TSA Screeners' Union Whines about Unethical TSA Leadership

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/tsa-union-dhs-officials_n_1161528.html?ref=mostpopular

"He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon."

The TSA's "leadership" resists any and all forms of accountability at every turn. They are dyed in the wool fascists without the slightest qualms about denying citizens and workers alike any valid form of redress.

I can't wait for the next administration to flush these turds. 

 

Except it won't.

 

Anyone who chooses to "work" for the TSA and molest people for money and wants to complain about how they are treated by their despotic management should be invited to fornicate with a chainsaw.

 

Total control.
Here is a union that serves to institutionalize this bureaucracy with a constituency multiple times the size of TSA itself, willing to fire off and blanket disseminate a press release in defense of indefensible conduct problems on short notice, and this is how they are treated by Pistole.

This isn't some small union he can roll like a hapless passenger or a rape-crisis group.
So complete, so boundless is his arrogance, that he treats this union partner with the same contempt he treat the general traveling public.

Fascinating.

He's so bad, I think it's better for anti-TSA forces to have Pistole as the face of agency, and have alternative work deployment ideas for the unionized workers. Pistole's union-workrule-busting demands are, I'd guess, less tactical on his part than an outgrowth of his absolute power. But best if he does not become some anti-union darling for his behavior, and divide the anti-TSA constituency as well.

 

Well, Divide-and-Conquer is a beloved strategy of the powers-that-be. So look for them to exploit it here as well.

Of course, it would help if so many people wouldn't play along with it . . . .

 

I've said all along that Pistole is a (expletive deleted) of the highest order. When he keels over the collective good to bad ratio will increase tremendously for the human population.

 

If TSA was disbanded this problem would be self correcting.

 

True. But that is not the union's objective. They want their personnel to be able to molest the public without their so-called "management" being able to correct their actions when they repeatedly cross the line.

The TSA needs to go.

So does the union that supports TSA "employees."

 

The union wants an independent third party arbitrator. TSA wants to be judge and jury, and for the union to be a wholly owed subsidiary. Do you trust TSA management (more)? I don't.

 

The union wants that independent third party arbitrator to be a union lackey.

 

I don't trust anyone at all who WANTS to work for the TSA. Union or management. They're all useless wastes of amino acids.

 

I am the last person to be defending a corrupt union, but a management with veto power will ALWAYS feather its own bed while canning an underling to take blame that belongs with those in charge. Third party arbitrators are a check on the system, as preferable that it might be that the agency and its unionization did not exist.

Management literature has swung against Unions as unhelpful to reform, but that assumes good intent on the part of management. At TSA, that's an obvious problem.
Sort of like Dems/Reps -- all bad-- but a PRI (one party system) worse still.

 

If John Gage and John Pistole were both drowning and you only had enough time to rescue one of them...

... where would you go for lunch?

I have a hard time generating any sympathy for either of these (expletive deleted).

 

Does going to the bar to celebrate count as lunch?

 

My initial reaction to this was that they are complaining about being denied due process while doing precisely the same thing to passengers, the old "you have no rights at the checkpoint" routine, which is pretty much what I posted on the articles I found.

I have to agree with Gage's statement that "TSA's position is not about national security. It's about hiding a management structure that's incompetent". This is pretty much what we've been saying for years.

I'm wondering if there is an opportunity to leverage Union dissatisfaction with TSA into policy change that would return them to being a useless but benign annoyance.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, it is "conceivable" that the screeners are being harassed by the abusive idiots that seem to rise into management in this agency as are passengers. There have been numerous reports of screeners groping passengers because they are afraid of being punished by overbearing supervisors.

While this agency is an egregious waste of money, it's a tall order to try to downsize the bloated Federal bureaucracy and get these procedures changed at the same time.

While I'm no fan of AFGE, they remind me of Claire McCaskill, a former TSA ally that is now attacking the agency. I'm glad that AFGE now sees TSA for the arrogant agency that it is and making their view public.

 

I agree with you except for this point.

The interests of the flying public and the interests of the AFGE members are not the same.

The AFGE may be happy to air management dirty laundry - and that may be a good thing and possibly (unlikely, but possibly) encourage an occasional manager to retire. But AFGE is going to be all about more money/better working conditions (more 'training' time?) and immunity from both management and pax criticism, not about improving the quality and effectiveness of screening while still respecting personal rights and dignity.

In the end, I think AFGE and TSA's interests are still aligned against the best interests of the pax (and the taxpayers and those who genuinely care about aviation safety).

 

No one is saying they are the same.

Divide and conquer works both ways.
The worst outcome would be a figurehead change and more of the same. But it is helpful to have frontline employees able to identify crime/problems without being bullied by management. The difference is that [we] would be interested in different work, not just working conditions.

 

This is a very complicated and fruitful discussion. We've talked before at TUG about how it might be possible to find allies amongst TSA employees. Yes, yes, I know it goes against the grain. But we know that there are TSA employees who are also appalled at what's going on. How do we not alienate them? Don't we want them on our side? Is that possible? After all, their friends and relatives can also get abused when they fly (if they're flying by themselves and not with their TSA relative, who, we already know, gets ushered through unmolested).

Again, a very complicated discussion, one we've had before and will no doubt continue to have. I don't know the answers.

 

I used to believe that. I don't believe it any more. The only good TSA employee is an ex-TSA employee, and then only if they chose to leave.

 

"I think I understand the same frustration the flying public has shown to TSA management," said John Gage​, president of the American Federation of Government Employees

Crocodile tears from the same person stomping his feet about screeners not being refferred to as "officers" and being attired in something other than a policeman's costume.

Union advocates have long described a TSA officer's job as low-paying and thankless. The roughly 45,000 officers tend to start out around $28,000 in salary and max out around $36,000, according to several TSA workers who were at the AFL-CIO on Tuesday.

This is unskilled labor that does not require a high school diploma, so I don't see what the issue is.

For comparison, a First Officer at ExpressJet (the largest regional) will earn $22,080 in their first year. After five years they will earn $38,400 a year. This is assuming they are flying the maximum of 80 hours a month and not drawing only the contractual minimum.

I think there are good TSA employees, but their ranks have been steadily thinning.