The union for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff is suing Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem after she mentioned she was ending a collective bargaining settlement signed final 12 months.
The American Federation of Authorities Staff (AFGE) argues Noem has no energy to finish an already approved seven-year contract, accusing the secretary of concentrating on the union after it introduced quite a few fits on behalf of presidency staff
“The 2024 CBA has a term of seven years and allows limited midterm bargaining. This collective bargaining agreement, like any other, is a binding contract,” the union wrote within the swimsuit.
It went on to name the transfer “an act of retaliation by the Trump administration against Plaintiff AFGE because of its exercise of its First Amendment right to litigate to protect federal workers.”
The Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) first publicized the transfer final week, although Noem signed an order rescinding the contract final month.
In that announcement, the DHS additionally leveled quite a few claims towards the union, together with that TSA staff “will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them.”
The DHS additionally claimed TSA had extra officers engaged on union work than screening passengers in 86 % of airports — one thing the AFGE mentioned was mathematically not possible.
The AFGE mentioned Noem “targeted AFGE by name, asserting without any evidence that AFGE was harming transportation security officers” and included “false claims about the number of AFGE officials using official time.”
“The decision by Secretary Noem to rescind the 2024 CBA, end collective bargaining mid-contract, and terminate existing grievances violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is arbitrary and capricious, and is contrary to law,” they wrote within the swimsuit, bringing claims underneath the Administrative Procedures Act in addition to the 2 amendments.
TSA staff don’t have full Title 5 rights to collective bargaining given to all different federal staff, although the Biden administration granted these powers by a 2021 administrative motion.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) have launched laws that might put TSA staff underneath the identical cost and staff rights regime as all different federal staff.
