43,000 Airport TSOs vote to unionize [View All]

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4850

21 April 2011

WASHINGTON - In one of the biggest union elections in recent years, transportation security officers at the nation’s airports have voted to unionize.

AFGE, the American Federation of Government Employees, led the voting and will face a runoff with NTEU, the National Treasury Employees Union, to determine who will represent the 43,000 TSOs at 450 airports across the United States.

The ballot offered three choices: AFGE, NTEU or no union. The voting began March 9 and ended April 19. In order to win, one of the choices had to gain 50 percent plus one vote of all the TSOs voting. Some 85 percent of the ballots were in favor of a union, but neither organization won a majority. No date has been set yet for the runoff.

Under the Obama administration, TSOs recently gained collective bargaining rights. Even before they did, however, more than 12,000 were organized in 40 AFGE local unions across the country. It took 10 years before the TSOs finally gained the right to bargain.

The AFL-CIO is supporting the officers’ right to bargain and is backing AFGE, one of the labor federation’s affiliates, in the runoff election. NTEU is not affiliated.

FULL story at link.

This article is adapted from a report that appeared on the national AFL-CIO news blog: http://blog.aflcio.org/ & http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/04/21/airline-unions-form-global-alliance/

For more information

Visit the AFGE website: http://www.afge.org/

Visit the NTEU website: http://www.nteu.org/