Workers Mobilizing to Get Bargaining Rights for Transportation Security Officers
 |
||||
|
||||
More than 120 workers from nine unions braved cold weather in Phoenix yesterday to rally and show solidarity with Transportation Security Agency (TSA) workers who are seeking a union.
The Phoenix rally shows workers across the country are standing strongly behind the employees who protect the flying public. Over the next few weeks, the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions are mobilizing to draw attention to the plight of these workers and the unfair ways they are being treated.
Even though federal border guards, immigration and customs and Federal Protective Service employees are already union members, TSA employees still do not have collective bargaining rights.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler stopped by National Airport near Washington, D.C., yesterday to talk with TSA workers about their concerns. Workers there and at airports across the country are concerned about pay levels, high staff attrition, low morale and severe rates of workplace injuries.
Screeners Closer to Long Overdue Bargaining Rights
Some 43,000 airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) yesterday moved another step closer to winning “long overdue” collective bargaining rights and other workplace protections.
By a 19-10 party-line vote, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved legislation (H.R. 1881) restoring the workers’ rights that the Bush administration stripped away in 2003. In addition, the bill grants the screeners—also known as Transportation Security Officers (TSOs)—and other TSA workers “whistle-blower” rights and the same civil service protections enjoyed by other federal workers.
Committee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) says the restoration of collective bargaining rights is “long overdue” and will help the agency
deal with the high attrition, low morale and severe workplace injury rates that have plagued the agency since its creation in 2001.
