Bill Passed to Move TSOs to General Schedule, Grant Collective Bargaining Rights

Washington, D.C., July 9, 2009 – The House Homeland Security Committee today passed an AFGE-backed bill that would end the Transportation Security Administration's highly subjective Performance Accountability and Standards System and move TSA workers to the General Schedule system most federal employees are under. The 2009 Transportation Security Workforce Enhancement Act also would grant Transportation Security Officers the rights to bargain for better workplace rules.

"Today is a good day for TSOs, who have been paying for TSA's bad decisions and mismanagement for too long," AFGE President John Gage said. "The passage of the bill reaffirms the committee's support for the employees and AFGE, the union that has gone above and beyond for TSO workplace rights." 

The bill, H.R. 1881, will strengthen the country's aviation security by providing a workplace that promotes fairness and excellence, Gage added. The bill is urgently needed also because PASS continues to demoralize the workforce and management continues to ignore their concerns.

AFGE worked closely with House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson and other leading lawmakers including Reps. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, in drafting and introducing the bill in the House earlier this year. AFGE yesterday wrote to Thompson, urging the committee to pass the bill.

"TSOs seek and the legislation provides a systematic and fair manner to deal with real day-to-day issues in the workplace that when appropriately resolved result in a strong, loyal workforce," AFGE Legislative Director Beth Moten said in the letter. "It is wrong to even suggest that a true voice at work is somehow detrimental to the nation's security interests or that the TSO workforce can only accomplish its duties with restricted rights." 

The bill is AFGE's latest effort in its eight-year fight to win TSO workplace protections. After the screening workforce was federalized in 2001, TSA – despite Congress' intent and the public's demand for a highly-trained, well-compensated, and fully empowered professional federal workforce – unilaterally decided that the agency is not bound by the rules and laws that govern the federal workforce, such as the Rehabilitation Act, the Civil Service Reform Act, Office of Personnel Management's compensation and leave rules, veteran preferences, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. As a result, TSA has among the highest attrition and injury rates and lowest morale in the federal government.

AFGE, with strong backing from the powerful AFL-CIO, repeatedly has urged Congress to support legislation that grants TSOs the same collective bargaining rights and workforce protections as other federal workers. In 2007, similar language granting collective bargaining was deleted from the 9/11 bill after then-President Bush threatened to veto the bill despite being approved by majorities in both the House and Senate. Since that time, AFGE membership at TSA has more than doubled to stand at 11,000 as TSOs became more committed to the fight to win their long-withheld workplace rights.