TSA to end collective bargaining due for its workers, citing abuse of union “official time”: CEI comment

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced it is ending collective bargaining for the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Transportation Security Officers, explaining that collective bargaining for these public sector workers “has constrained TSA’s chief mission: to safeguard our transportation systems and keep Americans safe.” CEI labor policy expert Sean Higgins praised the decision by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, pointing to problems of waste and abuse with the practice of union official time.

The announcement that TSA was ending collective bargaining for its workers was due to the abuse of so-called “official time” — the widespread practice in the government of allowing unionized workers to do exclusively union-related work while still drawing a taxpayer-funded salary for their supposed regular job.

TSA is far from the only agency that allows official time. In theory, this is supposed to be a rare practice allowed to make collective bargaining and other union-related business, like addressing worker grievances, go easier. In practice, it gets widely abused, with many more workers on “official time” than is practical or necessary.

TSA reports that it had more people doing full-time union work than it did performing screening functions at 86 percent of its airports. That was obviously wasteful. Since union representatives push for higher wages and benefits, the government was literally paying these “official time” workers to make the government even more expensive. If TSA workers want union representation, they can pay for their union reps with their own dues, just like private sector unions do.

Related analysis: White House requires federal agencies to disclose time spent working for unions instead of taxpayers