Originally Posted by
Bart
I don't know if Southers will be a good boss. From what I read in the article, I agree with some of what he says. For example, I agree that terrorism ought to be a study included in today's education. The fact is that terrorism is used to influence social, political and economic issues on the world stage to the point where we have to address it one way or the other. To summarily dismiss it as a criminal act ignores the social, political, economical, cultural and religious issues that prompt people to resort to such desperate acts of aggression. I disagree with him that it is not something that requires a military solution; however, I don't think a military response is the ONLY way to respond. Point here is that he appears to have a level-headed approach towards things; so it appears he might be the right person for the job.
I think it's naive to expect Southers to overhaul TSA. And I don't think Southers needs to overhaul TSA. I do think, however, that he needs to tackle a couple things put in place by Kip Hawley that may have had good intentions but have had questionable results.
1. Eliminate gate screening and put the focus on checkpoint screening. Once screened, there's no need to re-screen.
2. Eliminate BDOs; however, train TSOs some of BDO techniques to improve screening effectiveness. I think a TSO can screen more effectively if a passenger displays certain behavior; however, the basic prompt for screening still needs to be driven by a primary screening (x-ray, WTMD alarms, etc) and NOT JUST behavior. I don't think we need "specialized" TSOs in this arena.
3. Eliminate PASS and evaluate TSOs using the exact same methodology used in the rest of government.
Nice-to-do but not showstopper issues for me:
Get rid of the goddamned uniform with badge and go with a more practical "uniform:" polos with a TSA logo.
Let TSOs unionize. If other federal employees can unionize, so should TSOs.
I agree with most of this. Some more things need to go, like ID checking, the shoe carnival, and liquid lunacy.
Additionally, I see no reason to allow screeners to unionize. First off, there are a lot of federal employees that DON'T get to unionize. Secondly, TSA is largely unaccountable as it is and has a difficult enough time getting rid of bad apples. Adding a union into the mix will only make that worse. We don't need to make it so that it takes a person getting caught 8 times sleeping on the job to get fired (just an example that happened at my last company). Nor do we need to give the Alvin Crabtrees multiple chances for bringing loaded guns to work. Thirdly, I believe unions promote mediocrity, much like the GS system did. There's no reason to go to a seniority based system that unions promote nor is there any reason to pay every worker the exact same. The good workers won't be rewarded for their work and the bad ones will get paid just the same. Overhaul the PASS system - make it more fair and reward the screeners that do a good job and demote or can the ones that can't make the grade.
FWIW, I worked in a union shop in a state gov't before. Wasn't thrilled about the idea and we didn't have to belong, but they controlled everything anyway whether you were a member or not. I thought they were largely a waste.
DoD's finally getting off the GS scale and moving to DCIPS where there's pay banding. The intent of the program is to be able to better reward those people who excel at their jobs while giving little or no increase to the under performers. I think it's a good idea - it should at least be more fair than the current promotion process (which was a joke and not really fair IMO) and be able to reward more people for doing a good job. My agency is in the process of going to it and the first DCIPS cycle will be next year. It'll be interesting to see how it shapes up.
Super