It certainly has been an eventful few weeks for the Federal Air Marshal Service. Hot on the heels of a recent ProPublica report detailing the criminal records of several marshals, the program was hit with another major blow this past week - a recent federal court opinion stating that 1,805 air marshals have been unlawfully denied overtime.
According to Michael Grabell, the ProPublica reporter behind the bombshell report on criminal misconduct in the marshal program, the 2006 lawsuit was filed by agents who claimed they haven't been fully compensated for flight delays, time for writing reports and off-duty fitness and firearms training needed to pass quarterly tests.
The Department of Justice defended the Marshal Service by arguing that the agents are not entitled to overtime because they already receive a 25 percent salary bonus as compensation for being on call 24 hours a day.
Frank Terreri, Acting Vice President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and a Los Angeles-based air marshal, disagreed and defended his fellow agents in an interview with ProPublica.
"There's more problems with families in the Federal Air Marshal Service than with any other agency I've seen," said Terreri. "You can't plan to see your son play baseball or your daughter or anything like that unless you take annual leave. You don't have regular days off."
Terreri also noted the inconsistent working hours that many air marshals deal with have been known to put strain on the personal lives of agents.
Judge Bodhan Futey of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims laid the issue to rest in his November 5th opinion, arguing that any marshal who logs more than 43 hours a week is entitled to time-and-a-half overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Futey added that the 25 percent availability (eg. on-call) pay "does not constitute FLSA overtime compensation; however, plaintiffs are not entitled to a windfall of an additional payment at one and one-half times their regular rate for hours for which they have already been compensated."
At first glance, the reports of criminal activity in the marshal service and the recent court opinion regarding overtime pay seem to be unrelated. And either one of these reports in isolation would perhaps be quickly forgotten in favor of the next scandal du jour, but with back-to-back stories, one starts asking questions.
For instance, is there a connection between the long (and potentially dangerous) hours for relatively low pay and the criminal allegations that several marshals have faced? Is the marshal service cutting corners on everything from background checks to overtime payments? It certainly appears that way.
The words "federal" and "mismanagement" have sadly become synonymous. But when a program like the Federal Air Marshal Service is ineptly handled, the results may be disastrous.
Also Interesting:
Most Read