Another government shutdown is making it harder for TSA workers to continue working without a paycheck

The struggle is getting heavy and harder to manage for the hundreds of TSA workers - who remain on the job - working without a paycheck as the partial government shutdown drags on.

The non-profit group VEAP held a food drive for the nearly 500 workers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport this week.

Union leader Neal Gosman was grateful for the help, as he and his colleagues try to soldier through their third shutdown in just six months. Gosman says food donations are helpful but says many TSA agents need help with gas.

"Instead of a paycheck, I'm getting cornflakes. That's great. I really appreciate VEAP doing this," Gosman explains. "This is not a way to treat a federal employee. We're trying to keep people safe. This has happened over and over again. This is no way to run a government for the people."

Gosman says the Metropolitan Airports Commission has been accepting gas cards as the shutdown drags on.

"This is dereliction of duty of people who are elected both in the administration and in Congress," he adds. "We're doing our job. We're coming in and we're putting ourselves at risk. We're screening passengers. We're looking for bombs and bags, and we're not getting paid."

The partial government shutdown is also beginning to cause some long lines at airports across the country. TSA agents are classified as essential workers and they are not getting paid but have to work.

Sick calls are surging among security screeners causing staffing shortages.

CBS News Transportation Correspondent Kris Van Cleave spoke to one former TSA agent who had enough. Robert Echevarria worked the TSA checkpoints at the Salt Lake City airport for nine years, but with no paycheck or end in sight to the latest partial government shutdown, he quit.

"I love the agency," he explained. "I love the people that I worked with, but it just, my family has to come first."

Echevarria says it a hard decision to leave. The father of three felt he had no choice but to take another job. He's now among more than 300 TSA officers who have quit since the shutdown began last month, according to agency figures obtained by CBS News.

"I think the hardest thing is seeing the struggle that my wife was going through and not trying to bring more stress to her, but seeing her cry every night," Echevarria said. "How am I going to feed my family? How am I going to survive?"

He says that decision still weighs on him.

"It does. It does. Because again, these are people that I was with for over nine years," Echeverria adds.

This is the second prolonged shutdown impacting TSA officers since just October. They're on the job, they should be getting paid right about now, but they don't know when that paycheck is going to come. And for some officers that's just too much.