rage and create divisiveness, compared to which any indignation arising from poor infrastructure management that may be attributed to the employees’ pursuit of some amount of paid stress leave pales.

That said, a rigorous application of stress assessment is appropriate in these cases; the duration beyond which a reasonable limited period of recovery extends is subject to clinical manpower limitations that parallel that of the traffic controller Human Resources problem itself. If one day will suffice, it may ridiculously take much longer to access the formal adjudication that will have legitimized one day’s absentee pay. This is not to say that individualistic work ethics and other attitudinal factors do not influence response to stressful events and views regarding tapping, even opportunistically, into accessible benefits. I expect that many of us have seen people carry their occupational weight unequally. 

However, the media article supports the prevailing ‘victim culture’ by spurring argumentativeness about who is victimized and who is blameworthy. 

[thaiophilus]

In class-B airspace, all aircraft are subject to ATC clearance and all flights are separated from each other by ATC. 

That means that ATC, not the pilot, is responsible for preventing mid-air collisions. In effect the controller is piloting the aircraft, not the guy in the left seat on board, who  may be seeing nothing but the inside of a cloud. 

My personal preference, if I were a passenger, would be for the controller to be relaxed, attentive and mindful.

[unicorn]

I'm on a trip with my husband, and seeing people needing assistance to get on the plane made me think of an analogy. Those needing assistance cannot, by definition, be seated in the exit row since those seated in the exit row need to be able to assist the crew in case of emergency. Similarly, someone needing to take 45 days off because of a 90-second blackout, by definition, should not be an air traffic controller, since those job require a relaxed, attentive, and mindful demeanor. 

[PeterRS]

I agree entirely with @Riobard. I have ionly just read that New York post article and find major flaws near the very start -

Yes, controllers can take 45 days off to handle alleged “trauma” caused by … equipment failures. 

Yes, preventing plane crashes is a high-stress job, and it’s surely freaky when your radar cuts out — but that’s not trauma, and treating it as such is deeply irresponsible. 

One, it’s yet another major intrusion of therapy culture into everyday life, in which the slightest adverse event gets magnified into a life-altering disaster that requires endless healing time. 

Two, it’s literally putting other people’s lives in danger. 

The italics and bold face are my insertions. If I am an air traffic controller and I am responsible for - I don't know how many each controller handles at any one time but let's assume - six incoming aircraft, if my radar cuts out I'd be in a state of some considerable panic. I have the lives of, say, 1,500 people in my hands. I do not know where they are, I cannot advise them to climb or descend because I have no idea what other aircraft are in the vicinity. I have no idea if they can continue to land because I do not know what is on the runway. And the NYP terms this FREAKY? It is a helluvalot more than freaky! It's not TRAUMA? It's life-threatening in the first instance and could cost a gazillion in insurance costs if one or more plane goes down. Indeed, would any airport's insurance policies cover a total hull loss due to equipment failure. Somehow I doubt it.

Lost in the discussion seems to be one reason for the stress/trauma - as stated in the NBC article in the OP "four experienced controllers and one trainee were on leave." I have no idea how many controllers are on the rota system at Newark, but if you take out that number of controllers and the possbility of others being sick, the airport surely has a problem. Why were they permitted to be on leave at the same time? Was this putting lives in danger? Only Newark management can answer that.

With all respect to other responders, I do not believe for one moment that you can compare jobs of a doctor/surgeon or a firefighter with an air traffic controller. Coming from a family amost all of whom are in the medical profession. I have the utmost respect for those working in that field. An operating theatre requires the skills and 100% attention of all present, not simply the lead surgeon. But equipment failure is likely to lead to - very sadly - one death per theatre. A pandemic like covid is different and does require an "all hands on deck" working horribly long hours to keep patients alive. But that scenario is, I am pretty certain, a relatively rare occurrence in each country. Similarly one out-of-order fire hydrant, intensely frustrating though it may be, is not the end of the world for a firefighter. 

I wonder who remembers the television series titled "Air Crash Investigation". This focussed on a considerable number of air crashes and the reasons for them. The series covered a long time span. I recall one programme about the crash of a full Turkish Airlines DC10 outside Paris in 1973 due to the aft cargo door being closed incorrectly. Some involved air traffic control. One of these focussed on a 2002 nightime crash over the Swiss German border in an area with Swiss air traffic controllers. A DHL 757 cargo jet was flying from Italy to Belgium. In control were two very experienced pilots. At the same time a Russian Tupolev with a equally experienced crew was on an overnight chartered flight from Moscow to Barcelona. Of the complement of 69 passangers and crew, 46 were schoolchildren flying to some UNESCO arranged camp. With Swiss airspace virtually dead at that time of night, only two air traffic controllers were on duty. One was resting in an adjacent room. Although against regulations, it had been practiced for years. Only one therefore handled the very limited air traffic movements.

It is a supreme irony that the children should have been on a flight two days earlier. Having arrived in Moscow by overnight train, their driver took them to the wrong airport and they missed their flight. They had to wait two days for what was to be their fatal flight. Again for reasons I cannot recall, both aircraft were permitted to ascend to the same height - effectively putting them on a collision course. About one minute prior to the collision, the air traffic controller finally realised the situation and ordered the Russian aircraft to descend immediately. But most aircraft have a TCAS system (Traffic Alert and Collission Avoidance System) which warns it of an impending collision and automatically takes avoiding action. The DHL 757 did just that and that aircraft also started automatically to descend. Moments later the planes collided. 

The accident enquiry found that the air traffic controller had given incorrect information about the positions of the aircraft relative to each other. Maintainenance work also meant that one radar system was out of operation. For whatever reason, the ground based optical warning system had also been switched off for maintenance. Had it been operational, it would have given the controller sufficent warning about a potential collision. 

The air traffic controller understandably required leave due to traumatic stress  Three managers of the air traffic control company were given suspended prison sentences. The worst effect occurred 21 months after the accident. Devastated by the death of his wife and two children, one Russian father tracked down the air traffic controller at his home near the airport and stabbed him to death in front of his wife and three children.  One further result of the accident enquiry was improvements to the TCAS system. 

That murder was definitely an extreme example of what could possibly happen to a flight controller. But who is to say it might not happen again? And some say there is little stress management required for controllers?

[caeron]

 

This action highlighted to the nation how bad things are with our air traffic control system. Bully for them doing that.

[thaiophilus]

19 hours ago, unicorn said:

I'm on a trip with my husband, and seeing people needing assistance to get on the plane made me think of an analogy. Those needing assistance cannot, by definition, be seated in the exit row since those seated in the exit row need to be able to assist the crew in case of emergency. Similarly, someone needing to take 45 days off because of a 90-second blackout, by definition, should not be an air traffic controller, since those job require a relaxed, attentive, and mindful demeanor. 

I would suggest that in the working environment being described here, nobody could maintain a relaxed, attentive, and mindful demeanour. 

[Keithambrose]

'......relaxed, attentive, and mindful demeanor.'

 

Good luck with finding such people!