Airport screeners forbidden from unionizing, TSA chief says

SJ Mercury News ^ | 1/9/03 | AP - Washington, DC

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Transportation Security Administration sought to quash efforts to unionize 56,000 federal airport security workers, saying Thursday that collective bargaining is not allowed and is incompatible with the war on terrorism.

Passenger and baggage screeners at New York's LaGuardia and Baltimore-Washington International airports have petitioned to be represented by the American Federation of Government Employees.

[Bob J]

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[ShuShu]

Great Article, I hope they stick to their guns. The Unionization of the Screeners would be an abomination! Keep the Unions out!

[PhiKapMom]

AFGE spokeswoman Diane Witiak said workers have been forced to work 21-hour shifts and paychecks have been delayed by a month. She also claimed some workers have been sexually harassed and that employees want to be issued protective equipment when searching baggage for explosives. (From artcle)

As a former Government employee, I don't buy their story of missed paychecks and working 21 hours a day. AFGE members are the most worthless bunch of Government employees there are IMHO! Try to get rid of an incompetent AFGE member and it takes forever with all their stalling! Glad that AFGE is being left out in the cold. Federal workers should not be unionized IMHO!

[MarkM]

Also, a good share of the union dues would go straight to the Democrat party.

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks! Another good point. AFGE is one of the large contributors to the RATS!

[WSGilcrest]

If they don't like their job, they can always quit.

[RobRoy]

Remember Reagan and the air traffic controllers? To be successful, these guys need to try this union bs during a democrat reign. They're waistin' their time here.

[Ben Hecks]

In case you missed this one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/810862/posts

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for that link. I had forgotten about that!

[Jesse]

The screeners already are an abomination...just head down to y9our local airport and watch them. This is predictable...they will be unionized, no doubt about it

In our tiny airport of Butte, MT, they hired 18 of these jokers who basically stand around all day...there are only about 6 flights a day on commuter jets here.

I drive.

[Sally II]

Good. I'm sick of unions. And I can't imagine anything more detrimental to the safety of this country than unionized airport security.

[MAKnight]

I think this simply proves something I've only come to realize lately ... Bush is one SNEAKY SOB!! And what makes his sneakiness even more impressive is that he does it long term, like a game of chess. He takes a hit here and there but he always comes out on top.

Take, for instance, school vouchers/choice, and note this story in the Washington (com)Post. Ted Kennedy sure as heck didn't see this coming: "State education officials are warning that a new federal education law's requirement that each racial and demographic subgroup in a school show annual improvement on standardized tests will result in the majority of the nation's schools being deemed failing."

The problem with that classification is that if a school is "failing" for two consecutive years, it must allow and facilitate student transfers to other schools--i.e., permit school choice. School administrators are now worried that most of their schools will "fail" under the federally-mandated definition.

The beauty of this is that if Bush gets enough political capital, he'll probably go for the jugular and get vouchers implemented outright. And now he has the Constitutional blessing of the Supreme Court.

Now let's talk about Federalizing Airport security. The 'Rats may have sincerely believed that Federalization would have improved security but they sure as hell were also salivating over the prospect of 56,000 new sources of union dues. Bush caved in on that one and seemed to have lost ...

When in fact, he simply moved it to another battlefield. The Department of Homeland Security is not unionized. So he simply moves the newly federalized workers into the new department that cannot unionize. Not only that, thousands of federal workers from other unionized departments are being transferred to the Homeland Security department. In other words, the 'Rats began 2002 with the prospect of having 56,000 net new sources of revenue, and ended the year with a not loss of sources of at least a few thousand.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for your assessment. He is no country bumpkin as the demRats are finding out the hard way. Strategerist par non.

I only lurked a short time myself before jumping into the deep end of the FR pool.

Keep plugging and nice to make your acquaintance.