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Washington, D.C.—For some time, the leader of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has been calling on senior officials of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to address employee concerns in an open and transparent way. Now, an important step is scheduled to occur in meeting that interim goal.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley and local leaders among NTEU’s TSA chapters in airports across the nation will meet later this month with the head of TSA and other senior leaders to discuss a broad range of issues impacting employees at this vital but troubled agency.

“I am looking forward to discussing with the TSA administrator and other senior agency officials such critical TSA issues as the testing and certification procedures, pay system, leave policies, disciplinary actions and more—including our ongoing organizing effort,” said President Kelley.

The NTEU leader said she will bring to the July 28 meeting specific recommendations to solve problems Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) are facing now. “NTEU will be armed with concrete proposals that can be implemented immediately to improve the work lives of TSA employees,” she said.

In addition to collective bargaining rights and other aspects of its five-point plan, President Kelley said NTEU is interested in pursuing with senior TSA leaders a broad range of subjects, including workers’ compensation and reasonable accommodation issues, training and remediation, leave and attendance—including employee rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act—the outsourcing of the agency’s personnel operations and other matters.

NTEU’s immediate primary concern is providing collective bargaining rights for the TSA workforce; the union is leading the way in fighting for legislation to provide such rights. “The upcoming meeting is an excellent opportunity to begin the necessary information sharing and establish a process for the collaborative efforts that will improve not only working conditions in this agency, but its ability to meet its mission,” she said.

“Clearly, collective bargaining rights give employees the meaningful opportunity to have a say in their work life, which is something TSA employees simply do not have now in any real sense,” Kelley said.

NTEU is engaged in an aggressive TSA organizing campaign, and already represents thousands of TSOs at major airports around the county.

The union is working to implement its five-point plan on behalf of TSOs, including securing collective bargaining rights; moving employees from their much-maligned pay system onto the General Schedule; fighting for adequate staffing and fair scheduling; improving training programs and revising recertification; and granting TSOs whistleblower rights by law.

The grant of collective bargaining rights was made optional in the legislation establishing the agency, and, to date, no administrator has agreed to permit agency employees to have these important rights.

At the same time NTEU is pursuing legislation that would accomplish that end, the union has urged the Obama administration to grant TSA employees collective bargaining rights through an executive order or other administrative action. Such a recommendation was part of NTEU’s presentation to the Obama transition team.

NTEU has been vocal in its criticisms dealing with a wide range of matters in TSA, where employee morale is notoriously low and turnover and workplace injury rates high. TSA is a unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In congressional testimony and in other forums, President Kelley repeatedly has pointed to full collective bargaining rights and the involvement of an employee representative as key elements in the development of a stable, focused and professional workforce.

She also has energetically refuted the claim of opponents of TSA collective bargaining rights that they would interfere with agency operations, noting that NTEU’s position as the exclusive representative for the entire 24,000 DHS Customs and Border Protection workforce has been and continues to be a positive force in that key homeland security unit.

“I expect that this will be the first of many meetings between TSA employees, employee representatives and senior leadership,” said Kelley. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate to the TSA workforce and the nation that we can work together to build a world class airport security agency, and this is the first step.”

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