Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act of 2020
Floor Speech
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1140, the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act of 2020.
For well over a decade, Chairwoman Nita Lowey and I have championed this legislation to provide TSA frontline security workers the basic rights and benefits they deserve.
Today, H.R. 1140 has 242 bipartisan cosponsors and is strongly supported by the American Federation of Government Employees and the Transport Workers Union of America.
When TSA was stood up after the September 11 attacks, Congress gave the agency broad authority to develop a new, more nimble personnel system to address national security issues that threatened our transportation system.
Over the years, TSA's security policies, technologies, and capabilities have evolved to provide a formidable defense against potential terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately, TSA's personnel management system has not evolved with the rest of the agency. The modern, nimble system Congress envisioned was never realized.
Instead, Transportation Security officers, or TSOs, are subject to an antiquated system that does not provide appropriate pay, regular salary increases, or basic civil service protections.
Further, an employee subject to a disciplinary action does not have the right to appeal to an independent third party, such as the Merit Systems Protection Board. Today, the TSA Administrator serves as judge, jury, and executioner for disciplinary proceedings.
According to a former TSA Deputy Administrator, the lack of due process protections within TSA has bred a culture of retribution and arbitrary personnel practices, leading to misbehavior and a reluctance to report security vulnerabilities.
When TSA leadership has used its special personnel authorities, it has been mostly to benefit senior management, not the frontline workforce.
In one instance, a senior manager received $90,000 in bonuses in a single year, yet the men and women in the screening workforce make starting salaries of just $29,000 and are among the lowest paid Federal workers. They are forced to live paycheck to paycheck even as their job responsibilities have grown increasingly complex with changes in threats and technologies.
Today, few TSOs have advanced beyond the bottom levels of TSA's pay bands, even after years of service.
Under the Obama administration, the frontline TSA workforce was, for the first time, granted the ability to unionize. Many of us hoped that this change would lead to TSA abandoning unfair practices.
Disappointingly, TSA limited the range of issues subject to collective bargaining to a narrow set of issues that, over time, have been repeatedly scaled back.
TSA struggles with low morale and high attrition, consistently ranking near the bottom of the annual ``Best Places to Work'' survey. In fact, this year, TSA ranked 415th out of 415 agency components--dead last--on pay satisfaction.
Low morale and high attrition have had an adverse impact on the agency, crippling TSA's ability to develop a mature workforce. According to the DHS inspector general, over a 2-year span in 2016 and 2017, one in three Transportation Security officers quit.
As Members of Congress, many of us fly two or three times a week. We probably see and interact with Transportation Security officers more than any other Federal employees. We know them.
How can we ask these brave men and women to protect us from terrorist attacks, yet not provide them with the basic protections most Federal employees receive?
This bill will place TSA under title 5 like most other Federal agencies, granting the workforce better pay and regular salary increases.
Employees would have robust collective bargaining rights like other Federal employees, such as Customs and Border Protection officers in the Department of Homeland Security. And in instances when an employee feels they have been unfairly disciplined, they could have their case considered by an independent party like other Federal employees.
Importantly, TSA's management would still be able to remove screeners from duty if their presence jeopardizes the mission of the agency, and security procedures would not be subject to collective bargaining.
While investing in the workforce will have an up-front cost, it will pay off in the long run. The DHS inspector general found that, in 2017 alone, TSA spent approximately $16 million to hire and train nearly 2,000 people who left within months of being hired. That level of turnover is not sustainable.
Enactment of H.R. 1140 will reduce attrition, improve morale, and position TSA to have a more experienced workforce with the proficiency needed to execute TSA's national security mission.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), who has championed this issue from day one.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, just for the record, nothing in H.R. 1140 restricts the workforce's ability to elect union representation. I want to be very clear on that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for yielding.
I want to thank the gentleman from Mississippi for his wisdom in putting forward a bill that is long overdue, and that is H.R. 1140, which is the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act of 2020.
Let me congratulate the storied organization AFGE. They have a stellar reputation for fairly representing government workers in a way that provides them a better quality of life. I am not sure why they have become the issue on this floor, and our chairman has just indicated that there is no such language that limits any actions by our TSO officers.
Let me be very clear: Starting with the TSO and Homeland Security from the very beginning, this organizing was done for purposes of emergency. So now you have denied, for over 20 years, the rights of these individuals to live a decent life.
I take issue with this one example of an individual who, obviously, was not managed, because we all know that a man does not examine a female passenger, period, or traveler. We know that doesn't happen.
So a bad apple does not reflect on the fact that these workers need better rights, grievances, higher pay, professional development, and to be treated in the civil system such that we will develop a professional workforce that stays, that has a high morale and not a low morale.
Are we doing this to the FBI, the Defense Department, and ATF?
Are we telling them that at any moment they can be fired without due process?
This doesn't make sense. These people have put their life on the line. They have stopped so much that you do not even know protecting the traveling public.
Mr. Chairman, if you take a moment to talk with them, you will find out the massive number of weapons and other types of items that they have to be astute enough and keen enough to know what to do with.
I support the TSA. I support TSOs because I see them every day as the front line for this Nation in providing a safe and secure aviation system.
Yes, their job is difficult and deadly. We lost a gentleman in Los Angeles, and we all surrounded his family, he died in the line of duty.
I believe this is an important legislative initiative. Let us take this and finally give to these workers the decency that they deserve. Let us not make excuses. Let us make it right, and let us stand with them as American workers and defenders of the security and freedom of this Nation. Support H.R. 1140.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I appreciate my colleague next door to me citing the section about Federal Labor Relations Authority because that is my reference.
It says, ``or successor labor organization.'' And it says in the ``Sunset Provision--The provisions of this section shall cease to be effective as of the conversion date.''
So there are options available. It is not a closed-door process, and we wouldn't have it that way anyway.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I think, for the record, we want our TSOs to be treated just like all other Federal employees. If it is good enough for everybody else except TSA, then it should be good for TSA too.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman).
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I want to thank him for this leadership on this very important issue.
I join him in calling for support and passage of the Transportation Security Officers Act. We rely on Transportation Security officers to keep us safe. They work hard, including going without pay for more than 5 weeks during the last government shutdown. Yet these TSOs have none of the rights or the protections we have set for the rest of the Federal workforce, and that is what this bill would finally correct.
H.R. 1140 offers TSOs the ability to organize themselves and fight for better pay through collective bargaining and puts them on the Federal general schedule pay scale, ensuring they see the same regular step increases as the rest of the Federal workers who keep our government running.
It would ensure TSOs can appeal personnel decisions to a neutral third party--something their managers and others within TSA can already do. It would give these workers the paid family leave and medical leave that all other Federal workers now have, ensuring they can care for an ailing parent, be home with a new baby, or deal with a new diagnosis.
H.R. 1140 finally gives TSOs equal footing, recognizing that they are equally valued members of the Federal workforce--people we rely upon daily to keep our skies safe.
I am grateful to our chairman, Mr. Thompson, for his work to bring this bill through committee and for his tireless efforts of workplace rights and protections for TSOs.
Mr. Chairman, I urge the passage of this bill.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I have no more speakers, and I am prepared to close after the gentleman from Alabama closes.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the arguments my colleagues have made in favor of this bill as well as the amendments offered to improve it. This is ultimately a simple bill with a simple but critical goal.
Following the September 11 attack, Congress determined that the need to ensure the security of our Nation's transportation systems required the creation of a new Federal agency, the TSA.
Yet, in standing up this critical national security agency, Congress mistakenly gave TSA broad personnel authority that has resulted in the workforce lagging far behind other Federal workers with respect to pay, benefits, and rights. By passing this bill, we will finish the job we started and make TSA a Federal agency that follows the laws Congress had constructed over many decades to govern treatment of Federal employees.
This is the right thing to do for the frontline workers, the right thing to do for the traveling public, and the right thing to do for our national security.
Mr. Chair, I thank my colleagues for their support, I urge passage of H.R. 1140, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Payne) having assumed the chair, Mr. Cuellar, Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1140) to enhance the security operations of the Transportation Security Administration and stability of the transportation security workforce by applying the personnel system under title 5, United States Code, to employees of the Transportation Security Administration who provide screening of all passengers and property, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.
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