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Washington, D.C.—Throughout its history, when the national interest has been at stake, America has trusted its most important work to federal employees, and that tradition should now be extended to the security of our airports and our ability to travel freely, the head of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers said today.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said the public has a right to expect that airport screening not only be a government responsibility, but that it be performed by the trained and dedicated men and women of the federal workforce.

The NTEU leader said there are some in the administration and Congress who argue that airport passenger and baggage screening work should be performed instead by private contractors who win the work on the basis of the lowest bid.

“The serious issues of cost, efficiency, effectiveness and much more that surround federal contracting makes that far too great a risk,” Kelley said. The leader of the nation’s largest independent union of federal workers called that approach “a far greater risk than we as a nation should be willing to take.”

Kelley called “weak and just plain wrong” the argument that putting such tasks in the hands of the private sector makes more sense because it is easier to fire an employee of a private contractor who is a poor performer than a member of the federal workforce.

The union president said that argument completely ignores provisions of federal law providing for the immediate removal from a position of a poor performing employee, as well as provisions that allow the immediate termination of employment of an individual if national security interests are involved.

“Clearly, federal employees can be fired, and probationary employees and national security risks can be removed from the federal payroll with no notice,” the NTEU president said.

Kelley added that that the stakes are far too high to allow private contractors to perform airport security work, especially given the track record not only of federal contractors in meeting their obligations to agencies and taxpayers, but of the government itself in overseeing contractors and holding them accountable for their performance and spending.

Elevating airport security screening personnel to the status of federal employees, the NTEU leader said, would ensure better background checks, more and better training, and greater accountability for their performance. “There are important benefits to be gained by the American people in federalizing this vital work,” Kelley said.

The union president suggested a pilot program for those in the administration and Congress who believe that using contract workers is the best path—temporarily using current airport baggage screeners to protect the Capitol and White House, while the Capitol Police and the Secret Service are temporarily assigned to protect the public. “Maybe that will open some eyes,” she said.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.