{"id":2846,"date":"2009-12-31T01:52:15","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T06:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2009-12-31T01:52:15","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T06:52:15","slug":"jmint-on-unionization-of-tsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/jmint-on-unionization-of-tsa\/","title":{"rendered":"jMint on unionization of tsa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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December 30, 2009<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Dear Friend,<\/p>\n

The recent terror attempt during\u00a0Christmas was a sobering reminder that we cannot afford to undermine safety at our airports. Unfortunately, President Obama and his nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) appear intent on allowing collective bargaining for TSA employees\u2026 effectively giving union bosses control over important security decisions.
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Collective bargaining would mean that TSA officials would have to seek permission from union bosses before making critical changes to improve security, which could take weeks or months of negotiations. This is why we do not allow other national security personnel at the CIA, FBI, Secret Service or Coast Guard to collectively bargain either.<\/p>\n

Unions may have been big campaign donors to Democrats in the last election, but we can\u2019t allow politics to weaken our airport security. And this is why I have simply asked for a public vote on the President\u2019s TSA nominee who has evaded answering whether he would unionize the agency, a decision that would be his alone to make.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0Wall Street Journal <\/a>explained in an editorial<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n

Neither Democrat mentioned that President Obama didn’t bother to nominate Mr. Southers to fill the TSA post until September, nor that Democrats didn’t vote the nominee out of committee until the middle of last month. Such a languid pace hardly suggests that they considered the TSA job to be vital to national security.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Mr. DeMint’s objection is rooted in a substantive concern that union practices and work rules will compromise security. TSA uses a performance pay system that tries to reward ability and effort, with the goal of recruiting and retaining the best employees. Unions prefer seniority-based pay that puts a premium on time served rather than performance.<\/p>\n

TSA also needs to be able to change its procedures or move personnel to high-risk locations on short notice… but under union work rules they might need to get the permission of union leaders… If the goal is to have a “nimble, responsive” TSA, a non-union work force makes more sense.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I will continue to work to ensure the TSA focuses on security at our airports so we can better prevent future terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/p>\n

I was recently on Fox News and CNN to discuss this critical issue. Click on the links below to watch the interviews.<\/p>\n

Fox News VIDEO<\/a><\/p>\n

CNN VIDEO<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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December 30, 2009 Dear Friend, The recent terror attempt during\u00a0Christmas was a sobering reminder that we cannot afford to undermine safety at our airports. Unfortunately, President Obama and his nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) appear intent on allowing collective bargaining for TSA employees\u2026 effectively giving union bosses control over important security decisions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-JU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}