The union for Transportation Security Administration officers said a newly imposed hiring freeze and a temporary halt to overtime for airport security checkpoint officers could lengthen passenger wait times come summer when traveling peaks, but the agency’s head disputed the claim.
“We lose a large number of officers every month who leave the agency to find better jobs, sometimes in the same airport. We simply can’t afford any gaps in hiring,” American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council President Hydrick Thomas said in a statement issued ahead of a Senate hearing Tuesday on TSA funding. “We have dealt with severe understaffing for years. A hiring freeze and overtime cap will undoubtedly make lines longer and cause flight delays.”
TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency’s recent decision not to train new hires until late April will provide “savings upfront” because the additional employees are not as needed in winter and spring as they will be in the summer. Last year, TSA officers who work across 440 airports experienced the busiest summer travel season in its 18 years and finished the year with 839 million airline passengers screened, also the most in a single year.
“Let’s say we issue an offer letter today. So March 3, we issued an offer letter to somebody. That offer letter will say, you know, you will come up, you are onboarding, at whatever airport they are going to onboard at, will be on the 26th of April,” Pekoske told reporters after appearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. “Rather than spend that salary cost between next week and the 26th of April, we’re trying to economize as much as we can so that we bring people on at the end of April, which is enough time to have them have some basic capabilities and screening operations for the summer.”
But Thomas, who represents 45,000 union members, said employees are still without overtime pay, and that might affect an agency that is already struggling with low morale. The TSA in 2019 was ranked in the bottom 10% of 420 federal agencies and subagencies among places to work in the federal government.
“I know that a lot of officers really like overtime. I would, too, if I were them. And I hate putting some of these, these limitations on, but I’ve got to manage to a budget, and I’ve got to make sure that we do everything we can to stay within our throughput standards,” Pekoske said, referring to the 10-minute wait time for TSA Precheck passengers and 30-minute wait for normal passengers.
TSA officers are not entitled to annual pay increases as other Department of Homeland Security employees receive. Pekoske said several provisions in the fiscal 2021 budget propose annual pay increases for exceptional employees.
