By Steve Neavling
TSA screeners could receive an average 30% pay increase, along with benefits and due process protections that most other federal employees receive, under a bill passed by the U.S. House last week.
Since the creation of the TSA after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, TSA employees “have been part of a siloed personnel system, where they do not receive regular raises like most other federal workers and lack due process and whistleblower protections,” Government Executive reports.
That would change under the Rights of the TSA Workforce Act, which passed in the House with a 220-201 vote.
“The most recent analysis done on turnover shows that over a two-year span, one in three transportation security officers quit,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who introduced the bill, said on the House floor. “It also revealed that in a single year, TSA spent $16 million to hire and onboard nearly 2,000 people, who left just months after they got the job. This revolving door of recruiting, training and then losing TSOs is unsustainable and underscores the need to find a permanent solution that will ensure TSA lives up to its critical national security mission.”
A vast majority of Republicans voted against the bill, which now goes to the Senate for a vote.
