Washington – Washington (AP) – The National Security Department said Friday that the collective bargaining agreement is ending with the tens of thousands of first -line employees in Transportation Security AdministrationMarking a great effort to dismantle union protections under the Trump administration. The TSA union called him in “attack not caused” and promised to fight him.
The department, in a statement announcing the termination, criticized the union whose employees are responsible for keeping weapons out of the airplanes and protecting air trips. The department said that poor employees were allowed to remain at work and that the agreement was hindering the capacity of the organization “safeguarding our transport systems and maintaining safe Americans”, an evaluation that faced an immediate setback from a superior democrat in Congress and the Union.
“This action will ensure that Americans have a more effective and modernized workforce in the country’s transport networks,” the agency said in a statement. “TSA is renewing its commitment to provide a fast and safe travel process for Americans.”
The American Federation of Government employees is the union that represents the workers of the TSA. The Federation and the then administrator of the TSA, David Pekoske, signed the collective bargaining agreement in May last year. It occurred in the midst of an impulse by national security to improve the payment of first -line workers, whose salary historically has been left behind that of other government employees. Pekoske has accredited The increase in paythat entered into force in 2023, as helping to improve the retention and moral of employees, areas where TSA has had challenges.
The union said in a statement that the order would eliminate collective bargaining rights of approximately 47,000 transport security officers, or TSO. Those are people responsible for airports throughout the country and verify that they ensure that hundreds of thousands of passengers per day do not carry weapons or explosives to the safe areas of airports.
The union said that the National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem and the administration of President Donald Trump were violating the right of employees to join a union. He also said that the reasons why the Republican Administration had given by the decision, specifically the criticism of the union activity, were “completely manufactured.”
Instead, said the union, the decision was a retaliation for its broader efforts that challenge a variety of decisions taken by the Trump administration that have affected federal workers. EGE represents approximately 800,000 federal government workers in Washington, DC and throughout the country, and has been retreating many of the administration’s actions, such as proof of probation for probation and probation for probation and proof of probation and cuts to the United States Agency for International Developmentor USAID.
“Our union has been in front of the illegal actions of this administration aimed at federal workers, both in the legal courts and in the public opinion court,” said the union. “Now our TSA officials are paying the price with this action clearly retaliation.”
The decision to end the collective bargaining agreement occurs after the Trump administration He pushed Pekoske The day Trump swore in office. The TSA currently does not have an administrator or an attached administrator.
In a note for the staff, the interim administrator of the TSA, Adam Stahl, said that Noem made the decision to terminate the collective bargaining rights of the officers to align with the “vision of the Trump administration to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the government and ensure that our workforce can respond quickly and effectively to the threats evolved.”
“By eliminating the limitations of collective bargaining, the TSO can operate with greater flexibility and response capacity, ensuring the highest level of safety and efficiency to protect the American public,” Stahl wrote. “This determination is made with the TSO in mind, ensuring the inclusion of employees and restoring meritocracy to the workforce.”
Stahl said the agency “will establish alternative procedures” to address the concerns and complaints of employees “just and transparently.”
The end of the collective bargaining agreement was immediately criticized by the main Democrat in the National Security Committee in Congress, representative Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, who praised the work of the TSA employees in the protection of air trips.
“Trying to deny its legally binding collective bargaining agreement now makes zero sense: it will only reduce morality and hinder the workforce,” said Thompson. “Since the Biden administration provided salary increases and a new collective bargaining contract for the workforce, TSA’s dropout rates have collapsed.”
Thompson also criticized the national security press release, saying that the department was using “incorrect anti-union conversation points.” He said that the real objective was to “decrease” the workforce so that “they can transform it into the mold of the 2025 project.”
Project 2025 It was the conservative government plan that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda. The 2025 project requires ending the Union of TSA immediately and finally privatizing the entire agency.
The TSA was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the smuggling kidnappers and the boxes cut the security to use as weapons as they commanded four planes and hit them in the Pentagon, the World Trade Center towers and a Pennsylvania field. The TSA mandate when it was created in November 2001 was to avoid a similar attack in the future.
Air trips since then have undergone a massive review, with passengers and their luggage through extensive detection at the airport and the passenger information generally loaded to TSA before trips to facilitate the exam. More and more, the agency has also been using Facial recognition technology to scan the passengers at the control points, leading to criticism For some members of Congress.
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Associated Press Reporter Michael Sisak in New York contributed to this report.
