Trump administration kills collective bargaining agreement with TSA staffers in another brazen attack on workers rights.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that it is ending the collective bargaining agreement with the tens of thousands of frontline employees at the Transportation Security Administration, marking a major attack on worker rights under the Trump administration.

The department, in a statement announcing the termination, criticized the union whose staffers are responsible for keeping weapons off of airplanes and protecting air travel. The department said that poor performers were being allowed to stay on the job and that the agreement was hindering the ability of the organization “to safeguard our transportation systems and keep Americans safe” — an assessment that faced immediate pushback from a top Democrat in Congress.

“This action will ensure Americans will have a more effective and modernized workforces across the nation’s transportation networks,” the agency said in a statement. “TSA is renewing its commitment to providing a quick and secure travel process for Americans.”


The TSA has about 50,000 staffers — called transportation safety officers — who are the ones responsible for staffing airports around the country and checking to make sure that hundreds of thousands of passengers a day do not carry any weapons or explosives into the secure areas of airports.

The decision to end the collective bargaining agreement comes after President Donald Trump’s administration pushed out TSA Administrator David Pekoske the day the Republican president was sworn into office. The agency does not currently have an administrator or a deputy administrator.

The end of the collective bargaining agreement was immediately slammed by the top Democrat on the Homeland Security committee in Congress, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, who praised the work of TSA staffers in protecting air travel.

“Attempting to negate their legally binding collective bargaining agreement now makes zero sense — it will only reduce morale and hamper the workforce,” Thompson said. “Since the Biden Administration provided pay increases and a new collective bargaining contract to the workforce, TSA’s attrition rates have plummeted.”

Thompson also criticized the Homeland Security press release, saying the department was using “flat out wrong anti-union talking points.” He said the real aim was “diminishing” the workforce so “they can transform it in the mold of Project 2025.”

Project 2025 was the conservative governing blueprint that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda. Project 2025 calls for immediately ending the TSA union and eventually privatizing the entire agency.


The union said it would have a statement soon.

The bold is classic anti-union propaganda that blames supposed poor performers as a justification for breaking the union. They'll sell the lie that this will magically improve everything, too. And people will believe it w/o any actual evidence. This sucks because TSA workers got better pay and a stronger contract under the Biden admin. This was also part of the Trump administration's Project 2025 agenda. They want to dismantle the union, fire everyone and then privatize everything.
 

Rarely-Wrong Liggins

Name another Liggins hot I'm just honest.
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They must have gone a hiring spree since I left, I remember we were down to like 30k at one point I believe. I know they get paid a lot more now. Salaries went up like 30 to 40% for frontline screeners. I guess they are about to earn it now.
 

ItsPeople

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How are you a poor TSA officer? They letting people with MAC10s board or something?
 

Collateral

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I quit the TSA in the end of 2019, just riiiiiiight before TRUMP initiated the longest government shutdown in history :wow:

And then the bandemic hit, I wasn’t trying to work in a airport during a world wide pandemic anyways :huhldup:
 
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