The House Homeland Security Committee plans to mark up a bill on Thursday that would kill the Transportation Security Administration’s Performance Accountability and Standards System. In its place, HR 1881 would move roughly 45,000 screeners to the General Schedule system most federal employees are currently under.
Unions criticize the PASS pay-for-performance system as unfair, and say it is driving many screeners to leave TSA.
The bill would also grant collective bargaining rights to screeners, also known as transportation security officers. This would likely set off a battle between the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union to formally represent TSA. Unions are already jockeying for position to prepare for this vote.
Matt Dennis, a spokesman for Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said he’s optimistic that the bill will come for a vote before the full House. But Dennis was far from certain, and acknowledged that it’s hard to predict what will happen before Congress takes a recess later this summer. The bill now has no Senate companion.
