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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the union representing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees at three major airports today called a decision by TSA to award a massive contract to perform its human resource activities over the next eight years “another step down the wrong path by a troubled agency.”

“TSA is planning to spend $1.2 billion on this eight-year deal. I wonder how many TSA employees could be hired from the profit made by Lockheed Martin? And air travelers across the country should be wondering how that money could be used to reduce congestion at security checkpoints in our nation’s airports,” said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

The $1.2 billion contract, which in part consolidates work being performed by various other private contractors, was awarded to Lockheed Martin Corporation. It includes support for recruitment and hiring; the handling of employee records; the processing of paychecks, as well as health and retirement benefits; and research into strategic workplace planning.

“TSA may well be the worst of the worst, when it comes to human resource issues and this contract will do little to change that,” Kelley added.

President Kelley said NTEU is in discussions with members of Congress about this contract, and that a number of them have expressed an interest in examining the need for and wisdom of such a move by the agency.

TSA is a unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which consistently ranks at or near the bottom among major federal agencies in Office of Personnel Management surveys on issues impacting employee satisfaction with their workplaces. In May 2008, a DHS Inspector General report detailed serious failings in TSA’s internal dispute resolution process.

A major part of the continuing problems at TSA—which have led to a dangerously high turnover rate—is centered on its much-maligned, confusing and subjective pay system. Even recent modest changes in that system have done little to address employee concerns about fairness and transparency in pay matters.

President Kelley has argued strongly for a variety of key changes at TSA—including moving employees to the General Schedule pay system and granting them the same rights to bargain collectively that are widespread throughout DHS.

NTEU is supporting H.R. 3212, introduced by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), which would grant such rights by statute; at present, the head of TSA has the sole discretion to decide whether or not to grant TSA employees collective bargaining rights. To date, the answer has been no.

Such rights would give this important group of employees who play a major role at the front lines of the nation’s security a meaningful voice in their pay, scheduling, awards and other important workplace issues. It would, the NTEU leader has argued, go a long way toward cutting unacceptably high attrition and establish much-needed stability in an important position.