According to the Wall Street Journal Europe on Saturday these were not costs incurred by the TSA directly. Rather it was a contractor (NCS Pearson) who was contracted to hire screeners.

Total contract cost US$300 million with up to 170 sub-contractors used including:

On-site logistics support - Eclipse events - $24m
Fingerprinting - PEC Solutions - $23.6m
English Proficiency testing - Fluency Group - $16.2m
Medical Testing - Comprehensive Health Services - $73.6m

Talk about "not kidding." There's a thing called employee morale. May be foreign to you, but it actually helps improves the work place if done correctly. Nothing wrong with recognizing good employees, and it's money well-spent. I'm curious if you would have the same smart-... comments if "tsa" weren't part of tsadude's handle or if you're just taking pot-shots because you know he's a TSA employee.

Good point on the one hand, but missing the boat on the other. There's more to it than just setting a physical fitness standard and demanding that employees maintain it. Biggest contributor to employee injury is the poor ergonomics of the machines we use. Repeatively ifting heavy bags from the floor and loading them on the the CTX ramp and then removing them on the output ramp from a 12 inch high platform and either moving that bag to a CTX table approximately 36 inches off the floor or to an airline baggage conveyor belt system with platforms usually about 12 inches off the floor is not good for the back. Involves a lot of twisting of the torso and places a lot of strain on the shoulders, wrists and elbows. TSA spent money on the first CTX models because they were the first ones available. Not much thought went into the ergonomic design.

Yes, while true that a lot of employees don't follow the basic mechanics for heavy lifting, ergonomics still has a lot to do with it. Then you have some of the dumb decisions management makes from time to time which also exacerbates the situation. Our front office mandated that CTX chairs be removed and employees stand at the CTX X-ray machine. This is a major violation of OSHA standards because the machine was designed for the X-ray operator to sit in front of the screens. Standing in front of it causes the operator to stoop down to look at the screen or manipulate the buttons; yet another ergonomically-related injury that will affect screeners in the long run. (I've ignored this idiotic mandate, btw. Don't know yet if there will be any repercussions as a result. Don't care if there is.)

I'm an avid weightlifter and consider myself to be in excellent shape. Yet I've also suffered injury, primarily at baggage, a couple of times. TSA needs to analyze why screeners are often injured on the job. I'm willing to bet that poor ergonomics has a great deal to do with it. By working from the neck up, TSA can help reduce screener injuries and the workman's compensation expenses that it requires to take care of those injured screeners. I think I heard somewhere that TSA screeners are among the highest, if not THE highest, frequencies of on-the-job injuries in the federal government.

There are very few things I take for granted. And when it comes to true identities of people on the internet, no way (your TSA colleague eyecue has questioned whether I even live in Denver). That's not a comment toward whoever TSAscrener might be. And he/she probably is a TSA screener -- I don't care, but in this day and age, it would require seeing someone in person to make me believe who they say they are on the internet.

And I am serious about the awards things. I do not see how a $5 coffee mug improves a morale. If the TSA was serious on improving employee morale, I would suggest a bulk purchase of How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie for everyone at team leader upward. This way, you treat EVERYONE with the respect they deserve and you might actually get more people who would look forward to their job, rather than thinking a $5 coffee mug is going to a suitable replacement for better morale and common decency.

If you want to position my feelings as being of a "pot-shot artist," then go right ahead. But to me, things pointed out in the book that can be applied 365 days a year rather than annual or bi-anuual awarding of a coffee mug.

There was a recent incident that really made me anti-management. I submitted a cash award for an employee who did something really outstanding. When it was approved I asked if the assistant FSD or maybe the AFSD of screening could come down and present this award in front of the employees peers. The answer was no, they were too busy. I about lost it. The TSA wonders why it has a morale problem.


Been there and done that with the CTX. What an ergonomic nightmare. HR states that there is a problem with identifying those who are more prone to injuries. Your targeting a group of people. God forbid we inform a group of people that they could be injured because of obesity, age, or weigh 85 lbs and stand 5 foot tall. You did hear correctly, TSA has the worst record of on the job injury rate and will continue to have it. It could be alot better if the effort was put forth.

Had a passenger who began to have a heart attack at our checkpoint. She had already cleared and was standing at the rear of the checkpoint apparently waiting for a relative when she began to suffer the first signs of an attack. One of my screeners rushed to assist the lady by helping her take her nitro pill and calming her down until the EMTs arrived. I thought that warranted at least a letter of recognition. You'd have thought I proposed to sleep with the FSD's wife.

What I did was summarize the incident in a Witness Statement since it was the only official-looking document I had available. I submitted it thinking that someone in the front office would catch on the idea and then use what I wrote as the basis for a letter or perhaps a TSA coin or other token of appreciation recognizing the screener's deeds. What I got instead was a nasty-gram criticizing my use of the wrong format and not having used the chain of command. (Keep in mind that I showed it to my supervisor and HE submitted it, not I. It's just that he didn't add to it, so it had the appearance of me having submitted it.)

Well, there are very few things that cause me to lose my cool. This one threw me into a good old-fashioned Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot mode a la Airborne! To make a long story short, I ended up typing the letter on TSA letterhead, got a supervisor to sign it, and it was presented to the screener the very next day. I wasn't exactly rude, but I was very curt and direct in dealing with the front office staff in getting this thing done. (My wife has seen me in this mode only once and says I have scary eyes even if I'm smiling.)

Then, once I managed to get it done, a screening manager told me that this whole thing could backfire since the incident technically occured off of the TSA checkpoint, and the screener may have overstepped her bounds by offering assistance. Since the letter was signed and waiting for delivery, I just kept my mouth shut. I got what I wanted out of the deal, but I couldn't believe the mentality that would consider punishing a screener for helping someone in dire need. It's not like the screener necessarily saved this woman's life, but she managed to calm her down and provide some degree of comfort until the EMTs arrived to do their job. All I was looking for was a pat-on-the-back for this screener doing something above and beyond her normal duties.

It's too bad that the TSA cannot see what is happening. You can give all the seminars you want to supervisors about morale, EEO, and counseling, but if management doesn't support it,why bother.

PEC Solutions makes those snazzy electronic fingerprint scanners. Assuming that this contract doesn't go for ten years or more, there would be a hot market for those at LE booking stations, as they make fingerprinting of prisoners MUCH faster, and cost $50K a copy. They also transmit the prints instaltly to state and local databases, so that the prints can be linked with a record immediately if they're already in the system.

I could have done it much more cheaply than that. We had positive and negative English comprehension tests:

Negative English Comprehension:

"Do you understand everything that I am saying?"
<eager nodding>
"Do you speak English well?"
<eager nodding>
"Are you aware that your hair is on fire?"
<eager nodding>
<on radio> "Can I have a Spanish-speaking officer at my location, please?"

Positive English Comprehension:

"Does anyone here speak English?"
<shrugs and blank stares>
"You know, I can always pick out the illegal aliens. You guys never tie your shoes."
<short pause>
"Everyone who is looking at their feet, come with me."

Certainly, people need to be treated with courtesy and respect. No employee incentive award is going to replace the need for that. But many working-class people have never received an award or otherwise been recognized for doing a good job, and those little throwaway trinkets are precious to them. A law enforcement agency in California designed a little pin (about 3/4 x 1/8 inches) that looked like a California license plate, with the license plate number reading "10851." "10851" is the California Vehicle Code section for "stolen vehicle," and the corresponding radio code for the same thing in most places. Officers that recovered six or more stolen vehicles in a calendar year got a 10851 pin to wear on their uniforms. It was an option to wear the pin or not, if you had it, but you couldn't buy one. I never saw an officer who had received the award without it.

My wife worked as a supervisor for Wal-Mart for several years. She had a supply of "Good Job!" pins that she could hand out to employees at her discretion. They were usually given at an employee meeting or in some semi-public venue, to increase the recognition value. Employees could turn in five Good Job! pins and get a share of Wal-Mart stock. Some employees kept the pins in lieu of the stock, because they wanted everyone to see how many they had received.

Don't underestimate the value of recognition, especially with people who may not have had a lot of it in their lives.