Union Proposal for Airport Screeners Stalls at the Gate

It's almost a replay from five years ago.

The Senate plans to vote today on whether to extend union rights to federal airport screeners, a fundamental question that confronted Congress when it created the Transportation Security Administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Following a contentious debate at the time, Congress left union rights to the discretion of the Bush administration, which decided collective bargaining was inappropriate for TSA workers because of national security considerations. Last month, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), brought the issue back, a sign of how the 2006 election has changed congressional priorities.

But the administration is holding firm. Yesterday, at a Senate subcommittee hearing, Kip Hawley, head of the TSA, rejected proposals by Lieberman and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that would provide bargaining rights for transportation security officers, popularly called security screeners.

The proposals, Hawley said, pose "a serious negative security impact."

Although unions represent law enforcement officers at the Border Patrol and the U.S. Capitol Police, Hawley said the demands placed on screeners, who work in more than 400 airports, are different than those at other agencies.

"TSA's mission requires that its officers be proactive, that TSOs constantly change what they do and where they do it," he said. "They are required to flex to different places in the airport and to meet suddenly changing security and operating needs."

Providing bargaining rights would allow unions to take grievances to outside arbitrators to review management decisions "after the fact" and "sets up a morass of wasted time that detracts from the focus on security," Hawley said.

The TSA has provided senators with a private briefing on TSA security requirements, using information that cannot be publicly disclosed, Hawley said.

After Hawley's testimony, the Senate panel heard from John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, who said Hawley's concerns were misplaced. Since 2002, AFGE has pushed for the right to bargain on behalf of the TSA employees.

Gage pointed to the union contract with the Capitol Police, which he said permits the police chief to suspend contract provisions on shift assignments, vacations and other workplace matters to meet staffing shortages or emergencies. Gage, who noted that AFGE bargains on behalf of employees at the Defense Department and other agencies with security-related work, suggested the Capitol Police contract could be a model for the TSA.

Union contracts are "bargained in the context of an agency's mission," cannot stop an agency from deploying employees and provide employees with a forum to address unfair treatment, Gage said.