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WASHINGTON—The union representing nearly 45,000 airport screeners has reached a first-ever collective bargaining agreement with the Transportation Security Administration. The agreement, reached Thursday, comes more than a year after TSA head John Pistole agreed to grant screeners limited union rights for the first time since the agency was formed in 2001. It includes a new process for resolving disciplinary matters and a better system for increasing pay based on performance, said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers. "What this contract will do is provide for increased uniformity on fair treatment and the...

From sleeping on the job to running prostitution rings off the clock, agents in the Transportation Security Administration have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. But TSA Deputy Administrator John Halinski shrugged off critiques of his employees at a hearing this week, saying Americans shouldn’t expect more from their airport screeners than they would from the average guy on the street. “If you have an organization of 60,000 people, that’s like a city,” Halinski protested, when asked if Americans were right to be unhappy with the TSA. “You’re always going to have crime in a city. You’re always

WASHINGTON — A Sikh advocacy group launched a free mobile application Monday that allows travelers to complain immediately to the government if they feel they've been treated unfairly by airport screeners. Launched at midnight by The Sikh Coalition, the FlyRights app had fielded two complaints by 10 a.m. EDT Monday. The first complaint came from a woman who said she felt mistreated after she disclosed to a screener that she was carrying breast milk. A man who is Sikh filed the second complaint, saying he was subjected to extra security even though he had not set off any alarms. The...

NEW YORK - To the untrained eye, the man looked like any other traveler as he waited in line at Kennedy Airport. But something about the way he was acting caught the attention of two security screeners. For 16 minutes, they questioned him, scanned every inch of his body twice with a metal-detecting wand and emptied his carry-on bag onto a table. Out came a car stereo with wires dangling from it. The man was eventually found to have done nothing wrong — he said he had pulled the stereo out of his car because he was afraid it would...

Cannot post. Here is the link:http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Most+fake+bombs+missed+by+screeners+-+USATODAY.com&expire=&urlID=24478403&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2007-10-17-airport-security_N.htm%3Floc%3Dinterstitialskip&partnerID=1660

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Tuesday to give 45,000 airport screeners the same union rights as border patrol, customs and immigration agents, despite a veto threat from the White House. The 51-46 vote was on an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., to remove the union rights from a broad anti-terrorism bill to implement recommendations of the 9/11 commission previously rejected by Congress. The House passed a similar anti-terrorism bill with the same union provision for airport screeners in an indication of organized labor's strength with Democrats now running Congress. Republicans vowed to strike the union...

Flying blind: Airport screeners treat everyone the same. They shouldn't David Frum National Post Saturday, August 12, 2006 So now we're to ban lipsticks and hand sanitizers from airplanes? The success of British security services in stopping a terrorist plot has unleashed all the most perverse and unavailing instincts of transportation safety authorities. They already banned nail scissors after 9/11. They require passengers to remove shoes in perpetual remembrance of Richard Reid's attempt to smuggle explosives on to a plane in his trainers. Now once again they will impose a massively costly new rule on all passengers in order...

new Government Accountability report shows that private airport screeners do a better job at detecting dangerous object than the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This report is the last in a long series, all of which demonstrate the poor performances of the 45,000-employee bureaucracy. So isn't it time for Congress to acknowledge its mistake and abolish TSA? After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Congress ordered all but five commercial airports to switch from privately employed screeners to a government workforce. Three years after the federal takeover, TSA is inundated with complaints. The GAO reported several times on...

Report: Private Screeners Outdo Public By LESLIE MILLER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressional investigation found airport screeners employed by private companies do a better job detecting dangerous objects than government screeners, according to a House member who has seen the classified report. The Government Accountability Office found statistically significant evidence that passenger screeners, who work at five airports under a pilot program, perform better than their federal counterparts at some 450 airports, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. and chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, said on Tuesday. "You get a statistically significant improvement if you go to federal supervision...

While most items seized from passengers are innocuous - officials at Logan have discovered an alarming array of weapons (like)guns, grenades, nunchucks and foot-long hunting knives. Screeners have also found several carefully concealed weapons such as a knife disguised as a lipstick container and a piece of jewelry that turns into a throwing star.

Baggage screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport spotted and then lost a fake bomb planted in luggage by a supervisor during a training exercise.Despite an hours-long search Tuesday night, the bag, containing a fake bomb complete with wires, a detonator and a clock, made it onto an Amsterdam-bound flight. It was recovered by airport security officials in Amsterdam when the flight landed several hours later."This really underscores the importance of the TSA's ongoing training exercises," said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, the agency responsible for screening passengers and baggage for weapons and explosives. "At no time...

William Tecumseh Sherman, the terrorist and firebug, famously said, "War is hell," but he hadn't seen the worst of it. He never had to take a trip on a holiday weekend in America, circa 2000. Not every turkey winds up on a dining-room table.

In the old days, the indignities of air travel involved intrusive elbows from seatmates and toddlers kicking your seatback. In the last few years, they included removing your shoes to get through security and having your nail clippers confiscated. And now this: full-body pat-downs - including bra checks - for people who set off metal detectors or are unlucky enough to be randomly selected.

The Transportation Security Administration Monday set a hard deadline of Nov. 23 for U.S. airlines to provide passenger name record data so TSA can test its Secure Flight passenger pre-screening application. Once each of the 72 domestic airlines submits data, including passenger name, reservation date, travel itinerary, and form of payment for domestic flights between June 1 and June 30 of this year, testing is expected to last through the end of January. TSA in September had set a tentative deadline for October but, after taking time to solicit reactions from parties ranging from the airlines to privacy groups, set...

WASHINGTON - Airports that want to replace government security screeners with privately employed workers can do so by early next summer, the Bush administration told Congress on Thursday. Thomas Blank, assistant administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, told the Senate aviation subcommittee that airports will have three options: remain in the federal system, use a private contractor to hire and train screeners, or run the screening themselves. They can apply for a change in November. Airport groups estimate between 20 and 100 of the 445 commercial airports under TSA supervision will choose to opt out of the current system. Those...

Airport Screeners Accused of Stealing from Luggage By Cheryl Chodun Web Produced by Jenny DiDomenico April 28, 2004 Four government workers were charged Wednesday with stealing expensive laptop computers and digital cameras from luggage they were hired to screen at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus. Investigators say the workers had easy access to the luggage because they are screeners for the Transportation Security Administration. According to the federal indictment, the thefts happened between December and February of 2003. According to investigators, the suspects were allegedly taking the items from luggage and selling them, sometimes to other baggage screeners. Travelers are...

February 6, 2004 Report Faults Lax Controls on Screeners at Airports By PHILIP SHENON ASHINGTON, Feb. 5 — An internal investigation at the Homeland Security Department has found that hiring of tens of thousands of airport screeners after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was so haphazard that many screeners were allowed to remain on duty at security checkpoints for weeks or months after it had been determined that they had serious criminal records. The department's inspector general issued a report on the findings on Thursday. It said screeners remained on the payroll and retained their badges even after...

January 21, 2004 — Airports in Los Angeles and Chicago led the country in federal screeners who were hired after incomplete background checks, then fired when investigations uncovered problems, according to federal records. At least 139 screeners at Los Angeles International Airport and 77 screeners at O'Hare International Airport were fired for "suitability" problems through June 2003, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday. The paper used Transportation Security Administration records requested under the Freedom of Information Act. "When we hire people, regrettably they're not always perfect," TSA spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan said. Nationally, about 1,200 of 55,000-plus screeners were fired for lying...

Airports in Chicago and Los Angeles led the nation in the number of federal government screeners who were hired without complete background checks, then fired when checks revealed problems, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Only Los Angeles International Airport, also known as LAX, had more "suitability" cases than O'Hare Airport: an estimated 139 vs. 77 as of early June, according to Transportation Security Administration records requested under the Freedom of Information Act last summer and recently delivered. That means at least 77 O'Hare screeners were on the job before the middle of last year when they should not have been...

Union leaders are pushing the Bush administration to allow some 50,000 federal airport baggage and passenger screeners the right to union representation, saying they’ll take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. The push for collective-bargaining rights comes as the Transportation Security Administration has cut some 6,000 screener jobs at airports nationwide in an effort to get its budget under control, and near the one-year anniversary of the deadline to have a federal screener workforce in place. Ironically, the federal jobs themselves, created by congressional mandate in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, could be in jeopardy....