Effort to Give TSA Screeners Union Rights Advances

By Stephen Barr
Source: Washington Post

It was a good day for unions.

A Senate committee yesterday approved a measure that would give collective-bargaining rights to about 43,000 airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration. The committee’s action followed House approval of similar legislation last month.

If the Senate goes along with the committee’s decision, the issue of union rights for TSA screeners is likely to provoke a rare clash with the White House over federal workplace rules. After the House vote, the Bush administration vowed to oppose the legislation.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which has pushed hard to bring TSA screeners into the union fold, praised the committee’s decision and predicted the measure would improve working conditions for screeners.

“It is good news,” said John Gage, the union president. AFGE plans to bring about 800 members to Washington near the end of this month to lobby Congress on behalf of the screeners, he said.

“We have some work to do with the Republican side of the aisle, and I think we will be successful.”

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, proposed the union-rights amendment to the Senate bill that would implement unfinished recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. He prevailed on a party-line vote of 9 to 8.

As part of the response to the 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress created the TSA to take charge of passenger and baggage screening at the nation’s airports. It also provided the head of the TSA with leeway to set personnel rules and ban unions.

The TSA later merged into the Department of Homeland Security, where unions filed suit to stop proposed curbs to bargaining rights.

But Lieberman said “personnel management has been troubled at TSA” and concluded that “it is time to give TSA screeners parity with other security officers within TSA and DHS in terms of their employment rights and protections.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a committee member, spoke against Lieberman’s amendment. He said there have not been sufficient hearings on unionization of TSA workers, that the 9/11 Commission Report did not recommend it, and that allowing unions at the TSA would strip the agency of its ability to quickly deploy employees to respond to terrorist threats.

But AFGE had lobbied senators before the vote, contending that current law permits agencies to take whatever personnel actions they deem necessary to respond to emergencies. The union stressed that other law enforcement bureaus in Homeland Security, such as Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, permit their employees to be represented by unions.

“Denying these people rights that everyone else has in Homeland Security is not based on any rational reason,” said Gage, who brought a TSA screener from New Haven, Conn., this week to meet with Lieberman and explain why screeners should be able to join unions.

TSA officials said steps have been taken to ensure that security screeners can share their views with agency management. An employee advisory council brings in screeners from around the country to offer advice on compensation and other issues, and the TSA is rolling out a model workplace program to airports to teach employees and managers how to collaborate and resolve workplace issues, the officials said.

“This is our way to get our employees heard and let them have a voice and a seat at the table,” said Gale Rossides, an associate administrator at the TSA.

The agency recently completed its first year under a pay-for-performance system that was designed with feedback from more than 4,000 employees, “telling us what was important,” Rossides said

Turnover at the TSA is declining and compares favorably with the transportation and utilities industries, Rossides said. In fiscal 2006, the TSA’s attrition rate was 16.5 percent, while turnover was 19.6 percent in transportation-utilities sector, she said.

“We are continuing to focus to drive that number down,” Rossides added.