by Mike Hall, Nov 15, 2006

The Bush administration violated the “fundamental” rights of 56,000 airport screeners when it prohibited the workers from achieving union representation and engaging in collective bargaining in 2003, the International Labor Organization (ILO) ruled in a decision responding to a complaint filed by the AFGE.

In the decision released today, the ILO—an agency of the United Nations—says the Bush administration continues to violate the basic workplace rights of the screeners employed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) by denying them freedom to organize and bargain collectively. The Bush administration claims allowing the workers to unionize will harm national security.

The ILO ruling urges the Bush administration to immediately grant collective bargaining rights to the TSA screeners.

In a joint statement, AFGE President John Gage and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney say:

Today’s decision by the [ILO] sends a powerful message to the Bush administration that the international community rejects its attempts to limit the collective bargaining rights of government employees entrusted with protecting our nation’s security.

The Bush administration tried to justify its 2002 decision to deny representation and collective bargaining rights to airport screeners at TSA on the basis of national security. The AFL-CIO and AFGE join the international community in its recognition that national security and worker rights are not mutually exclusive.

The Bush administration has used the same national security argument in its bid to deny collective bargaining rights through new personnel rules to more than 700,000 U.S. Defense Department workers and 160,000 employees in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Federal courts have ruled against new personnel rules in both cases. Congress also has weighed in against the Defense Department’s so-called National Security Personnel System. But the Bush administration is appealing the Defense Department ruling in the suit brought by United DoD Workers Coalition made up of more than 30 unions that represent department workers.

The ILO decision, say the union leaders:

…calls into question the administration’s policy of using national security to justify the denial of basic worker rights.

In 2001, airport screeners at several major airports began to organize with AFGE and continued to seek a voice at work after the federal government took over screening operations in 2002. In 2003, with workers and AFGE ready to seek elections at several airports, then TSA Administrator James Loy used his authority under the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act to opt out of collective bargaining.

Click here for a detailed report from AFGE National Organizer Peter Winch about the screeners’ continuing effort to win a union voice at work.

The ILO ruling, say Gage and Sweeney:

amplifies the growing voices heard around the country and the world that are calling on the Bush Administration to recognize internationally accepted workers’ rights standards.

ILO Conventions and Recommendations establish minimum standards of basic labor rights that nations should follow, including freedom of association, the right to organize and collective bargaining. 

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