With Administrator in the Wings, AFGE Renews Call for Bargaining Rights

WASHINGTON, March 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to news reports, President Obama plans to nominate Robert A. Harding to become the TSA administrator.  Multiple news sources say that the retired major general will be announced today, ending weeks of speculation about who the White House would name to the long-vacant post of TSA administrator.  Key points about the nominee are:

• Harding "has the experience ... to make a real difference," administration official says
• Harding, who served 33 years in Army, would be the TSA's first African-American administrator
• He once was Defense Department's senior human intelligence officer

"We haven't had the opportunity to research this candidate as we have some of the other White House nominees," said AFGE National President John Gage upon learning of the selection of Harding. "However, if the administration believes him to be the best person to lead TSA, we will trust that decision until given a reason not to."

"No matter who the next TSA administrator is," Gage continued, "the issue of full rights for TSOs at the nation's airports is not going away.  AFGE is stepping up its grassroots efforts to have Congress pass House Bill 1881 before the Easter recess, thereby taking the question of collective bargaining out of the hands of the administrator altogether."

Last month, AFGE filed a representation petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) calling for a union election for TSOs nationwide.  The petition, which speaks only to the question concerning representation by a union, is seen as one of two parallel tracks the union has been involved in to win collective bargaining and union representation for the 40,000-person Transportation Security Administration (TSA).  Many in the labor relations community are speculating that the move by AFGE may have helped to shift the focus back to the quick naming of a TSA administrator.

AFGE is the largest federal employee union representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia, including tens of thousands of DHS employees in Border Patrol, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Protective Service, FEMA, U.S. Marshalls, Coast Guard and TSA.

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

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