Washington (AP) – The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that it ended the collective bargaining agreement with the tens of thousands of employees at the forefront of the transportation Security Administration and that it was great efforts to reduce union protection as part of the Trump administration.
The TSA union called it in “unprovocoed attack” and swore to fight it.
The department criticized the union, whose employees are responsible for holding weapons from aircraft and protecting air travel. Officials said that destitute actors were allowed to stay at work, and that the agreement hindered the ability of the organization to “protect our transport systems and to protect the Americans” – an evaluation that had an immediate setback from a top democrat in Congress and Union.
“This campaign will ensure that the Americans have more effective and modernized workers in the country’s transport networks,” said the agency in a statement.
The American Federation of Government employee is the union that represents the TSA worker. The then administrator of the Federation and the then administrator of TSA, David Pekoske, signed the CBA in May. There was a advance from Homeland Security to improve the payment of Front line workers who have historically remained behind other government employees. Pekoske attributed the salary increases by improving employee loyalty and morality.
The union said the command would remove collective bargaining rights of around 47,000 transport security officers or TSOS. These are the people who are responsible for personnel ports and are checked whether the passengers have no weapons or explosives. The decision comes at a time of increasing the passenger trip – screeners see an average of 2.5 million passengers per day.
The union said that the department and the Trump administration violate the law of the employees to join a union. It also means that the reasons why Republican administration had “fully produced” for the decision – in particular the criticisms of trade union activity – had “fully established”.
Instead, the decision is the retaliation for the broader efforts of the union, which question a number of Measures from Trump management in relation to federal workers. AFGE represents around 800,000 employees of the federal government and has returned many administration measures such as the dismissal of probation employees.
“Our union was questioned before the question of how you had questioned the illegal measures of this government on federal employees, both in court and before the court of public opinion,” said the union.
The Trump administration laid the foundation for the weakening or elimination of protection for federal workers because it moves quickly to reduce the bureaucracy.
Last week, the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to departments and agencies in which the time of employees in the last financial year in trade union matters such as contract negotiations and quarrelsmen was required.
In its announcement on Friday, the TSA stated that almost 200 employees worked on union affairs full-time while collecting a government salary from the union.
According to the federal law, employees who act as representatives of the union are entitled to dedicate part of their working hours to union matters in a way that is “appropriate, necessary and in the public interest”.
Trump implemented a similar report request during his first term, but she seems to have stopped in office during the time of President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration came to Pekoske the day when Trump was enthusiastic about. The TSA currently has no administrator or deputy administrator.
In a reference to the employees, the incumbent TSA administrator Adam Stahl said that Noem had made the decision to lift the tariff rights of the civil servants in order to match the Trump government, which to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the government and to ensure that our workforce can react quickly and effectively to the further developing threats. “
Stahl wrote that the decision “Meritocracy for the workforce” would restore. He said the TSA would work out other procedures to tackle the concerns and complaints of employees “in a fair and transparent way”.
The end of the collective agreement was immediately beaten up by democratic congress members and the association of the flight attendant CWA.
The head of the flight attendant, Sara Nelson, said in a statement that the decision “terrible for flight safety and everyone who depends on safe travel”.
“This leads to the lowest price with the highest costs for our country,” she said.
MP Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi, who is the Homeland Security Committee Rain management member of the house, said the decision was “zero” and would reduce morality.
Thompson also criticized the press release from the home protection and said that the department used “flat-out discussion points against the anti-union”. He said the actual goal was the “acceptance” of the workforce so that they can be transformed in the form of project 2025. “
Project 2025 was the conservative draft that Trump was not part of his agenda during the 2024 campaign. It requires the TSA union to end immediately and finally privatize the agency.
Collective agreements between an employer and a union that represents workers describes the rights and advantages of employees such as their salary plan and their ability to question demotions or dismissals.
This agreement should expire in 2031.
Michael Flocken, who is the managing partner at Tully Rinckkey, where he practices federal employment and labor law, said that these agreements, how a party can leave, usually exists guidelines. There are still guidelines and guidelines of the agency, the rules of how employees are treated, Fallen said. But without an agreement, employees would lose things like the right to have a union representative during a complaint, and it would be easier for management to take employees.
“The contract guarantees certain rights,” said Fallen. “So it has a big influence.”
In guidelines that were sent to the TSA workforce and received by the Associated Press, TSA management said that salary and services would not be affected, but the union fees would no longer be recorded via the salary statement.
The guidelines also say that the decision to terminate the agreement “would eliminate the inappropriate influence of the American Federation of Government employees and to rationalize the operations and improve efficiency.
The TSA was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when the kidnappers smuggled knives and box cutters through security to employ as weapons when they brought four aircraft and hit the Pentagon, the World Trade Center Towers and a Pennsylvania field. The TSA’s mandate was to prevent a similar attack in the future.
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Sisak reported from New York.
