Further Thoughts on National Security and Unionization

The Kansas City-Star has an article today about the private airport security screeners at Kansas City International Airport whose election is being contested by FirstLine Transportation Security (and the Right to Work for Less Foundation) at the NLRB.

I wrote about the national security concerns about this election here and here. In the KS City Star article, several very smart people make some cogent points about how ludicrous the opposition to organizing screeners really is.

“Saying public and private screeners don’t have a right to strike is very different from saying you don’t have a right to collectively bargain or a right to form a union,” said Vincent A. Harrington Jr., an attorney for the Service Employees International Union who filed a brief in the FirstLine case.

Several union attorneys pointed out that security guards who worked at bomber plants during World War II were allowed to unionize. “National security is an argument for Congress, not something for the NLRB to consider,” said Jim Coppess, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO. “The law (the Aviation and Transportation Security Act) has nothing to do with private-sector screeners. The federal government got through World War II without making these prohibitions, so all this is sort of a little bit strange.”

Joseph Slater of the University of Toledo said the federal government established the right to collectively bargain because it was viewed as a way to make work more efficient and safe. He doesn’t see how collective bargaining makes the system less safe.“The workers who responded on 9/11 — the police, the firefighters, the emergency medical technicians — those are some of the most highly unionized occupations in the country,” Slater said. “The implication that collective bargaining is inconsistent with public safety is flatly contradicted by past experiences.”