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Collective Bargaining Has Hurt Border Patrol, TSA Shouldn’t Make Same Mistake

By: Senator Jim DeMint (Diary)  |  January 5th, 2010 at 11:42 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In light of the Christmas terror attempt, we must make sure that our airport security is as strong as possible. Unfortunately, Democrats in the Senate appear intent on confirming a new leader for the Transporation Security Administration (TSA), that would presumably make good on President Obama’s campaign promise to union bosses that he’d force TSA into collective bargaining even though it would weaken our security. [A nominee who has also submitted false testimony to Congress about improperly accessing private background information.] If that were to happen, the same union bureaucracy that has crippled the American auto industry and made service at Post Offices the punch line to jokes could soon be a way of life at America’s airports.

If TSA were forced to collectively bargain with union bosses it could weaken security by:

  • Requiring TSA to get union bosses permission before implementing security and workforce changes. If the unions decided the changes were too burdensome on their employees, weeks or months of negotiations could ensue, causing unacceptable delays in implementing new safety protocols.
  • Requiring TSA managers to promote based on seniority, not merit, and making it more difficult to discipline failing employees.
  • Requiring TSA to share sensitive intelligence information to third parties during negotiations with union bosses, making future leaks of classified material more likely.

Democrats have responded by pointing out that the Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) allows collective bargaining, and if it works for the border agents, why not TSA? The answer is that collective bargaining is not working for CBP, its weakening their ability to keep us secure. Setting aside the obvious, that this agency has struggled to fulfill its mission as there are 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S., CBP has had numerous problems with collective bargaining. Take these four recent examples of the agency being forced to negotiate with unions that took months to resolve:

  1. Arbitration with unions over how and whether CBP can discipline employees who fall asleep on the job. (CBP lost)
  2. Arbitration with unions over whether CBP has to negotiate with the union on how much training an officer who fails the firearm exam needs. (CBP lost)
  3. Arbitration unions over whether CBP can investigate (just investigate, not discipline) officers who get into an off-duty fight. (CBP eventually won)
  4. Arbitration over whether CBP has to negotiate with Unions on the re-assignment of personnel, an issue that would likely arise as TSA as well. (CBP lost)

So, union bosses litigated for months – sometimes years – against the CBP to prevent them from disciplining employees that sleep on the job, retraining failing officers, investigating officers for violence, and reassigning personnel to higher priority posts. And this is the system Democrats want to implement at the TSA when the agency is already struggling to stop terrorists? It makes no sense to weaken our airport security just to reward campaign donors from the last election. Lets keep our focus at TSA on security, not politics.

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COMMENTS

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  • antisocial

    Does the President think a person with a proven record of spying(btw. using federal systems without authorization) on his wife’s boyfriend be trusted with Security?

    And we are supposed to believe he is the best they can come up with?

    Fight on Senator.

  • suej

    Senator DeMint, Thanks for keeping this before our eyes. There is so much to keep track of that its hard to keep up. It amazes me that an element of our national security system could even be considered to be under the auspices of the SEIU!! It’s infuriating. The TSA has a dubious track record already, and to think that it will be further disabled by unions, then we need to all take self defense courses if we plan to fly and want to be safe.

    Thank you too for holding to your standards and having the courage of your convictions. As a Kentuckian I am ashamed of the wimpy leadership of Mitch McConnell, and I appreciate your strong leadership in spite of him!

  • drbill
    • joayn
    • BA Cyclone

      What happens when TSA unionizes, then decides to go on strike for some self-serving reason?

      PUBLIC SERVANTS should not be allowed to bargain collectively, in any circumstance. It is oxymoronic.

      • lightfootletters

        Union contracts violate the ‘contract clause of the Constitution. This is the most important point.
        Another reason to support minuteman projects. They are effective and costs the Federal Government little to nothing. Even better form a Border Patrol Aux. along the lines of the Coast Guard Aux. Since most Republican and Democrat politicians support open borders for short term gains for business and new voters..unlikely to happen anytime soon

  • http://twitter.com/zoltanne zoltanne

    Southers should have been prosecuted for his criminal activity years ago. Flashback to Joe The Plumber and the breech of security and private records involving Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Director Helen Jones-Kelley. Jones-Kelly lost her job over her misguided and illegal activities. Why wasn’t Southers?

    The fact that Southers got a free pass by performing illegal “background investigations” once doesn’t mean he gets another free pass now. This type of an incident is NOT mis-remembered or forgotten by someone with ethics and solid principles.

    By misleading Congress during the confirmation process, Southers should be eliminated as a candidate to lead the TSA. If he can’t recall his own wrong doings, there may be other memory issues.

    Knowing that Southers would also align with the unions/SEIU makes him undesirable as the leader of the TSA.

    Or could it be that America is so bedraggled and forlorn that our choices for likely candidates in top government positions can only be selected from a workforce of people with tarnished reputations, immorality, and brazen fortitude?

  • pirate55

    I rose in the ranks of a major northern city police department and retired a few years ago. Maybe I’m missing something here, but I engaged in the collective bargaining process on the part of “management” which equated to the taxpayers of the city. It seems quite odd one would be appointed to this managerial post with the intention of unionization of employees and this would in and of itself seem to pose a definite “conflict of interest”, to the detriment of TSA’s true employers, the taxpaying public.

    How can one supervise and develolp quality personnel on one hand, while advocating for the very same employees as to working conditions, wages etc. on the other? It is also very curious as to how Mr. Southers memory improved based upon his communication AFTER committee confirmation.

    Lastly, I have worked along side the likes of Mr. Southers and conclude with this conviction. The most appropriate individual to head the TSA should be a law enforcement professional with a proven track record and an unsullied reputation, void of any demerits. I lived under the premise that truthfulness must always be adhered to by a law enforcement professional, and I trust that will occur in this matter.

    I will close by saying I appreciate what you are trying to ensure Senator and I thank you very much.

  • izoneguy

    The border patrol is under manned, out gunned and needs to be dis-banded.

  • twiston

    So, tell me how this is supposed to work in a “Right to Work”
    state like Virginia… ?

  • leehazel

    These various agencies of Law and Order and International and National Defense should under no circumstances be unionized. The reasons are self evident and ubiquitous. The most significant is the blatantly anti Americanism of the SEIU, the union most likely to organize the TSA.

    I resent the idea that my government at any level can be extorted by union demands such as we have all seen repeatedly at the municipal levels all over the country. We do not need this when National Security is the issue.

    PC is Thought Control
    LEE

  • Achance

    Any of the situations you describe could be dealt with by reasonably skillful labor relations practitioners. You can discipline or dismiss a public employee for sleeping on the job and sustain it in arbitration. You can bargain language that preserves managment’s right to determine training requirments or transfer policies. You can establish policies that allow you to reasonably regulate employee off-duty conduct.

    The problem besides a certain amount of making managers do things right, something that doesn’t always come naturally to government managers, is the political power that unionization gives the union and the employees. Especially in a Democrat administration, if a supervisor tries to discipline an employee for sleeping, the union rep calls that supervisior and says, “Do I have a problem with Brother Smith or do I have a problem with you?” If the supervisor foolishly persists in disicplining that employee, the union agent calls the supervisor’s politically appointed boss and says, “Do I have a problem with Supervisor Jones or do I have a problem with you?” It dosn’t take many times of being rolled like this for supervisor to stop supervising and employees to stop working. This does a couple of things. First, it gives union reps almost dictatorial control and second it sets a standard of conduct and discipline that is very hard to change.

    The impact is lasting. After a few years of Democrat control the standard for discipline for sleeping on the job becomes little or no discipline. Comes now a Republican administration that has promised to clean up the Widgetmaking Department. First employee they catch sleeping, they fire. The union takes it to arbitration and the union trots out a bazillion cases of employees being caught sleeping and nothing happening to them and argues either discrimination or disparate treatment in the case of this employee. The union wins the arbitration, the employee goes back to work with back pay and supervisors draw the essential lesson that there is nothing they can do.

    For those of you that followed the “Troopergate” affair with Gov. Palin, that was essentially why Tpr. Wooten was still a Trooper; the discipline standards had become so low in the Democrat Knowles Administration that it was almost impossible to discipline troopers in the Murkowski Administration because of the disparate treatment defenses.

    Once a workplace is unionized and the dynamic set out above takes place, supervisors learn that it is definitively not in their interest to cooperate with Republicans beyond that necessary to avoid an insubordination charge. Even merit system supervisors and manager learn that if they get crossthreaded with a union under a Republican Administration, one day the Democrats will come back into power and their name will be on a hit list. We’re now a year into Comrade Obama and I’ll guarantee you that every supervisor and manager in the federal government who got crossthreaded with a union has either been fired, sent to Adak, Alaska, or has an office with no windows and a seat that flushes and has no phone or email address.