Screeners Under Obama May Give Federal Unions Main Win in Years

[ProSense]

Screeners Under Obama May Give Federal Unions Main Win in Years

By John Hughes

A collective-bargaining vote by airport security workers that starts today may give federal employee groups their biggest victory in years, even as public workers in some states struggle to keep their union status.

The country’s two largest federal-employee unions are competing to represent the 44,000 screeners who can cast their ballots through April 19. The effort, which Senate Republicans failed to stop last month, may raise Transportation Security Administration costs if workers push through changes such as increased staffing.

“It’s a historic election,” said John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, which is vying to represent the screeners. “This is the biggest labor vote in probably 25 years.” The workers would be the largest-ever group brought into the union at one time, he said in a telephone interview.

Gage and Colleen Kelley, president of the competing National Treasury Employees Union, with about 150,000 members, expect one of them will prevail over another option -- no union at all. That’s in contrast to states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey, where public workers are fighting reductions in benefits and bargaining rights and not expecting gains.

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[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[JoeyT]

2. K&R

This will not only be good for the workers and the unions, but may help scale back some of the screening as well.
The vast majority probably don't like touching us any more than we like being touched.

[TheKentuckian]

3. Glad for the workers despite massive issues with TSA and it's overreaching powers.

[ProSense]

4. Kick n/t

[jenmito]

5. K&R! n/t

[hay rick]

6. A weak union is better than no union...

From the article:
"Gage and Kelley said they would also aim to scrap the pay- for-performance system, which according to the agency gives financial incentives for superior performance.

The existing program allows for favoritism and “is based on really low wages,” Kelley said. While a union can’t bargain over pay according to TSA rules, it can discuss the process for determining who gets awards, she said.

John Pistole, the security agency’s chief, said in his Feb. 4 decision allowing the election that workers also can’t bargain over security or disciplinary penalties, strike, or take job actions such as deliberate slowdowns.

They can bargain for a contract of at least three years on issues such as their uniforms, parking subsidies, transfers, shift trades, and methods for seeking assignments and leaves, Pistole said in the decision."

They can't strike and can't bargain over wages or disciplinary penalties. That leaves mostly crumbs.

K&R for the info.

[JuniperLea]

7. K&R!