America’s largest federal employees’ union filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Homeland Security Department and its leadership to stop the Trump administration from canceling a collective bargaining agreement for Transportation Security Administration workers.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Seattle, is the latest example of how the union, the American Federation of Government Employees, or A.F.G.E., has taken to the courts to challenge the administration’s efforts to undermine labor protections for government workers. The union says the bargaining agreement, approved in 2024, covers 47,000 transportation security officers.
On Friday, the Homeland Security Department said it was ending the agreement, saying it had “constrained” the officers’ ability “to safeguard our transportation systems and keep Americans safe.”
The department’s statement took aim at the union, citing what it called unfair gaps in benefits programs, a culture of poor performance tolerated because of union protections; and T.S.A. employees who work full time on union matters and do not assist with screening work.
The A.F.G.E. lawsuit, which names Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, as a defendant, says rescinding the collective bargaining agreement would affect public safety, calling it “an act of retaliation by the Trump administration” against the union and an “attempt to punish free speech.”
Content Source: www.nytimes.com