Posts tagged TSA
TSA’s union distractions thwart air safety — so Trump is stepping in
December 30, 2025 // A recent report from my colleagues at the Institute for the American Worker shows collective bargaining at assorted federal agencies involve such pressing issues as the height of cubicle desk panels, smoking areas in tobacco-free federal properties and the right to wear sweatpants and spandex in federal offices. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, taxpayers foot the bill for a labor union to occupy half a hospital wing. Across the federal government last year, federal employees spent more than 3.2 million hours doing union work instead of their jobs
US Invalidates Union Contract Covering 47,000 TSA Officers, AFGE Vows to Challenge
December 16, 2025 // U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday terminated the collective bargaining agreement covering 47,000 Transportation Security Administration officers, the department said in a statement.
Federal shutdown heads for record-longest; local union says workers feeling financial pain
November 6, 2025 // Senators from both parties, Republicans and Democrats, are quietly negotiating the contours of an emerging deal. With a nod from their leadership, the senators seek a way to reopen the government, put the normal federal funding process back on track and devise some sort of resolution to the crisis of expiring health insurance subsidies that are spiking premium costs from coast to coast.
Democrats’ rift with unions erupts as shutdown pain worsens
October 31, 2025 // The White House on Thursday night released a video to social media in which the presidents of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, Allied Pilots Association and National Air Traffic Controllers Association endorse Republicans' stopgap government funding bill. "The biggest way to ensure the safety, security and reliability of our national air traffic control system is to pass a clean continuing resolution," said Jody Reven, president of the SAPA. The union leaders said a month of missed paychecks is distracting and stressful for Transportation Security Administration workers and air traffic controllers and will ultimately disrupt airport operations.
How are unions pushing back against Trump’s attacks on labor and layoffs?
October 21, 2025 // Unions are battling the administration in federal courtrooms nationwide, after filing dozens of lawsuits to try to halt attempts to shed hundreds of thousands of government employees, strip collective bargaining rights from over a million workers, and gut some federal agencies. On Wednesday, they made a significant breakthrough: Judge Susan Illston, of the US district court’s northern district of California, granted a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s latest mass layoffs from the government shutdown.
Hundreds Of Unpaid TSA Agents Are Calling In Sick—Expect Longer Airport Security Lines
October 7, 2025 // A notice on the MyTSA app, which travelers use to monitor TSA wait times at airports, says it is “not being actively managed” due to the lapse in funding. There is a similar notice on the TSA website. Shuker told Forbes he would expect a higher number of TSA employees to call out sick on busier travel days such as Sunday, Thursday and Monday. “If you were planning like stress day or a mental health day or an ‘F you’ day, you wouldn’t pick Tuesday because it's the lightest day of the week and the easiest to work,” Shuker told Forbes.
US judge blocks Trump from nixing union bargaining for TSA officers
June 4, 2025 // -A federal judge on Monday said the administration of President Donald Trump likely broke the law by stripping 50,000 transportation security officers of the ability to unionize and bargain over their working conditions. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle, Washington, blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from canceling a union contract covering TSA officers pending the outcome of a lawsuit by four unions challenging the move.
Trump Executive Order on Public-Sector Unions Clears Latest Legal Hurdle
May 26, 2025 // These policies have been generated in response to the snowballing effect of public-sector labor unions, whose bosses have swamped government agencies with an inefficient and excess allocation of funds. Because of these union boss abuses, tax dollars have even been paying full-time salaries to union boss lobbyists working to secure themselves higher wages for doing less work. Additionally, the Institute for the American Worker has found that the time and resources spent on collective bargaining has likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars for the taxpayer. As demonstrated, banning collective bargaining with public-sector unions at national security agencies is not only a feasible plan, but one which could return millions to the American taxpayer, increase the efficiency of the government, and allow agencies to reorient themselves toward their actual purpose and mission.
Largest federal employee union, a leading Trump opponent, to lay off more than half of staff
April 28, 2025 // “It’s going to demolish us,” said Justin Youngblood, president of an AFGE chapter that represents workers at a VA hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. “That’s going to cut the legs off of AFGE and all of the locals.” He said the union's national leadership should have been better prepared to manage an expected downturn in revenue during Trump's second term.
Coalition Letter: Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act
April 16, 2025 // Prior to the recent termination of collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers, the Department of Homeland Security revealed that nearly 200 TSA officers were working full-time on union matters despite being paid salaries by the government. In FY2019, the most recent year for which the data is available, over 550 employees at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were paid taxpayer dollars to perform union work. In another case, a union president has been allowed to occupy an executive suite that spans half of a hospital wing at the Salem VA Medical Center at taxpayer expense. Members of Congress recently introduced legislation to rectify this problem and prevent further squandering of tax dollars. The “Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act of 2025,” introduced as H.R. 1210 by Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and S. 511 by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), would give agencies the power to charge labor unions for their use of official time and their use of any agency resources such as office space and equipment.