Breaking News!
Tentative TSA Election Details Set
We’re halfway home—you and NTEU.

The union election that will determine your exclusive representative has been tentatively scheduled for a six-week period running from March 9 through April 19. A meeting was held between the parties to the election today and a tentative agreement on these dates was reached. The dates are expected to be finalized shortly after TSA resolves two pending issues.

You will be able to cast your secret vote for NTEU either electronically or by calling a toll-free number.

Once the consent agreement is final, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), a three-member federal body that oversees federal sector labor-management relations—including union representation elections—will be sending you election information at your address of record with TSA.

At the end of the ballot period, the FLRA will count the votes on April 20, 2011, and ultimately certify a winning union, the union that receives a majority of the votes.


At the meeting, the parties identified eligible voters. Eligible voters include Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), Lead Transportation Security Officers (LTSOs), Behavioral Detection Officers (BDOs), Security Training Instructors (STIs) and National Deployment Officers (NDOs), who were on the payroll as of Jan. 15, 2011. BDOs will now be eligible to vote in the election. Although TSA initially opposed BDO eligibility, the agency changed its position at today’s meeting.

You do not have to take any steps in this process—except for the most important one for you and your family.


http://dhsunion.org/TSA/JoinNTEU.aspx


I wonder what the union rep will do to passengers the "workers" find offensive?

Why does the TSA feel they need a union?

Are they underpaid?


Are they overworked?


Is that tin badge just too heavy to wear on that lovely blue shirt?

If the government eliminates the TSA operating screening checkpoints, then the impact of TSA unionization becomes largely moot.

"If the government eliminates the TSA operating screening checkpoints, then the impact of TSA unionization becomes largely moot."

Interesting point. If TSA unionizes then private contractors could become more economically attractive to airports. Despite the claims that security procedures would remain the same, the way they are carried out would be better.

So it'll be even harder to fire the useless ones - and there seem to be an awful lot of them.

Maybe they're planning to lobby for laws making it illegal to refer to TSA employees as "thugs" and "goons" because it makes them feel so much more awful than the realization that they get up every day and grope people in the name of security theatre.

Not getting into the TSA argument but being a union worker this is the bad part for sure. Good & bad having a union at least at the airline anyway.

Since the BDOs have such well developed ESP, mind reading skills, and power to predict the future, can the BDOs tells us today who is going to win this election? Should be easy for psychics of their talent level.

I'm often in the minority but come from a strong union culture and am generally not anti-union as a whole.

However this makes me nervous and I struggle to see anything positive in unionizing TSA.

It's been 3 years since I quit TSA but I believe that the private TSA is already unionized.

I support having a useful TSA union because when I left, it was required to go through the chain of command or through the omnibudsman but often neither worked and brought retaliation. And there were NO whistle blower protections, although other government had some whistleblower protections. If the rules and procedures were not being followed, a TSA was screwed.

The nude-o-scopes make me extremely nervous. Sure glad I'm not standing next to one 8 or 10 hours a day subject to firing if I wear a radiation detection badge.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

It sounds like very few protective measures are in place for TSOs.

And those few are a few too many.

I used to belong to NTEU, but I quit when it became apparent they were so eager to defend sex offenders and force the government to keep seriously bad employees in our workforce; yet they weren't so eager to help a whistleblower who reported serious management misconduct. If TSA unionizes then things will get really interesting. Every change in operating procedures must be negotiated with the union. Disciplining and firing problem employees becomes extremely difficult. If TSA were to be eliminated, the resulting reduction in force would be tied up for months because of the required union negotiations. What a nightmare this will become for the traveling public ...

This. I am seriously anti TSA, but we have started to see an increased show of public anger directed towards the policies of the TSA. I don't think its fair for TSOs to (honestly) be put at risk by the policies of their employer.

Are the policies wrong? Yes. Are there bad TSOs out there? Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that all TSOs shouldn't be characterized by the lowest common denominator or put in harms way by their bosses bosses bosses playing fast and loose with the constitution.

They are free to find other employment. Being "characterized by the lowest common denominator" should be seen as active encouragement to find other employment. And if they're smart, they'll put "prostitute" on their CV instead of TSO.

Why not? "Just following orders" has not been an acceptable defense since 1946.

If they don't have the integrity to resist TSA's abuses from within or at the very least to leave & find a respectable job, they're part of the problem.

That more review than their abusive policies currently receive. Would the crotch prods, boob grabs & hair massages be happening if the TSOs had to agree to it first?