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Transportation Security Administration is renewing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi NoemThe effort to end the collective bargaining agreement with airport screening officers – the second such effort this year and comes just a month after the longest government shutdown on record.
The agency said Friday that the move is based on a September memo from Noem that said tsa Screeners “have a primary function of national security” and therefore should not engage in collective bargaining or be represented by a union.
The American Federation of Government Employees vowed to fight the decision, calling it illegal and a violation of a preliminary injunction a federal judge issued in June, which blocked Noem’s first attempt to eliminate the contract representing 47,000 workers. Email requests for comment were sent to TSA and Homeland Security.
The TSA said it plans to cancel the existing seven-year contract in January and replace it with a new “security-focused framework.” This agreement was scheduled to expire in 2031.
TSA Acting Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl said in a statement that airport screeners “need to focus on their mission of keeping travelers safe.”
“Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distract our officials from their important work,” Stahl said.
The announcement comes just weeks after Noem held a press conference in which she handed out $10,000 bonus checks to TSA officers who she said had gone “above and beyond” during the 43-day shutdown, when thousands of airport screeners continued to report for duty despite missing more than six weeks of pay during the lapse in funding.
“Just 30 days ago, Secretary Noem celebrated TSA officers for their dedication during the longest government shutdown in history,” AFGE national president Everett Kelly said in a statement. “Today, she’s announcing a lump of coal just in time for the holidays: that she’s stripping those same dedicated officers of their union rights.”
AFGE reached a collective bargaining agreement with TSA last May. But Noem issued a memo on Feb. 27 canceling that agreement, and TSA notified the union a week later that the contract had been terminated and all pending grievances would be dropped.
The union filed a lawsuit, claiming that the move was retaliation for AFGE’s resistance. trump Administration attacks on federal employees. A trial is currently scheduled for next year.
The Trump administration is moving quickly to shrink the bureaucracy and laying the groundwork to weaken or eliminate protections for federal employees.
In granting a preliminary injunction in June, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman seattle Said the order was necessary to preserve the rights and benefits TSA workers have enjoyed under long-standing union representation.
Pechman wrote that AFGE had shown in its lawsuit that Noem’s directive “constitutes unacceptable retaliation”, potentially violated union due process, and was “arbitrary and capricious” – findings the judge said made it likely that AFGE would ultimately prevail.