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Washington, D.C.—Acting on a request by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) impacting pending legislation, the House Rules Committee has agreed to permit an amendment to be offered that would allow Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees to voluntarily wear personal protective equipment—including masks—in the event of an emergency.

The amendment impacting TSA employees is to be offered by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) to H.R. 2200, the Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act, when the measure goes to the House floor.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley applauded Rules Committee permission for the amendment; NTEU has been in the forefront of the effort to secure the right for TSA—and all employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—to wear protective masks in emergencies such as the present swine flu epidemic.

In a letter to Rules Committee Chair Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), President Kelley recounted NTEU’s efforts on this issue, including “many discussions with components of DHS in an attempt to make sure employees have clear guidelines and are able to protect themselves during emergencies. Unfortunately, no coherent policy has emerged.”

The NTEU leader also testified on this before Rep. Lynch’s Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce. She noted the congressman also sought to offer an amendment to the TSA authorization bill covering the entire DHS workforce, but it was not germane to this particular legislation, which deals only with TSA.

While NTEU would have preferred to see the broader amendment considered, Kelley said the TSA-directed Lynch amendment authorized by the Rules Committee “will at least aid our TSA employees by allowing them to take action to protect themselves and their families when necessary.”

In her Federal Workforce subcommittee testimony, President Kelley was sharply critical of both TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for failing to provide a clear and reasonable policy allowing the donning of a mask at an employee’s discretion.

She supplied to the subcommittee affidavits from CBP employees describing actions by supervisors in both preventing employees from wearing respirators and ordering those being worn to be removed.

While noting comments by CBP supervisors that wearing masks in this circumstance would alarm the traveling public, President Kelley said it is NTEU’s view that “avoiding unnecessarily alarming the public is not without merit; however, it is one factor that must be weighed against the potential health risks to employees, their families and others.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including the entire 22,000-employee CBP bargaining unit and thousands of TSA passenger screeners at major airports across the nation.