Conor here: I first thought it sounded like a wily political move by a Trump administration to go after the TSA union to set a precedent for attacks on organized labor elsewhere. As someone who can’t stand the pain of flying, I bought into a lot of anecdotal evidence that Americans despise the TSA. After looking into it, I’m not so sure. Here’s the Pew Research Center (TSA is under the Department of Homeland Security):
Even Republicans don’t have that unfavorable views of TSA:
And from 2022, here’s YouGov:
A recent YouGov poll finds that over half of people who have gone through security in the past five years say the experience is somewhat (41%) or very (18%) inconvenient. Nearly half (45%) of domestic passengers now say they arrive at the airport at least 90 minutes before a scheduled departure time, similar to the percent from two years ago.
Despite the inconvenience, 79% of Americans say that airports should prioritize screening for security threats over saving travelers time and money.
So while there is evidence that the TSA is largely security theater, it’s theater Americans believe in:
In stark contrast to these findings, only 12% of Americans say that it is not very or not at all likely that a person attempting to smuggle a weapon onto a plane would be stopped by airport security. More than three in four Americans say it is very (37%) or somewhat (40%) likely that airport security would stop the person.
The Trump administration of course isn’t talking about doing away with this security theater but just union busting in the name of “productivity” and “innovation.” I’d hate to see what an “innovative” TSA comes up with.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the TSA, Trump’s attempt to set a new union-busting precedent is really bad news for workers everywhere.Hamilton Nolan has more in a piece that’s worth reading in full:
Here is a little thought experiment for you: In a nation where control of city and county and state and federal governments regularly changes hands every two or four years, what the fuck would be the point of negotiating union contracts that spanned elections, if any incoming elected leader was allowed to just toss out the contracts they don’t like? There would be no point. Again, the entire landscape of public sector unions would look very different if politicians were allowed to scrap union contracts on a whim. Doing that is not allowed. It is not a thing. Everyone knows that contracts are contracts. Are you happy that city and state and federal employees don’t walk off the job after every election? I bet you are, if you like your trash picked up or your fires extinguished or your drivers license applications processed. One reason workers do not walk off the job when political leadership changes is that they have union contracts that will endure. They know that their terms of employment will be as they are laid out in the contracts. This gives the government stability. It is a good thing. If newly elected politicians dislike the union contracts they inherit, they work it out at the bargaining table when the contracts are renegotiated.
And to put Trump’s move into historical context:
In 1981, Ronald Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers of PATCO, an event that is considered to be the single worst thing that happened to unions in America in my lifetime. It effectively declared open season on union power, intensifying organized labor’s ongoing decline for decades to come. What the Trump administration is doing now is worst than that. Reagan was an anti-union rat bastard, but he at least had the law on his side: PATCO was striking illegally, and it was legal for him to fire them. The Trump administration, by contrast, is operating fully outside of the law, firing untold thousands of federal workers and appointees without following the legal processes to do so—and now, tossing out union contracts at will.
In the piece below, Huffpost labor reporter Dave Jamieson explains that the TSA union doesn’t have the same rights as at other federal agencies. According to Government Executive:
The workforce was granted abridged collective bargaining rights in 2011; the Biden administration expanded those rights in 2021 when it moved to administratively apply Title 5, and its accompanying pay system, to the agency. Prior to that decision, which delivered pay raises upwards of 30% to transportation security officers, the agency was plagued by poor morale and employee retention, fueled by poor pay and rampant favoritism.
Nevertheless, the union did just sign a seven-year union contract last May. Nolan concludes:
The TSA workers should strike. Furthermore, the entirety of the labor movement should use whatever financial and logistical and political resources it has to help them strike. I say this not because I think a strike would be easy, but because the alternative to striking when your employer just announces that they are throwing your contract in the trash is to effectively accept that your employer can throw your contract in the trash, and still receive your labor.
By Brett Wilkins, a staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams.
Labor advocates condemned Friday’s announcement by the Trump administration that it will end collective bargaining for Transportation Safety Administration security officers, a move described by one union leader as an act of “dangerous union-busting ripped from the pages of Project 2025.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed in a statement Friday that collective bargaining for the TSA’s security officers “constrained” the agency’s chief mission of protecting transportation systems and keeping travelers safe, and that “eliminating collective bargaining removes bureaucratic hurdles that will strengthen workforce agility, enhance productivity and resiliency, while also jumpstarting innovation.”
As Huffpost labor reporter Dave Jamieson explained:
Workers at TSA, which Congress created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, do not enjoy the same union rights as employees at most other federal agencies. Bargaining rights can essentially be extended or rescinded at the will of the administrator.
Those rights were introduced at TSA by former President Barack Obama and strengthened under former President Joe Biden. But now they are being tossed aside by Trump.
“Forty-seven thousands transportation security officers show up at over 400 airports across the country every single day to make sure our skies are safe for air travel,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in response to DHS announcement. “Many of them are veterans who went from serving their country in the armed forces to wearing a second uniform protecting the homeland and ensuring another terrorist attack like September 11 never happens again.”
Kelley argued that President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have violated these patriotic Americans’ right to join a union in an unprovoked attack.”
“They gave as a justification a completely fabricated claim about union officials—making clear this action has nothing to do with efficiency, safety, or homeland security,” he said “This is merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union.”
AFGE—which represents TSA security officers—has filed numerous lawsuits in a bid to thwart Trump administration efforts, led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, to terminate thousands of federal workers and unilaterally shut down government agencies under the guise of improving outcomes.
“This is merely a pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union.”
“Our union has been out in front challenging this administration’s unlawful actions targeting federal workers, both in the legal courts and in the court of public opinion,” Kelley noted. “Now our TSA officers are paying the price with this clearly retaliatory action.”
“Let’s be clear: This is the beginning, not the end, of the fight for Americans’ fundamental rights to join a union,” Kelley stressed. “AFGE will not rest until the basic dignity and rights of the workers at TSA are acknowledged by the government once again.”
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said in a statement: “TSA officers are the front-line defense at America’s airports for the millions of families who travel by air each year. Canceling the collective bargaining agreement between TSA and its security officer workforce is dangerous union-busting ripped from the pages of Project 2025 that leaves the 47,000 officers who protect us without a voice.”
“Through a union, TSA officers are empowered to improve work conditions and make air travel safer for passengers,” Shuler added. “With this sweeping, illegal directive, the Trump administration is retaliating against unions for challenging its unlawful Department of Government Efficiency actions against America’s federal workers in court.”
Spring break travel is about to hit and they want to mess with the TSA who could throw the airline industry into a tail spin if they strike?!
Had a feeling when DOGE started haphazardly destroying the government most of MAGA would turn on them, might happen sooner than I thought
Trump is trying to prevent a measles outbreak from flaring out. Give the man a chance, won’t you?
Well played sir!
Gone to spring break via Delta, as in Olds Delta 88. No TSA.
Hopefully the upcoming TSA agents strike will focus on preventing private planes from taking off ;-)
It would have been nice if we saw a breakout of TSA from the rest of the department. I wonder how many people misunderstand and think that TSA is in Homeland security?
Strongly agree — the Department of Transportation is not a good proxy for TSA.
Let’s also remember it wasn’t Reagan who started attacking unions. Jimmy Carter deregulated trucking and airlines–both heavily unionized at the time–and the union contracts were basically thrown under the bus. Teamsters endorsed Reagan in the next election (as did Ralph Abernathy and Gene McCarthy!).
It doesn’t matter who is in charge, team red or team blue, they’re ready to attack workers.
High time for some transport unions solidarity. How about a one day walkout, sick out, or slowdown from TSA, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, pilots union, truckers, railway workers, and city transport workers (buses and subways), just to show the TPTB that they better back off or next time it will be for three days, then a week…
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
I have seen a marked improvement in morale among TSO’s after collective bargaining was instituted, although admittedly I’m able to access the smoother “Trusted Traveller” lines. While there is a significant aspect of “security theater” involved in TSA screening, I do think that it has a positive effect on the civility displayed by most people traveling by air.
This post is important because this is union-busting for the sake of power — the cruelty is the point. Practically every law enforcement officer in the country has collective bargaining rights. It’s hard, often thankless work. We need more and better public health and safety workers, and pay and working conditions matter. Instead we spend millions to sweaty young men chasing balls around publicly-subsidized concrete palaces and minting entitled idiot billionaires. Bass-ackwards land.
Scott Walker exempted police & firefighter unions from his union-busting.
Another note: Biden (“most pro union president ever”) signed an order to make a railroad strike illegal after the union rejected his mediated offer, with Pete Buttigieg looking on approvingly.
NYS prison guards have been on a wildcat strike for 3 weeks. 7000 National Guard troops have been in the prisons. Supposedly there’s an agreement to end the strike; Hochul has previously declared victory.
Striking New York prison guards expected to return to work Monday after reaching agreement, DOCCS says
One seldom sees wildcat strikes anywhere, much less with public employees. Obviously TSA people have considerable power, as would air traffic controllers or railroad workers. But fear and apathy reign.