The Trump administration’s plans to replace many of the career federal employees who ensure the safety of the flying public with private contractors ignores the lessons learned from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and would result in weaker airport security due to an unstable and unaccountable workforce, AFGE President Everett Kelley told lawmakers last week.
President Kelley testified May 20 before the House Homeland Security Committee at a hearing entitled, “TSA Modernization: Industry Perspectives on Key Security and Travel Reforms 25 Years After 9/11.” Ahead of the hearing, MS NOW published an op-ed from President Kelley echoing many of the points he addressed before Congress.
The hearing comes at a critical time for the 45,000 transportation security officers who serve at more than 400 commercial airports across the country. Over the past 16 months, TSOs have gone nearly four months without reliable paychecks due to two government shutdowns, have had their collective bargaining rights unilaterally terminated by the administration, and now are facing the prospect of losing their jobs as the administration pushes to outsource airport security.
“Despite all of this, they have continued to show up. They have continued to screen nearly three million passengers a day. They have maintained their unblemished record of keeping the flying public safe from terrorist violence,” Kelley said in his prepared testimony.
Yet this administration has thanked them for their continued dedication and sacrifice by not only gutting their union contract but proposing a budget for next year that would eliminate 8,400 TSO positions – roughly 14% of TSA’s screening workforce.
“The assault on collective bargaining did not happen in isolation. It is one piece of a coordinated strategy whose ultimate objective is the privatization of federal aviation security screening. That strategy is being executed on multiple fronts simultaneously, often without the knowledge of this Committee or the American people,” Kelley said.
About 4,500 of the TSA positions slated for elimination in fiscal 2027 would be replaced by private contractors through a proposed mandatory expansion of the Screening Partnership Program to include all small and non-hub airports, known as Categories III and IV, respectively. Currently about 20 of the nation’s 440 commercial airports have opted to use private screening, but the administration’s proposal would expand that number more than tenfold to about 220 airports.
President Kelley and the committee’s two other witnesses – former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who now serves as president of Airlines for America, and Chris McLaughlin, chief executive officer of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport – all agreed during the hearing that the administration should not force any airport to privatize its security functions.
In addition to expanding the use of private security companies, the administration has been quietly developing a separate privatization concept called TSA Gold+ that would put private contractors in control not only of security screening functions but the screening technology itself – the very machines that detect explosives, weapons, and other prohibited items.
“TSA would, in theory, provide oversight. In practice, the federal government would be ceding direct operational control of the most sensitive technology in the aviation security enterprise to private vendors,” Kelley said.
Proponents of privatizing airport security argue that doing so would insulate those airports from future budget fights and shutdowns. But Kelley highlighted the fallacy of that argument – noting that private contractors are paid out of the same pot of money that funds the rest of the agency.
“The lesson here is not that privatization protects security from dysfunction. Private contractors face the same risks from funding lapses as the federal agencies that pay them,” Kelley said. “The lesson is that Congress must fund the government on time. The solution to a political failure is not to outsource a core domestic and national security function.”
Absent getting budgets approved on time, Congress could mitigate the impact of future shutdowns by passing legislation that would guarantee that TSOs and other federal workers continue to be paid despite any lapse in appropriations. Bills that have been introduced with AFGE’s support include the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act (H.R. 5870/S. 4632), the Shutdown Fairness Act (H.R. 7137/S. 3168), and the True Shutdown Fairness Act (H.R. 7322/S. 3165).
In addition, Kelley urged lawmakers to pass the bipartisan Rights for the TSA Workforce Act (H.R. 2086, S. 997), which would move TSOs to the same pay and personnel system as other Title 5 federal employees and guarantee them the same workplace rights and protections, including full collective bargaining rights.
“They deserve a federal government that protects the rights and protections they have earned. They deserve transparency about plans being made for their future. They deserve stable, predictable funding so that they are not used as bargaining chips in the next budget fight,” he said.
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