Almost 60,000 airport screeners, employees of the newly created Transportation Security Administration (TSA), were stripped of their rights to form a union when the Bush administration issued an order that said workers’ collective bargaining rights are “not compatible” with national security.

The order, by Adm. James Loy, undersecretary of transportation for security, came as workers who screen baggage and passengers at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport and Midway Airport in Chicago had petitioned the Federal Labor Relations Authority to allow workers to begin an organizing campaign to join AFGE.

“This is a ruse if there ever was one….The Bush administration has shown once again that the war it cares most about is the one that it is waging on the U.S. government workforce,” said AFGE President Bobby Harnage.

“The statement by Admiral Loy is akin to saying that being a union member gives aid and comfort to the enemy,” said Sonny Hall, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department.

“Once again the Administration has used the war as a weapon to deny rights to the very workers it relies on to win the war. This is a shameful act that should not stand,” said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.

President Bush demanded the ability to deny collective bargaining rights for workers in the newly created Homeland Security Department and even threatened to veto homeland security legislation if workers’ collective bargaining rights were included.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said the Bush administration’s action “has nothing to do with America’s security and everything to do with this administration’s politics.”

AFGE will seek court action to block the order, Harnage said.    

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Read AFL-CIO President John Sweeney’s statement, AFGE’s response and AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department press release.