Airport screeners campaign for right to a union contract

A nationwide union campaign is under way among roughly 40,000 airport screeners at 450 U.S. airports. The screeners check baggage and passengers to keep weapons and explosives off planes.

Screening used to be the responsibility of airlines, which contracted it out as low-wage work. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was made a federal responsibility: Screeners, renamed “transportation security officers,” were made employees of the newly-formed Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Since the agency began, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has represented the TSA workforce. AFGE currently has about 12,000 dues-paying TSA members at more than 100 airports. The stand-alone National Treasury Employees Union, which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, also seeks to represent the group.

But big fights have been waged in Congress over whether the screeners would have the right to collective bargaining. TSA workers currently have the right to join unions and have union representatives represent them at many types of proceedings, but they have no process for establishing a union as their exclusive representative. The law that created the TSA said it would be up to the TSA administrator whether TSA employees have the right to collectively bargain a contract.

The TSA administrator appointed by President Bush said “no” to collective bargaining. Barack Obama told AFGE during his presidential campaign that he would support collective bargaining at TSA.

Sept. 17, eight months after taking office, Obama named Erroll Southers to head the TSA. Southers is chief of homeland security and intelligence for Los Angeles International Airport. But the appointment had to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and several other Republicans used Senate rules to hold up the nomination. DeMint argued that giving TSA workers collective bargaining rights would hurt security by making management less flexible in changing workplace practices. AFGE leaders countered that unionization could improve national security, because it would improve screener morale and working conditions, reduce turnover, and make workers less fearful of losing their jobs for reporting security lapses or instances where local practices don’t conform to national guidelines. Plus, AFGE points out, immigration agents, border patrol, and local police and firefighters have long had collective bargaining rights, without that deterring their mission.

To show support for the union by transportation security officers — and other unionists — AFGE has been holding rallies around the country, including the Portland International Airport Dec. 17.

After the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee and the Aviation Subcommittee, weighed in with a Dec. 29 letter to DeMint: “You must decide what presents the greater threat to the traveling public — terrorists organizing attacks against U.S. aviation, or the potential of labor organizing amongst TSA employees.”

Apparently, labor was the bigger threat for DeMint, who continued to block the nomination. On Jan. 20, Southers withdrew his name from consideration. In an interview, Southers cited “inaction” on the administration’s part in defending him. “I wish someone would have defended me more aggressively,” Southers told the online magazine Salon.com.

White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said Southers would have been an excellent TSA Administrator, “but [the president] understands his personal decision and the choice he has made.”

Reacting to the withdrawal in a press statement, DeMint repeated his point about the union: “Collective bargaining would force TSA officials to ask union bosses for permission to make critical security changes,” DeMint said. “Mr. Southers was never forthcoming about his intentions to give union bosses veto power over security decisions at our airports.”

As of press time, there was no word on whether or when Obama would nominate another TSA administrator, but AFGE may end up pursuing an alternate strategy, a bill that put TSA employees under the protections of the federal civil service system — including the right to collective bargaining. HR 1881 has 147 cosponsors in the House, including Democrats Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio in Oregon and Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott, and Adam Smith in Washington.

If they ever win the right to fully unionize, goals are likely to be modest. AFGE Regional Coordinator Ed Terry said TSA workers hope to use collective bargaining to get on the federal government’s regular pay scale — and dump TSA’s unique pay-for-performance system, which Terry said gives management too much latitude and invites favoritism.

Federal employees unionize under a different law than the one that governs private sector unionization. Union membership and dues are voluntary, and they’re prohibited from striking. 

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