Unions Focus on Airport Screeners

Screeners at O'Hare and Midway -- and airports around the country -- soon might be able to choose which union has the sole right to represent them.

The American Federation of Government Employees recently announced it will petition the Federal Labor Relations Authority for an election among the 42,000 TSA workers who screen passengers and luggage nationwide.

That means those workers will be able to choose a single union to represent them, and it gives the Transportation Security Administration "the opportunity to deal with only one" labor group, according to Ricky McCoy, president of AFGE Local 777, which represents 563 TSA employees at O'Hare and about 190 at Midway.

While the unions can represent individual TSA officers in front of authorities or in court, the unions are still awaiting a decision by Congress to grant collective bargaining rights, which would enforce a union contract and guarantee other protections for workers.

In the meantime, McCoy said his union is leafleting every day at the airports, signing nearly 20 new members a week at O'Hare.

But AFGE is competing with the National Treasury Employees Union, which launched a Chicago chapter in December with about 300 members at O'Hare.

Colleen Kelley, NTEU national president, said she believes it's better to secure collective bargaining rights before an election, but her union is prepared either way.

"We were already doing everything to be ready for an election . . . and we plan to win that election," she said.

One TSA screener at O'Hare said there would be an "overwhelmingly welcome response" among workers to unionize, though he was unsure which union would win out.

"It does seem like there's some work to be done to make the system more fair and the tests more fair," he said, also noting that officers at the checkpoints are constantly under a lot of stress.

In response to a reporter's questions, TSA emailed ChicagoUnionNews.com the following statement: "TSA values the input of [AFGE and NTEU], the two unions which presently have significant Transportation Security Officer (TSO) membership, on issues of mutual concern affecting the TSO workforce."

By Katie Drews, for ChicagoUnionNews.com
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