Heaven Help Us All: TSA Union Vote Ends Today
By Mary Theroux • Monday June 20, 2011 11:12 PM PDT • 7 Comments
Which one needs (union) protection?
It’s not a question of “If,” but “Which” union TSA employees will soon use as their armed representative against taxpayers and as protection against travelers who haven’t yet fully resigned themselves to treatment worthy of the Gestapo or KGB.
From the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) “Welcome TSA Employees” web page urging TSA employees to vote it their representative:
Do not let others choose your workplace representation for you. Make your voice heard and vote for the largest, most respected, independent union in the federal sector. Cast your vote for NTEU (#2 on the phone selections) by 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, June 21.
For those of you who are still waiting to speak up for your workplace rights and vote NTEU, here are just a few reasons why NTEU is the best choice at TSA:
NTEU is the exclusive representative of your airport colleagues at CBP. [U.S. Customs and Border Protection]
NTEU is an honest and professional union, one that you can be proud to be a part of;
NTEU has a long track record of success in Congress;
NTEU bargains the best contracts in the federal sector; and
NTEU has trained attorneys and labor relations experts on the ground nationwide.
And don’t overlook the sidebar:
Raise Your Voice !
Join NTEU’s efforts to keep anti-TSA amendments out of a final DHS funding bill.
Which links to this email-ready prepared message for TSA employees to send to “Your U.S. Senators:”
As a federal employee and your constituent, I urge you to oppose the provisions included in the House-passed Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill that would cut funds to TSA by nearly $300 million, resulting in job losses of up to 8,000 at the agency, and would prohibit funding for collective bargaining rights at TSA.
Prohibiting collective bargaining rights at TSA is ill-advised on many fronts. After an extensive review of how collective bargaining could be implemented at TSA while keeping the security of our traveling public the top priority, TSA Administrator Pistole issued a determination that limited collective bargaining, with a flexible standard to allow the agency to act without bargaining in emergency or exigent circumstances, could begin at TSA. Its employees are choosing an exclusive representative in an election already underway. A large majority of the TSA workforce has expressed support for union representation as evidenced by the close to 85% of votes cast for a union in the first stage of the election. Cutting funding for collective bargaining would prevent TSA employees from even the limited collective bargaining just approved and it would deal a significant blow to morale at the agency.
Many federal employees involved in securing our nation already have collective bargaining rights – Customs and Border Protection Officers, Border Patrol Officers, Bureau of Prison Guards. Like these federal employees, TSA employees must follow civil service rules that prohibit the right to strike and allow managers to move employees to different areas in the event of an emergency. Additionally, airports that have had private screeners since 2002 have never been prevented from collectively bargaining and two of those airports have had collective bargaining for years with no impact on the traveling public.
The majority of the TSA workforce has expressed an interest in representation. Poor morale at TSA contributes to inefficiencies at the agency. Poor workforce management has led to one of the highest attrition rates in the government, and high on-the-job injuries. Collective bargaining will strengthen TSA by providing its workers both with a system that is fair, credible and transparent, and with a voice in the development of workplace quality standards that will make all the traveling public even safer.
I ask you to oppose efforts to cut jobs at TSA and prohibit funding for collective bargaining rights.
Notice the smooth segue from “prohibit funding for collective bargaining rights at TSA” to “Prohibiting collective bargaining rights” [emphasis added].
I say: fire ‘em all and abolish the TSA.
Tags: Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Defense, Labor, Liberty, Monopoly and Antitrust, Morality, Peace, Personal Liberty, Police, Power, Surveillance, Terrorism 
Mary..
.. So just get rid of the security.. Why or how does a person get PAID to write ridiculous junk like you do..
You know Transportation Security is needed just as Military, Boarder patrol,and police are needed. I think you have an agenda to see them privatize.. Like a GOP genius... No they will profit from it and not much else will happen.. Except they will be able to strke then or unionize...
They already have enough waste in the TSA with private companies like Lockheed, Rapiscan, and a list of others. Tell me why is it you want to abolish TSA only..& not Fema or ICE..Or others? Because they have already been left without work place rights for so long? You have no idea about work as a TSO.. Yet you say the workers will use the Union as their Armed representative against tax payers and as protection against travelers. My problem is in all the areas of public waste and Unions you single out TSA... I really think 90% of the people in federal service do a whole lot better in the position that they do then you do in yours. Posting articles like abolish the TSA with no alternative method of screening 100′s of millions of passengers. Weak,very Weak.. Hey! Here is an idea for your next article.. Abolish the Military.. Then leave no alternative measure as to what will replace them..
Bob | Jun 21, 2011 | Reply
TSA workers to get Limited Union rights and you ask the Question in the Photo Who needs Union rights?
You act as if the worker started a fondling procedure on a whim of there own.
Get a clue every thing TSA worker does is SOP
They have no say, like...At all so, yeah ask who and believe me they need protection for a whole lot more than just that photo..
Also your date given is also erroneous the date you need heaven to help is actually 21st at mid night.
Bob | Jun 21, 2011 | Reply
Hi, Bob:
If you are familiar with the Independent Institute’s work, you know that we have produced many studies supporting privatizing or abolishing functions currently provided by monopoly public sector employees and contractors. Private firms and their agents are those that can be held accountable to strict adherence to the Rule of Law, as well as for their failure to actually provide the services for which they are being paid. Public agencies, their employees, and contractors are by and large exempt from accountability, liability, and in fact see their budgets and power increased when they fail. For example, in the aftermath of the Department of Defense failing to defend the homeland on 9/11, rather than being held accountable, an entire huge new bureaucracy with attendant increases in budgets and personnel and unprecedented powers was overlaid upon it.
Please conduct a search of our site for terms such as “privatize airport security” and you will see our proposed “alternative measures”. Here for example is Fellow Art Carden’s piece in Forbes, “Full Frontal Nudity Doesn’t Make Us Safer: Abolish the TSA.” This provided the basis for Congressman Ron Paul’s introducing the “American Traveler Dignity Act” (see here).
Independent Institute studies similarly analyze and propose thoughtful, private, accountable alternatives to the role of the military, border security, disaster relief (FEMA), etc. Our search engine is quite good and I encourage you to look around our site.
On the subject of public unions and “SOP,” the bottom line on public unions is that they finance the election of those with whom they will be “negotiating” the terms of their contracts. It is thus a collusive relationship. As the theory of a need for unions was to protect workers from exploitation from evil capitalists I’m also quite mystified as to why public employees need union representation. But in any event, the result only compounds the unaccountability of individuals employed in the public sector for their actions and performance—which accountability is especially critical for those performing “public” functions for which they are also generally provided immunity from restrictions on the use of force or other infringements on the rights and dignity of sovereign individuals.
SOP is just another term for “just following orders.” Each employee is him/herself an Agent and needs to be fully accountable for his or her actions, as well as to his or her own conscience. “SOP”/just following orders is simply an attempt to obfuscate legal and moral accountability, and provide a shield for individuals to act as they otherwise would not.
Finally, as this was posted at 2 am EDT June 21, it was indeed “today.”
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jun 22, 2011 | Reply
To: Mary Theroux
Keep up the good work against the bureaucratic stupidity and thuggery of the egregious TSA.
Best, Alex Pollock, AEI
alex j. pollock | Jun 28, 2011 | Reply
Excellent answer, Mary, to the kind of under-informed individual Lenin used to refer to as “a useful idiot.”
Mark Charger | Jun 28, 2011 | Reply
Thank you, Alex and Mark, for your encouragement. As has been seen time and again, all it really takes to overthrow tyranny, petty or otherwise, is for enough of us to withdraw consent vocally.
Best wishes,
Mary
Mary Theroux | Jun 28, 2011 | Reply
TSA is a bad joke and a good beginning to a police state.
From the dawn of aviation, pilots were allowed to carry firearms in the cockpit. For most of aviation history, passengers too were allowed to carry arms on board. I recall traveling with a hunting rifle. Walking aboard with it, the flight attendant helped me stow it in the coat closet between first class and coach.
Then, a few year before 9/11, the Feral government stuck its long nose in and mandated that flight deck crews disarm. They further advised that no one engage hijackers – to go along with them instead.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the same Feral government could be heard protesting that ‘Nobody could have foreseen terrorists crashing airliners into buildings’ – despite the fact that best-selling author Tom Clancy had published two best-selling novels only a couple years before which presaged precisely that sort of attack.
The Federal government is incompetent. It is bloated, expensive and in desperate need of extreme surgery to cut it back to a reasonable size.
Had flight deck crews been armed, had the Feral government done its job (investigating flight students who wanted to learn to fly but ‘not to take off or land’, or simply looked at one of the conspirators’ laptop (a violation of ‘political correctness’ perhaps, but on which would have saved 3,000 lives), 9/11 never would have happened.
Bad advice from the Feral government. Bad regulations. Bad investigation. Bad breakdown in common sense. No situational awareness. And now – bad security.
We have reached a point where we would be better off with NO federal government rather than the one currently in place.
BambiB | Jun 28, 2011 | Reply