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Washington D.C.—Senate confirmation today of John Pistole to be administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) finally positions this important security agency to begin addressing the serious workplace and workforce issues that have held back its development since it was created in 2002, the leader of the union representing thousands of TSA employees said.

“I applaud Senate action in finally filling this void that has lasted too long in the leadership ranks of TSA,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU); Kelley already has requested a meeting with the new head of TSA.

During his confirmation hearings, Pistole told senators that he would solicit the opinions of stakeholders before charting a course of action for the agency—including the decision about allowing collective bargaining for Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), a point Kelley referenced in her letter.

“I would like to request a meeting with you to talk about that issue and many others affecting TSOs,” she wrote, adding that “the workforce is excited at the prospect of having a leader after so long without one. There are many things that will require your attention. Your enthusiasm for the job and the thoughtfulness you exhibited during your hearings bode well for your success.”

Pistole’s nomination was the subject of confirmation hearings by two Senate committees—Commerce, Science and Transportation, and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Both approved Pistole unanimously.

NTEU is engaged in an aggressive, nationwide organizing campaign among TSA employees, and represents many thousands of them across the country. NTEU also has been leading the fight to secure collective bargaining rights for TSOs, working both with the administration and Congress on that vital issue.

Collective bargaining for TSOs is at the heart of NTEU’s concrete plan to improve the TSA workplace. The plan also includes moving TSA employees to a fair, transparent and credible pay system; providing them with whistleblower rights by statute; establishing a fair shift scheduling system accompanied by adequate staffing; and making substantial revisions to the training and recertification program.

“The best way to aid TSA in reaching the goals Congress set for it, and that the traveling public expects of TSA, is for its workforce to have a meaningful voice,” Kelley said, “and no mechanism provides such a voice as well as the right to bargain collectively.”

The NTEU president noted that such rights are widespread throughout the federal workplace, including within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where NTEU is the exclusive representative of the 24,000-employee Customs and Border Protection (CBP) workforce. Both CBP and TSA are units of DHS.

The NTEU plan for improvements at TSA takes on even greater importance in light of the history at the agency, where the workforce has been faced, since the beginning, with arbitrary work rules and regulations—often applied differently from one airport to another; a performance management system that fails to measure appropriately the work they do and the contributions they make; a pay system in which cronyism is widely thought by employees to be a factor; and other issues seriously impacting their day-to-day work lives.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.