Richmond TSA workers picket to get union rights back from Trump administration

“This attack on our members is not just an attack on AFGE or transportation security officers. It’s an assault on the rights of every American worker,” Everett Kelly said.

About a dozen Transportation Security Administration workers and union supporters picketed outside the Richmond International Airport on Wednesday to call on the Trump administration to reverse course on canceling their collective bargaining agreement. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under the leadership of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, announced in March it was ending collective bargaining for TSA transportation security officers, saying such union rights hindered the agency’s ability to keep Americans safe. 

“Thanks to Secretary Noem’s action, Transportation Security Officers will no longer lose their hard-earned dollars to a union that does not represent them,” a DHS spokesperson said at the time. 

In response, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents hundreds of Virginia TSA workers, sued the Trump administration over what the union alleges is an illegal move to end their collective bargaining agreement. AFGE President Everett Kelley said the TSA issue is part of the Trump administration’s larger attack on federal workers and unions in general. 

“This attack on our members is not just an attack on AFGE or transportation security officers,” Kelley said in a statement at the time. “It’s an assault on the rights of every American worker.”

In Richmond on Wednesday, workers said they just want their union back. Philip Morrow of Petersburg said the collective bargaining agreement struck between workers like himself and the TSA functioned as a “code of conduct” that dictated how both sides interacted.

“It’d be nice to have it back,” Morrow told The Dogwood. “There’s lots of uncertainty now.”