TSA & Unionization

The central message, whether he intended it or not, of Errol Southers' long interview with Federal News Radio seems to be that he was unprepared to handle the political pressures that would have been placed on him had he ultimately been confirmed to run the agency. I'm sure it must be embarrassing and frustrating to have an error you made continuously paraded before you, but if that's too much for you to handle, accepting a presidential nomination may not be a wise decision. And it's frankly nothing compared to what it would have been like to be running the agency during the attempted Christmas bombing. But if I were the unions that have been trying to unionize TSA, this is the paragraph I'd pay attention to:

Southers said [DeMint's] concerns and criticism of him were unfair, because he didn't have access to internal TSA information about unionization."I wanted to make the best recommendation that I could to Secretary Napolitano after I had that information. That was insufficient for him. He wanted a yes or no answer," Southers said.

When Janet Napolitano was going through her confirmation hearings to run the Homeland Security Department, she told lawmakers she'd find out if she had the legal authority to grant TSA screeners collective bargaining rights. Looks like she decided that she didn't, and the decision has been kicked back down to the TSA Administrator. Which means it may be a long time into the Obama administration before the TSA workers forming unions find out if those unions are going to be able to bargain for them.