Screeners form union despite agency opposition

Transportation Security Administration security screeners are forming a union even though the head of the agency has said he will not formally bargain with employee unions.

Screeners from 10 airports across the country gathered in Washington Monday to announce they will affiliate with the American Federation of Government Employees and form a nationwide local for all 60,000 passenger and baggage screeners that TSA hired over the past year.

"No federal agency needs a unionized workforce more than TSA," said Cynthia Cavalie, a security screener at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Cavalie said that when she was hired, she was led to believe that she would be promoted to supervisor quickly. "Instead I found myself stuck in a dead-end spot, subject to the whims of managers who showed contempt for their employees and careless disregard for the safety of the American public."

Cavalie and other screeners charged TSA with a litany of management failures, from cronyism to harassment to a lack of safety standards for workers. Chris Ashcraft, a baggage screener at Cincinnati's international airport, said the room in which he screens baggage for explosive devices does not have a fire extinguisher. The lack of safety standards contributes to high turnover and low morale among screeners, Ashcraft said.

"What morale? There is none," he said.

AFGE President Bobby Harnage said the union will lobby Congress on behalf of the screeners, represent them at grievance and discrimination hearings and work to advance their rights in the courts.

But the union will not be able to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the TSA. In January, TSA Administrator James Loy announced that the agency would not recognize collective bargaining rights for screeners. "Mandatory collective bargaining is not compatible with the flexibility required to wage the war against terrorism," Loy said in January. "Fighting terrorism demands a flexible workforce that can rapidly respond to threats. That can mean changes in work assignments and other conditions of employment that are not compatible with the duty to bargain with labor unions."

Instead, Loy said TSA executives would seek employee input through a "model workplace group" run by the agency's civil rights, training, human resources and ombudsman offices.

Harnage and the screeners in Washington said Monday that the union would help, not hurt, national security, by ensuring that front-line employees' voices are heard and their concerns about TSA procedures addressed. "We're going to take this fight wherever we need to take it," Harnage said.

The union already has petitions pending before the Federal Labor Relations Authority and in federal court challenging Loy's decision to avoid collective bargaining.

Monday's announcement marks the first time AFGE will represent a group of federal employees who do not have collective bargaining rights, Harnage said.

American University Professor Robert Tobias, former head of the National Treasury Employees Union, said the arrangement is "a throwback to what went on in the 1960s and 1970s" when unions began organizing federal employees after President Kennedy authorized union involvement in the federal workplace. At that time, unions represented individual employees in grievance procedures affecting promotions, performance evaluations and discrimination, but did not represent entire workforces in negotiations with management.

Tobias said TSA should engage in collective bargaining with the union. Restricted to grievance cases, the union is likely to heavily publicize workplace cases that the agency loses-cases that will breed distrust between employees and management. "The risk of the path TSA has chosen is an adversarial relationship," Tobias said.

The screeners in Washington Monday offered a host of examples of why tension is already high between employees and managers.

• Several screeners with college degrees and years of management experience said they had been promised quick promotions when they took the screener jobs, but now promotions are not open to them. "Half of the people on my shift every day are looking through the classifieds for other jobs," said Lynne Holley, a screener at Midway airport in Chicago.
• TSA management has reported that screener turnover is about 10 percent so far, but screeners said turnover is much higher than that and is forcing remaining screeners to work long shifts without days off. "We are short-staffed," said Robert Marchetta, a screener at LaGuardia airport in New York.
• Managers either don't create advance schedules or post schedules on a Thursday that take effect on Sunday, leaving screeners with little time to plan their weeks.
• Baggage screeners are offered no protection from explosions in the event a bag has an explosive device in it. Screeners also complained of inadequate training on baggage handling.
• Payroll problems have left screeners going weeks without paychecks or with health insurance coverage that they didn't apply for.
• Employee complaints about workplace conditions go unanswered.
• Managers have intimidated screeners who have tried to organize co-workers into the union.