Washington – Internal Security Department He said on Friday that this ends a collective negotiating agreement with tens of thousands of first line employees at the address Transport safety administrationmarking earnest efforts to dismantle the protection of the Union under the Trump administration. The TSA relationship called this “an unpredictable attack” and swore to fight him.
ABOUT 900 TSA employees work at the international airport in PhiladelphiaA 750 are members of the Union, the American Federation of Government Workers.
The department, in a statement declaring the solution, criticized the relationship whose employees are responsible for maintaining weapons outside planes and protecting air travels. The department stated that destitute contractors are allowed to remain at work, and the contract hinders the ability to organize “to protect our transport systems and ensure the safety of Americans” – an assessment that has been in front of direct withdrawal from the highest democrat in Congress and the Union.
“This action will provide Americans with a more effective and modernized working force in national transport networks,” said the agency in a statement. “TSA renews its commitment to ensuring a fast and safe travel process for Americans.”
The Union and the then Administrator of TSA, David Pekosk, signed a contract with a collective in May last year. Appeared among internal security to improve the salary for first -line employees, whose remuneration in the past was behind other government employees. Pekosk assigned The wage increaseswhich entered into force in 2023, as a facilitate in improving employees’ stopping and morale, areas in which TSA had challenges.
The union said in a statement that the order would collect collective rights from about 47,000 transport safety officers or TSO. These are people responsible for airport staff throughout the country and checking whether hundreds of thousands of passengers per day do not transfer any weapons or explosives in sheltered areas of airports.
The union said that the Secretary of Internal Security Kristi Noem and the administration of President Donald Trump violated the right of employees to join the union. It was also found that the reasons for which the Republican administration gave to this decision – in particular the criticism of trade union activities – were “completely fabricated”.
Instead, as the union said, the decision was retaliation for wider efforts undermining a number of decisions made by the Trump administration, which affected federal employees. AFGE represents about 800,000 employees of the Federal Government in Washington and all over the country, and pushes many administration actions, such as the dismissal of trial workers and cuts at the American International Development Agencyor USAID.
“Our relationship was in front, questioning the unlawful action of this administration addressed to federal employees, both in legal courts and in court of public opinion,” said the union. “Now our TSA officers pay the price with this clearly retaliation.”
The decision to complete a collective agreement is made after the Trump administration pushed Pekosk The day when Trump was sworn in to office. TSA currently does not have an administrator or deputy administrator.
In the staff note, the duties of the Adam Adam Stahl administrator, said that Noem decided to refer the collective rights of officials to adapt to the “vision of the Trump administration consisting in maximizing the efficiency and government performance and to ensure that our workforce can quickly and effectively respond to changing threats.”
“By removing the limitations of collective negotiations, TSO will be able to act with greater flexibility and reaction, ensuring the highest level of security and efficiency in the protection of American public opinion,” wrote Stahl. “This determination is told for OSS, ensuring the integration of employees and restoring the meritcation to the labor force.”
Stahl said the agency “establishing alternative procedures” to solve the problems and employee complaints “fairly and transparently.”
The end of a collective negotiating agreement was immediately latched by the highest democrat in the Committee of Internal Security in Congress, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson from Mississippi, who praised the work of TSA employees in the field of protecting air travel.
“An attempt to deny their legally binding collective agreement now has a zero meaning – it will only reduce morale and hinders work force,” said Thompson. “Because Biden administration provided salary increases and a new collective contract for the labor force, TSA abrasion rates have fallen.”
Thompson also criticized a press release about internal security, saying that the department used “bad incorrect points of conversation with anti -parasile.” He said that the real goal was to “reduce” labor, so “they can transform it in the form of a 2025 project”
Project 2025 Whether the conservative plan of the rule, which Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign, was not part of his program. The 2025 project calls for the immediate completion of the TSA Union and ultimately the privatization of the entire agency.
TSA was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the kidnappers smuggled the knives and boxes by safety to operate as a weapon when they commanded four aircraft and hit them on the Pentagon, World Trade Center Towers and Pennsylvania. The TSA mandate, when it was created in November 2001, was to prevent a similar attack in the future.
Since then, air travel has undergone a huge renovation, and passengers and their luggage undergoes extensive tests at the airport, and passenger information is generally sent to TSA before traveling to facilitate screening. The agency also uses more and more often Face recognition technology scan passengers at control points, leading to criticism by some members of the Congress.
The Associated Press reporter Michael Sisak in New York contributed to this article.
The writer of Fallon Roth employees contributed to this article.
