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Washington, D.C.—The White House budget proposal for the coming fiscal year calling for additional staffing at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reflects welcome and broad understanding of the need to ensure that homeland security agencies have adequate personnel, the leader of the union representing tens of thousands of frontline security employees said today.

The White House proposal includes a call for 2,000 additional Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) at TSA; the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which already represents thousands of TSOs and is aggressively organizing others at airports nationwide, has led the call for increased TSA staffing.

Increased TSA staffing, in fact, is part of NTEU’s five-point plan for improving working conditions for TSOs, including higher pay—they presently are among the lowest paid federal workers—as well as fair scheduling, improvements in training and recertification and whistleblower rights by statute.

“The White House proposals for additional staffing for TSA and CBP reflect the reality of today’s dangerous world, and are wise investments in our nation’s security,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley.

As part of increases for its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the White House is proposing to boost TSA funding by 9 percent; provide more than 2,000 new TSOs to operate new screening equipment, employ enhanced screening techniques and handle canine teams; fund checkpoint and baggage screening equipment that will replace magnetometers with up to 1,000 new advanced imaging technology screening systems for passengers; provide more accurate and efficient in-line bagged screening; and increase the number of Federal Air Marshalls.

Most of these improvements have been the subject of congressional testimony offered by President Kelley on the resource and personnel needs of homeland security agencies, including TSA.

The proposed improvements, particularly for TSA, come in the wake of the failed Christmas Day attempt to down a U.S.-bound airliner from overseas. While TSA employees had no role in screening passengers at the foreign airport, the near-miss brought home again the constant danger from potential terrorists.

The White House said its budget requests for strengthening homeland security “are targeted to meet priority needs.” Among the goals of the improvements is to have air passenger wait times for screening at less than 20 minutes by 2012.

In a letter to President Obama after the Christmas Day incident, President Kelley called for the inclusion of a broad range of TSA issues in a review of security and intelligence matters related to that event.

She also has called for the immediate grant of collective bargaining rights for TSA employees and the prompt selection of new nominee to be administrator of that troubled agency. The president’s first nominee, Erroll Southers, withdrew when his nomination was caught up in political wrangling.

“Significant changes need to be made in the processes governing TSA workplaces,” President Kelley said, “and not just for employees. Better workplaces, with fair processes addressing their day-to-day working conditions and other issues, will lead to much higher employee morale, and that will help better secure the traveling public,” she said.

For CBP, the White House is asking for sufficient funds for 300 new CBP Officers for passenger and cargo screening at ports; additional intelligence officers; and expanded pre-screening efforts operations at foreign ports. “That would be a start on meeting CBP staffing needs,” Kelley said. Like TSA, CBP is a unit of DHS.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including the entire 24,000-employee CBP workforce.