Senate Panel Passes Bill to Protect TSO Whistleblowers

Washington, D.C., July 30, 2009 – The American Federation of Government Employees is one step closer to winning its years-long fight to provide whistleblower protections for Transportation Security Officers when the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday passed a bill that would grant TSOs the same whistleblower protections as other federal workers who expose fraud, abuse, and wrongdoing in the workplace.

Under the 2009 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, TSOs can seek full protection from retaliation before the independent Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protections Board as other federal workers. Currently, under the TSA/OSC and TSA/MSPB agreements, TSOs can file a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the OSC, which can petition the MSPB if TSA ignores OSC's findings and recommendations. TSOs can also appeal personnel actions based on whistleblower retaliation directly to the MSPB. But none of these rights are guaranteed by law and TSA can cancel the agreements within sixty days notice. TSOs still cannot appeal a negative MSPB decision to the federal court, which current whistleblower protection law allows other federal workers to do.

"It's ironic that TSOs who stand literally at the front lines of our nation's homeland security system are not protected when they come out and expose misconduct and threat to public safety," said AFGE President John Gage. "We need to right this wrong." 

In addition to granting TSOs enforceable whistleblower protections, the bill for the first time would allow TSOs to take to MSPB cases involving discrimination and retaliation for exercising any appeal, complaint, or grievance granted by any law, rule, or regulation.

The bill, S.372, also would provide meaningful improvement to the current whistleblower law applying to most federal workers. It would, for example, provide access to jury trials and clarify what qualifies as a protected disclosure. Protections would also be extended to federal scientists.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, in February, and the TSO provision is identical to the House version, HR 1507, which is pending in Congress. S. 372's next stop is the full Senate.

AFGE and the Make It Safe Coalition, a group of whistleblower reform advocates which AFGE is a founding member, has been pushing for stronger protections for all federal whistleblowers including TSOs because – as President Obama put it – federal employees are the "watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance."

This Just In...

Wisconsin LTSO's Demotion Reversed: AFGE recently won a case in which a Lead Transportation Security Officer at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wisconsin, was demoted to a TSO for allegedly making inappropriate comments to her supervisors and co-workers. AFGE appealed her demotion to the Disciplinary Review Board, arguing that TSA failed to provide enough evidence to support its charge, failed to consider factors surrounding her case, and imposed a penalty that was unreasonable. Siding with AFGE, the board reduced her penalty to a three-day suspension and awarded the employee back pay for the four month period she worked as a TSO.