Democrats in the Senate are moving legislation to implement all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations not already put in place by President Bush. A provision of that legislation, however, implements something the 9/11 commission never suggested —giving federal employee unions control over America’s airport security. Despite promises of a presidential veto and opposition from enough Republican senators to sustain it, Senate Democrats are still pushing the provision of S.4 that extends collective bargaining to the Transportation Security Administration.
Democrats tried in 2001 when the Department of Homeland Security (including TSA) was created to force collective bargaining on this key sector of the government’s anti-terrorism workforce. They failed because the American public agreed with Bush and the Senate GOP that union stewards should not have effective control over such critical security measures as screening passengers at airports. It’s still a bad idea, but Senate Democrats are back, with their narrow majority, thanks in great part to millions of dollars in campaign donations from unions, including many representing federal employees. Extending collective bargaining to TSA employees is one of many ways Senate Democrats say thank you. As much as $17 million in new annual dues, by one estimate, would flow into the government employees union coffers if this proposal becomes law. That’s an expensive thank you, but the new dues would only be the beginning. Since virtually every change proposed by management in a unionized TSA workplace would require negotiation, the government’s arbitration costs would rise, even as trial lawyers — another major class of Democratic donors being rewarded these days — join union activists in cultivating a fertile new field of litigation.
There is, however, far more at stake in this debate than longer lines at the airport security counters and putting more bucks in union and trial lawyer bank accounts. Responding to a question on the Senate floor last week from Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., Sen. Claire McCaskill,
D-Mo., made it clear that the global war on terrorism won’t be considered as an “emergency” in a unionized TSA. Said McCaskill, who is the main sponsor of the legislation: “I do not believe that declaring that we have a problem with terrorism worldwide that would be a status quo, day-in and day-out, would be considered an emergency.” Similarly, she evaded answering DeMint’s question of whether al-Qaida qualifies as a “continuing threat,” even as she dismissed the suggestion as “specious reasoning.”
If, as McCaskill clearly believes, the war on terrorism doesn’t qualify as a continuing emergency for TSA and if the terrorist group that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 doesn’t require special treatment by TSA, then why did Senate Democrats insist in 2001 that the Department of Homeland Security be created in the first place? McCaskill and her Senate allies must explain why paying off unions and trial lawyers is more important than protecting Americans getting on commercial airliners.
