TheRoadie

"You can't professionalize until you Federalize."

Well, that didn't work. We all saw that coming.

You CAN'T pay clerks enough to be competent and ethical crotch-gropers and constitutional violators. If they have a shred of self-respect left.

Fredd

^ One gargantuan bureaucracy later and what do we have to show for it?

rsteinmetz70112

I love the conversation part.

Last year at DAL a screener was asking everyone in line a number of questions. I asked if she wanted my Social Security number. She responded by threatening to deny me boarding.

jkhuggins

Look, there is a reasonable point to be made there.

Lots of folks in this forum love to sneer at TSA for printing job advertisements on pizza boxes. Why all the sneering? Because advertising on pizza boxes implies that TSA treats its own jobs like any other entry-level position in the workforce today --- with pay commensurate with those types of positions.

If TSA paid better, it might attract a higher quality of workforce. At a minimum, it would attract more candidates, which would allow TSA to (a) be more selective in whom it hires and (b) more generous in whom it fires for misconduct (of all forms). Both of those possibilities have been trumpeted for years here in this forum as acts that TSA should take.

Heck, higher pay might even attract folks who could work inside of TSA to reform it. Outside influences sure don't seem to be doing much.

No, paying the same people more money doesn't change anything. Paying the right people to do the right thing might..

TheRoadie

Since you have no requirement to answer any of her invasive questions, only to hand over your boarding document and ID for inspection, that was a totally hollow threat intended to cow you into obedience. Behavior modification and to make the TDC feel "powerful" for some very small values of powerful.

Boggie Dog

I don't think pay is the issue. TSA employees make a decent living, have health insurance, and retirement benefits. On top of that no one requires TSA employees to remain on the job, if they find the work not suitable they are free to move on.

I think the issue is that TSA work attracks a certain type of person and I suggest that type of person is not in it for money but for other things such as power over others, a feeling of importance, and perhaps just being part of a large ogranization.

TSA work also seems to attract those people who take advantage of the slack oversight of employees who go on to violate the public's trust in various ways.

I'm sure TSA has some good employees but from my personal contacts with TSA employees I don't think it is near as many as we wished.

IrishDoesntFlyNow

The GAO report is up here.


~~ Irish

stifle

The problem is that in many cases the clerks can delay you long enough to make you miss your flight or otherwise screw up your day.

halls120

The explanation is easy. TSA was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. The hired too many people too fast, and not just at the screener level. Their HQ staff is full of castoffs from other federal agencies who were marginal at best in their previous locations. Just google their Chief Counsel, Francine Kerner. As the saying goes, a fish rots from the head down.

While they won't say so publicly, the Border Patrol admits that in the rush to hire thousands of new officers they lowered standards, and now have a growing internal corruption problem to deal with. To their credit, they are, but the same problem exists in TSA - the difference being the BP is reacting to the problem, and TSA instead keeps lying to the public and to Congress.

bdschobel

Sorry, but I just don't believe that. Smart people with other opportunities in life simply have no interest in working for the TSA at any reasonable level of pay. (I assume that you aren't suggesting paying them $50,000/year or anything absurd like that.) If they raised the pay, all that would happen is the same uneducated, unskilled workers would get paid more. They wouldn't get better workers.

Bruce

Boggie Dog

Yes, Francine the Googling Lawyer. Didn't she come close to messing up some important government cases before going to TSA?

TheRoadie

Agreed. Some folks might embrace a job where half your neighbors admire your courage and congratulate you on doing Important Work. Problem is, the OTHER half of your neighbors would shun you, disinvite you to barbeques, and bring their children indoors when you approach.

jkhuggins

Unless, of course, the folks who embrace that job actually worked within the system to make TSA an organization worth of respect and not ridicule. A few of them in the right places might do some good, if they could only be persuaded to do so.

Yes, I'm a foolish idealist. Glad to meet you.

Boggie Dog

A rotten apple soon spoils the whole barrel.

ScatterX

Idealist isn't the right word if you believe a clerk, no matter how smart or dedicated he/she might be, could make any meaningful impact on those building their empire (the government or the union one).

Not that they would get any, but decent people would get chased out of organizations like TSA. Ergo, problems.

A barrel of rotten apples spoils the one good one too.