The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it is rescinding a collective bargaining agreement for Transportation Security Administration employees, despite being blocked from doing so earlier this year by a federal judge. The American Federation of Government Employees said it will fight this move by DHS, which affects 47,000 workers.
In a news release Friday, DHS said a “new labor framework” will be implemented Jan. 11. This new framework, DHS said, is based on a determination Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made in September. The agency says it will “return the agency back into a security-focused framework that prioritizes workforce readiness, resource allocation and mission focus with an effective stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”
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With the new framework, the TSA will not use its payroll system for collecting union dues from Transportation Security Officers’ paychecks.
“Our Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) need to be focused on their mission of keeping travelers safe, not wasting countless hours on non-mission critical work,” Adam Stahl, a senior official performing the duties of TSA Deputy Administrator, said in a statement. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distracted our officers from their crucial work.”
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in June blocking a previous effort by Noem in March to end the collective bargaining agreement. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman wrote that the union demonstrated a “strong likelihood” that Noem’s previous determination “constitutes impermissible retaliation against it for its unwillingness to acquiesce to the Trump Administration’s assault on federal workers” and that “AFGE has shown it is likely to succeed in showing the Noem Determination is arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill called the Protect America’s Workforce Act, which would restore collective bargaining rights for federal employees after President Donald Trump put out executive orders taking them away for many employees — something the union pointed out in its statement.
“Merely 30 days ago, Secretary Noem celebrated TSA officers for their dedication during the longest government shutdown in history. Today, she’s announcing a lump of coal right on time for the holidays: that she’s stripping those same dedicated officers of their union rights,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “TSA officers, many of whom are veterans, are patriotic individuals who swore an oath to protect the safety of the traveling public in our airports and in our skies, ensuring that another horrific attack like Sept. 11 never happens again. Secretary Noem’s decision to rip up the union contract for 47,000 TSA officers is an illegal act of retaliatory union-busting that should cause concern for every person who steps foot in an airport.”
