NTEU Ready for TSA Election; Will Continue Fight for Employee Bargaining Rights

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is eager for a union representation election for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees and is determined to accelerate its lead role in the effort to secure collective bargaining rights for these employees, its president said today.

Earlier today, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) ordered an election in TSA, sharply underscoring the critical need for the immediate grant of much-needed and long delayed collective bargaining rights in TSA, said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. 

"Collective bargaining rights provide the best path to significant improvements in the work lives of TSA Officers," she said. 

NTEU continues to press the administration and the Department of Homeland Security to grant employees such rights, and is working with members of Congress on this issue.

In its decision, the FLRA, which oversees federal sector labor-management relations, did not address the important questions about what the lack of such rights would mean to employees in the TSA workplace under these circumstances which NTEU asked in its filing. No federal sector representation election has ever been conducted under circumstances in which employees lack the right to bargain collectively.

TSA Administrator John Pistole is currently conducting a review regarding the question of collective bargaining rights at TSA. NTEU is confident such a review will lead to an administrative directive granting these long-overdue rights to the TSA workforce.

At the time of its creation in late 2001, Congress placed TSA outside the purview of Title V of the U.S. Code, which covers other federal employees. TSA administrators have had the power to grant a broad array of workplace rights, including collective bargaining, since the agency's beginning, but none has yet done so.

The FLRA will establish the rules and timetable for the vote, count the votes and ultimately certify a winning union. NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.

SOURCE National Treasury Employees Union