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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today filed a petition with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) seeking an election to become the exclusive representative of a 40,000-employee Transportation Security Administration (TSA) unit.

TSA is a unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where NTEU already is the exclusive representative of its 24,000-employee Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit.

“We have enough support among Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) to meet the FLRA’s 30 percent criteria for filing such a petition and seeking an election,” said NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley. “I am confident that when TSOs examine the records, performance and expertise of the unions competing in such an election, NTEU will prevail. No other union can match our record of success for federal employees.”

The CBP election, conducted by the FLRA in 2006, was then the largest union representation election in the federal sector. NTEU won that election over the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) by a more than two-to-one margin.

President Kelley said NTEU continues to have questions about the legal and practical effects of a previous 2003 FLRA decision rejecting an AFGE petition for a TSA election since employees did not then—and still do not—have collective bargaining rights. Nonetheless, NTEU chose to file a petition at this time to ensure it would be on the election ballot, if the FLRA reverses itself on this issue, thus giving TSA employees their choice of a representative.

The NTEU leader emphasized there would be no letup in the union’s continuing drive for TSA collective bargaining and other rights.

“I am hopeful the recent nomination by President Obama of a permanent leader for this important agency signals that its deserving employees will have, in the near future, the same workplace rights, including the right to collective bargaining, that are held by other federal workers, including their CBP colleagues in DHS,” she said. NTEU has been the exclusive representative in CBP and its predecessor agency for 35 years.

“NTEU wants to provide the kind of representation to TSA employees that we currently provide to CBP employees,” said Kelley. “NTEU is known for its professionalism, representation and legal skills, bargaining expertise and strong legislative program. I am confident that we can bring substantial and positive change to TSA.”

When Congress established TSA in late 2001, the stated purpose was to create a world-class transportation protection agency. That has yet to happen; TSA is outside the coverage of Title 5, with its own pay system—much-maligned as unfair and subject to favoritism and cronyism, and with limited rights for employees.

As part of an employee-centered five-point plan to improve TSA workplaces and the lives of its employees, NTEU is pressing the administration to grant TSOs full collective bargaining rights; at the same time, the union continues its legislative push on behalf of H.R. 1881, a measure introduced by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) calling for TSA collective bargaining rights and which has now gathered some 150 co-sponsors.

At NTEU’s recent legislative conference, Rep. Lowey took aim at congressional opponents of granting TSA employees the right to bargain collectively. “The threat is from terrorists, not labor unions,” she told a meeting of hundreds of NTEU chapter leaders from around the country.

Technically, the NTEU filing with the FLRA is known as a “cross-petition,” so designated because of AFGE’s filing last month. If the FLRA decides an election is appropriate at the present time, it will set the rules, conduct the election and certify the winning union. Meanwhile, NTEU continues its work on an aggressive organizing campaign among TSOs, and already represents thousands of the agency’s employees in some 40 airports nationwide.

“TSA employees deserve to choose which union will better represent them, now under TSA’s current system, and in the future, when collective bargaining rights are granted,” President Kelley said. “We are prepared to compete vigorously and win a union election at TSA.”

“While we keep up the fight for collective bargaining rights and more, we have now taken the procedural step necessary to position NTEU to move forward to an election, to victory, and to progress for TSA employees and the TSA mission,” said President Kelley.

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