Friday, February 04, 2011

Awesome: Air Travel Soon to Feature Super-Efficient, Newly Unionized TSA Security Screeners

If there's anything that could make airport travel even more pleasant, it would be unionizing the TSA security screeners. That way they can't be fired no matter how incompetent, rude and under-performing they are.

The government will grant collective bargaining rights to the nation's 40,000 airport screeners, the head of the largest federal workers union said Friday... John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told The Associated Press he was informed of the decision at a meeting with John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration.

TSA workers have tried for nearly a decade to win the same union protections as other federal employees, but Republican opponents have balked over worries that union demands could jeopardize national security or slow response times in a crisis.

...Pistole had spent months studying the unionization issue since he was confirmed to the post in June. The move comes just days after Pistole said the agency would not hire private contractors to screen airline passengers, despite calls to do so from some Republican lawmakers and frustrated passengers.

...President Barack Obama had pledged to get the screeners collective bargaining rights during his campaign... AFGE already has more than 12,000 dues-paying members among the screeners' ranks, but the union has not been allowed to bargain on behalf of its members.

What could go wrong?

Air travelers will now get to experience the high quality of public sector union workers each and every trip.

This why I'm long companies that sell telepresence and videoconferencing equipment.


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