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Only the grant of collective bargaining rights and the meaningful workplace voice they would provide can hope to address the dangerous level of attrition among employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Today’s report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) placing TSA attrition rates at between 14 and 17 percent—more than double the rate among other operations at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and some four times the rate of all Cabinet-level agencies—is alarming indeed. The clear implication of this unacceptably high turnover is that the nation’s security remains at risk because of the lack of employee rights in TSA workplaces.

Compounding this problem are data discussed in a media report showing that DHS has significantly more serious and continuing problems in retaining senior managers than the rest of the federal government. The inevitable result of this unsurprising conclusion is turmoil at the top levels and an inability to plan effectively. These issues speak clearly to the need for DHS to drop any plans it has to move ahead with aspects of a new and regressive personnel system. The current personnel system works; it is DHS senior management that is currently not working. DHS must get its management act together. These reports show the agency is far from accomplishing that.