Air Screener Cuts Praised, Panned

The government announced plans Wednesday to eliminate 3,000 more airport screening jobs by the end of September.

The cuts, coupled with 3,000 others announced in March, amount to about 11 percent of the 55,600 screeners employed. The moves will save the Transportation Security Administration an estimated $280 million, director James Loy said.

"TSA is entering a new stage in its maturation," Loy said of the 17-month-old agency.

The job cuts address critics in Congress, mainly Republicans, who believe the TSA grew too large too fast. To get around a congressionally mandated cap of 45,000 full-time screeners the TSA hired 9,000 "temporary" workers, most of whom were given five-year contracts.

Rep. Harold Rogers, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, estimates screeners at a third of U.S. airports check an average of three passengers an hour.

"TSA threw money at the employee and screening deadlines in a shotgun fashion and over-hired," Rogers said. "Congress mandated these reductions almost a year ago, and I am pleased TSA is finally starting to make progress."

But airline security advocate Paul Hudson said the job cuts would compromise airport security unless the TSA improves other parts of the system. For example, he said, buying more van-sized bomb-detection machines would mean fewer screeners would be needed to operate the labor-intensive wands that detect traces of explosives.

"These labor cutbacks — unless they're coupled with some other measures to compensate to improve the system further — they will result in an overall reduction in security," said Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project.

"There's still so much turmoil in the world that I think we need to be providing all the resources we can for homeland security," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association.

The TSA said it plans to commit about $1 billion for permanent installation of big bomb-detection machines this year.

The first 3,000 cuts will be made by May 31, the rest by Sept. 30. Loy said the TSA will try to trim the work force through attrition and putting some workers on part-time hours.

Loy said the cuts won't diminish security, though it's possible they could add some time to the screening process. A 10-minute wait limit is still the goal, he said.

The cuts are also aimed at keeping staffing levels closer to what is needed at the nation's 429 commercial airports. About 250 airports are expected to end up with fewer screeners and 150 with more.

Pittsburgh International Airport and Salt Lake City International Airport, for example, will each lose about 40 percent of their screeners.

"We've always erred on the side of security, and at bigger airports you always assumed you needed more people," said TSA spokesman Robert Johnson. He also said some airports have seen a real slowdown in air traffic.

Yakutat Airport in Alaska, which sees business rise with the summer travel season, will go from 1 to 16 screeners.

Peter Winch, national organizer for the American Federation of Government Employees, said he was surprised to learn so many screener positions at large airports would be cut.

"At so many of the big airports the screeners tell me they're really busy, working overtime and understaffed," Winch said. The union is fighting the TSA in court for the right to represent airport screeners and has petitioned for elections on collective bargaining at about 20 airports.

In his announcement, Loy also said he was trying to meet a May 16 deadline for reimbursing air carriers $2.3 billion in security fees. Congress ordered the reimbursement in an aid package to the financially distressed airline industry.

Loy has wide discretion on personnel matters, due in part to the lack of unions at TSA. In January, Loy said national security required unions to be barred from his agency. He had the authority to do that under the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act that created the TSA.

The Bush administration subsequently gained similar flexibility for the Department of Homeland Security.