AFGE Files for TSA Election; Rally for Workers’ Rights Set for Tomorrow

by Mike Hall, Feb 22, 2010

The 41,000 transportation security officers (TSO) at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are a step closer to winning the collective bargaining rights they have been denied since 2003.

Today, AFGE filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) for an election to allow the TSOs to vote on union representation. More than 30 percent of the TSOs nationwide support the AFGE petition. In 2003, the Bush administration stripped the workers of collective bargaining rights. Says AFGE President John Gage:

We have always known that the choice to unionize and the task of winning collective bargaining rights for the TSA workforce would be a two-part process. While it would be ideal for a TSA administrator to have granted collective bargaining rights first, the two do not have to go hand-in-hand. By settling the question of representation first, AFGE will be ready to begin negotiations as soon as the bargaining rights are established.

Senate Republicans—who oppose security officers’ freedom to form unions and bargain—successfully blocked President Obama’s choice to head the TSA. At a rally tomorrow in Washington, D.C., several hundred AFGE activists and others will urge Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to act swiftly to restore the workers’ rights.

In an online petition (click here to sign) TSA workers say:

Although the nation’s TSOs have performed our duty to provide aviation safety, TSA has denied us the collective bargaining rights and workplace protections held by other federal workers that ensure that we are treated fairly, properly compensated, and protected when we point out potential security breaches.

The time for change is long overdue.

Although TSA workers have been denied the freedom to bargain collectively, 13,000 of them are members of AFGE, which regularly represents them before the TSA Disciplinary Review Board, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Congress and in the courts. Says Gage:

Since AFGE chartered its first TSA Local in 2003, our TSA membership has grown from 13 brave TSOs to nearly 13,000 today….More than 13,000 TSOs in more than 100 airports in 37 AFGE locals nationwide have already spoken—declaring AFGE their union of choice. AFGE hopes for a speedy FLRA decision, so that TSOs nationwide can finally put to rest the question of union representation.

Click here, here and here to read how TSOs around the country are mobilizing for their rights and here to become Facebook friend of  TSA workers.

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