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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing thousands of front-line homeland security workers today welcomed further inquiry by key House members to require the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to provide the specific details of how whistleblower retaliation complaints brought by Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) will be adjudicated by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) under a recently implemented agreement between TSA and the MSPB.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents TSOs at three major U.S. airports, said the congressional inquiry “is an appropriate and necessary step to determine whether TSOs will enjoy meaningful protections against retaliation under the new system.”

NTEU strongly supports the provisions contained in H.R. 985, approved by the House, which would grant TSOs whistleblower rights by statute. “Rather than leave the extension of this much-needed right for TSOs to the agency’s discretion, we are continuing to seek full congressional approval of the language in the House-passed bill,” President Kelley said. “TSOs who blow the whistle on mismanagement or dangers to the public health and safety must be protected against retaliation to the same extent as other federal employees. Further, their rights should not be dependent upon an agreement which TSA can revoke at its discretion, simply by giving 60 days notice.”

In a letter to TSA, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and the head of its subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight sought additional information about pending implementation of an agreement TSA reached with the MSPB implementing whistleblower protections for TSOs.

Kelley applauded the efforts of Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Carney (D-Pa.), who in a letter to TSA Administrator Kip Hawley made reference to a TSA-MSPB agreement announced in late July setting out the terms and conditions of an interagency contract between those two bodies reached earlier this year.

“While we understand that setting these terms and conditions is an important step in implementing the agreement,” they wrote to Hawley,” it is not clear how this interagency contract agreement can be lauded as having some direct benefit for TSOs.”

Reps. Thompson and Carney sought, on a continuing basis, all TSA management directives related to this issue; information on how TSA will notify its employees of their rights; whether or not employees will be able to appeal to federal courts adverse decisions impacting their whistleblower rights and their right to be free of retaliation—as other federal workers may do; and other matters.

“Given the important role whistleblowers play in exposing waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement,” President Kelley said, “it is vital that these employees have access to independent review of their claims.”

The NTEU leader reiterated her strong and continuing support for legislation which would provide collective bargaining rights for TSOs; the grant of such rights presently is the purview of the agency head, and it thus far has been denied to TSA employees.

“TSA employees deserve to enjoy the same collective bargaining rights as other federal employees,” President Kelley said. “With collective bargaining, these employees could then raise their claims of retaliation through the grievance-arbitration procedure, which is a less formal and frequently more efficient forum for adjudicating whistleblower cases than is the MSPB.”