A Senate committee voted Thursday to give airport screeners the collective bargaining and whistleblower protection rights that many other federal employees have.
On a strict party-line vote, Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee agreed, while all the Republicans voted against, giving the screeners the right to join a union and to be protected from retaliation if they report wrongdoing.
The measure, which is opposed by the Bush administration, passed on a vote of 9-8.
Committee chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., noted that when the Transportation Security Administration was created in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress gave it authority to ignore certain civil service laws for national security reasons.
As a result, TSA's chief has had sole authority to make decisions regarding labor rights for airport security workers. Lieberman said that since 2001, TSA has declared itself exempt from additional laws "enforcing the most basic employee protections," in each case devising its own separate rules.
The senator said that TSA personnel management has been troubled from the beginning, with "unusually high rates of attrition, vacancy, workplace injury, discrimination complaints, and other indications of employee dissatisfaction."
The administration and committee Republicans argued that TSA management, and its parent agency, the Homeland Security Department, need the flexibility to respond quickly to any terror alert or attack.
They cite last summer's London liquid-bomb plot, and TSA's ability to quickly change, virtually overnight, its staffing and procedures in response. They fear giving screeners collective bargaining rights would interfere with that flexibility.
The Republican leader on the panel, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she "reluctantly" opposed the measure, adding that hearings are needed to examine the issue more closely.
Other Republicans agreed that more study was needed, but Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said: "They should not have the basic rights you're talking about here today."
In 2002 when Congress debated the creation of the Homeland Security department, one contentious issue was the extent to which the new agency's employees should have union bargaining rights.
The issue resonated in national elections that year, with then-Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., being defeated by an opponent, Republican Saxby Chambliss, who accused Cleland of opposing anti-terror steps because he had voted against the bill that did not contain federal employee rights.
The head of the union that represents other TSA employees hailed the measure's passage, saying it "will provide stability to the work force that TSA and the flying public so desperately need," said John Gage, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
The TSA provision was part of a larger measure passed by the committee on a vote of 16-0, with one Republican, Sen. Tom Coburn, Okla., abstaining. The bill is intended to implement the remaining recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. Last month the House passed its version, which differs in some respects from the Senate bill, but does contain TSA screener rights.
The Senate bill would also:
_Improve information-sharing among federal, state and local governments, and set standards for intelligence fusion centers where all levels of government can come together and share information that might prevent an attack, or help respond to one.
_Establish a new grant program to help state and local governments improve their emergency communications systems, to be based within the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.
_Change some of the provisions of the program that allows citizens of 27 favored countries to visit the U.S. without visas. The bill would strengthen security measures but also broaden the program to additional countries, including some helping the U.S. effort in Iraq.
_Create or change several different grant programs for aid to local first responders, with counter-terroism programs based on risk, and other funding based on giving all states the ability to respond to any kind of calamity, whether natural or man-made.
Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced legislation that would give a higher percentage of homeland security money based on risk. Their formula is much closer to that passed by the House and supported by the Bush administration.
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