The Trump administration announced on March 10 that 47,000 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers would no longer have collective bargaining rights. The vast majority of these workers perform passenger screening and other security responsibilities at the United States’ various airports.
The loss of these rights means that TSA workers will no longer be able to legally negotiate working conditions such as hours, health insurance, and progressive discipline. Essentially, TSA is now at liberty to treat its workforce as poorly as it pleases.
TSA has only been a union shop since 2011, bringing a short union tenure to an abrupt close. The AFGE campaign to organize the TSA workers lasted almost a decade and its conclusion represented a huge step forward for an underpaid and overworked airport security labor force.
Out of the 47,000 TSA workers in the bargaining unit, more than 25,000 were dues-paying members of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest labor union in the federal government. The aim of this policy is clear: to break what is left of public-sector organized labor.
This is the latest in a series of anti-worker policies forced upon the federal labor force by the Trump and Musk regime. All workers and progressives must stand with federal workers as they face these attacks on their livelihoods and their basic rights as workers.
Union jobs for all workers! Unions yes! Musk no!
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