Mar. 7—Unions representing federal security officers at airports across Maine have condemned the Trump administration's termination of the collective bargaining agreement with 47,000 employees of the Transportation Security Administration.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday morning that it had ended its contract with workers responsible for keeping weapons off planes and protecting air travel at more than 400 airports across the United States.
In a statement announcing its decision, the department said the contract has constrained the agency's ability to safeguard transportation, hindered merit-based advancement and allowed "poor performers" to exploit employee benefits.
While some in Congress questioned the legality of the administration's action, the department said eliminating collective bargaining "will ensure Americans will have a more effective and modernized workforce across the nation's transportation networks."
Union officials in Maine said the opposite is true given the loss of a seven-year contract settled one year ago that included better pay and improved working conditions.
"Everything we've worked for is in the wind," said Bill Reiley, a TSA screener at Portland International Jetport who is regional vice president of the American Federation of Government Workers Local 2617.
Without a contract, Reiley said, the union is no longer allowed to represent 140 transportation security officers who work at airports throughout Maine — most of them at the Portland jetport and Bangor International Airport.
"Many of these TSOs are military veterans who put on a second uniform to protect American citizens from terrorist attacks," Reiley said. "They show up to work every day to ensure our skies are safe for air travel."
Reiley said the contract termination will make it more challenging to recruit and retain qualified airport security screeners and more difficult to advocate for better working conditions and air safety.
The TSA currently has no top leadership, with vacant administrator and deputy administrator positions. The former administrator, David Pekoske, was forced out the day President Donald Trump was sworn into office, The Associated Press reported.
Everett Kelley, national president of the AFGE, said canceling the contract was an unprovoked attack on every American's right to join a union.
"This action has nothing to do with efficiency, safety or homeland security," Kelley said in a statement. "Our union has been out in front challenging this administration's unlawful actions targeting federal workers. Now our TSA officers are paying the price with this clearly retaliatory action."
The contract termination harkens back to the TSA's formation in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the Bush administration denied transportation security officers the same union rights granted to other federal employees.
Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO, said his organization will fight the Trump administration's effort to dismantle unions, strip away workers rights and diminish core public services ranging from health care to veterans services to aviation safety.
"It took many years and a number of legal victories for TSA workers to win the right to even have a union," Schlobohm said. "Taking away the right to form a union is a core part of the authoritarian playbook."
At Portland International Jetport, Maine's largest airport, Director Paul Bradbury said Friday that he had received no communications about TSA staffing from the Trump administration and that passengers were being processed as usual.
"We're not aware of any TSA disruptions at Portland," Bradbury said. "We have not been notified of any operational changes and I have no information about potential impacts."
The contract termination was immediately slammed by the top Democrat on the Homeland Security committee in Congress, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, according to the AP.
"Attempting to negate their legally binding collective bargaining agreement now makes zero sense — it will only reduce morale and hamper the workforce," Thompson said. "Since the Biden administration provided pay increases and a new collective bargaining contract to the workforce, TSA's attrition rates have plummeted."
Thompson also criticized the Homeland Security press release, saying the department was using "flat out wrong anti-union talking points." He said the real aim was "diminishing" the workforce so "they can transform it in the mold of Project 2025."
Project 2025 was the conservative governing blueprint that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda. Project 2025 calls for immediately ending the TSA union and eventually privatizing the entire agency.
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