(The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department issued the following press release on March 25.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD) today filed regulatory comments with the U.S. Department of Transportation, saying that new federal rules “undermine one of the most central elements of U.S. jurisprudence by suspending due process rights of U.S. citizens” who work in the airline industry and have been unilaterally found under vague standards with no objective review to pose a security threat. The transportation labor group called upon the government to address legitimate security needs in a manner that respects workers basic rights.
Today s comments are part of an ongoing effort by AFL-CIO transportation unions to suspend the implementation of certain Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations until specific due process protections and other steps are taken to ensure that no workers lose their livelihoods because of extremely vague and overreaching federal rules that give accused employees no right to an independent review, nor the ability to see the evidence that is being used against them. Last week, TTD and four affiliated unions the Air Line Pilots Association, the International Association of Machinists, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the Transport Workers Union filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a review of the TSA/FAA action.
The recently announced rules, TTD said, “appear to lower the standard of proof to mere hearsay.” In the name of national security, the evidence that would be used against a worker is unlikely to be made available to the employee. Any appeals of the security threat finding would be heard by the TSA the very agency that had issued the initial finding. In contrast, when a holder of an FAA certificate is found to have violated a safety rule, the worker can appeal to the National Transportation Safety Board for an independent appeal. The definition of who poses a security threat is at best vague, and TTD called for specific criteria to be developed.
“Even before September 11, transportation workers and their unions have been at the forefront of efforts to improve the safety and security of our transportation industry, but what the TSA and FAA are doing goes too far and strikes at the core rights of all Americans. There is no justification for the federal government to trample on workers like they are doing here,” said TTD President Sonny Hall.
TTD represents 35 member unions in the aviation, rail, transit, trucking, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit www.ttd.org