When addressing issues in this column, I try to keep an operational perspective rather than a political view. But as I have previously noted, TSA and DHS are often severely constrained in what they can, cannot, or must do by a Congress that is increasingly dysfunctional. As I write this, at least 30,000 DHS employees are facing a Feb. 27th deadline, just days away, before the so-called continuing resolution expires – passed last year because Congress couldn’t get its act together then, either. If the DHS / TSA agency budget fails to pass, that’s how many jobs would no longer be funded, solely because some conservatives don’t like the President’s stand on immigration reform, and refuse to pass a clean bill.
If there is any mediocrely good news in there, it’s that positions deemed primarily “non-essential”, mostly administrative positions, would be furloughed; work considered necessary to protect human life and property are exempted from the layoff, but would still be unpaid while showing up for work: TSA, FEMA, Secret Service, CBP and Coast Guard among them.
So who gets laid off in the airport world? Headquarters support staff handling almost every facet of agency operations; FLETC training personnel, which means no mandated training; R&D people at the Atlantic City Tech Center examining evolving technologies; the TSIF equipment testing facility at DCA, where those new technologies are vetted for service; the E-Verify system which checks backgrounds of new hires; workers who manage grants to State and local governments that own, operate and maintain airports and provide LEOs and ARFF first responders ... need I continue? It’s a very long list....
Now let’s look at two more facets of the much larger mosaic. While no one can “force” people to show up for work when they are not being paid, what’s their alternative? Quit, or get fired, and go looking for another job where Congress doesn’t mess with your means of meeting your daily life requirements. Non-essentials – itself a slap - have no idea if or when they might get paid, and the mortgage company, grocery store, bank that owns their car, credit cards and dentist don’t take IOUs. Realistically, although the politics of the new anti-everything Congress are still iffy, there’s likely to be a compromise in the not-too-distant future – the 2013 shutdown when national parks closed lasted only 16 days, but it was much longer before people were paid, partly because there had been no non-essential employees keeping track. But my point in all this is that there is a very good reason why DHS and TSA are consistently, year after year, at the very bottom of the list as determined by its own employees to be the Government’s worst places to work, and morale on a really good day is essentially at rock bottom. In this instance, it’s the fault of Congress, not what is currently a headless agency.
This brings me to my second observation. As of today, early February, TSA still has no Administrator. John Pistole announced his retirement long before the end of the year, giving plenty of time to recruit a replacement. Let us also not forget that DHS and its 22 agencies, including TSA, are subject to 88 Congressional Committees and Sub-Committees on both sides of the Hill. Industry rumors abound in a place as political as Washington, and one of them is that several highly qualified persons who have been very quietly approached under the radar have respectfully declined the dubious honor of heading up the worst place in town to work. Anybody? ANYBODY? And before you ask: no, I am not available.
