Hundreds in South Jersey out of work with FAA furloughs

Hundreds of area employees are still not getting paid, as a shutdown of parts of the Federal Aviation Administration continues.  While air traffic controllers are still on the job, Congress’  failure to approve funding lead to the furlough of thousands of FAA employees across the country.  Robert Challender is the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 200.  The 300 plus-member union represents fourteen furloughed workers at the FAA tech center in South Jersey.”If anything in the Air Traffic Control System in the country breaks, the first line of response comes from local people at facilities who are very adept at restoring their systems and maintaining them,” said Challender.  “But if they need engineering or subject matter assistance, they call here at the Tech Center in Atlantic City and we do in-depth troubleshooting and give engineering solutions to problems.”Challender said the shutdown has been stressful.  He says workers exempt from the furlough can’t always cover for those forced to remain at home. Some New Jersey politicians are pushing a bill to provide back pay and put hundreds of furloughed FAA employees in New Jersey back to work.