TSA Union Election: Runoff Next Month

Airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration are going to get one more shot at voting for union representation. Officials from the Federal Labor Relations Authority, as well as the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, on Thursday agreed to hold a four-week runoff election beginning next month.

AFGE and NTEU have been vying for exclusive representation of 40,000 TSA employees, but an election that concluded this week failed to produce a majority of votes for either organization.

AFGE received 8,369 votes, while 8,095 TSA workers voted for NTEU. In addition, 3,111 employees voted not to elect union representation. Less than 50 percent of eligible employees participated in the election.

The runoff voting period will begin on May 23 and end on June 21. The FLRA will tally the results on June 23. The option for no representation will not appear on the ballot for the runoff, so a simple majority will decide the winner.