NTEU Seeks Support for Bill
to Provide Civil Service Protections
In continuing a push to bring
TSA employees under federal civil service protections, NTEU
sent a letter
to members of the House of Representatives urging them to
cosponsor a measure that would provide TSOs with collective
bargaining rights for the first time.
H.R. 1881 would formally amend
the 2001 law that created TSA to provide TSOs with civil service
protections under Title 5, including collective bargaining
rights, and would move them onto the General Schedule (GS),
putting the brakes on the agency’s current failed pay-for-performance
personnel system.
Eliminating TSA’s unfair
PASS (Performance and Accountability Standards System) and
providing collective bargaining rights by statute would allow
TSA employees to have a united workplace voice as well as
an avenue to share their thoughts and ideas on ways to develop
and improve workplace policies and practices.
President Kelley worked closely
with Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), House Homeland Security Committee
Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Texas) to craft H.R 1881. Last month, the three lawmakers
also sent a letter to their congressional colleagues urging
their support for collective bargaining rights at TSA.
In addition to seeking support
for H.R. 1881, NTEU continues to work with the Obama administration
to secure collective bargaining rights through executive action.
The TSA administrator was given the power to decide whether
or not employees should have collective bargaining rights
under the law establishing the agency; to date, no TSA administrator
has seen fit to allow agency employees to have full collective
bargaining rights.
Calling the measure “fundamental
to improving TSA,” President Kelley said H.R. 1881 will
help ensure that TSA becomes “the best-run airport security
agency in the world.”
TSOs are among the few federal
employees without federal civil service protections.
