AFGE, the American Federation of Government Employees, led the voting and will face a runoff with NTEU, the National Treasury Employees Union, to determine who will represent the 43,000 TSOs at 450 airports across the United States.

The ballot offered three choices: AFGE, NTEU or no union. The voting began March 9 and ended April 19. In order to win, one of the choices had to gain 50 percent plus one vote of all the TSOs voting. Some 85 percent of the ballots were in favor of a union, but neither organization won a majority. No date has been set yet for the runoff.

Under the Obama administration, TSOs recently gained collective bargaining rights. Even before they did, however, more than 12,000 were organized in 40 AFGE local unions across the country. It took 10 years before the TSOs finally gained the right to bargain.

The AFL-CIO is supporting the officers’ right to bargain and is backing AFGE, one of the labor federation’s affiliates, in the runoff election. NTEU is not affiliated.

“Having won the right to bargain collectively, TSA (Transportation Security Administration) workers are now poised to elect their exclusive union representative…. With the support of AFGE, which has worked so persistently and aggressively on their behalf, and with the full backing and assistance of the AFL-CIO, these workers will be successful,” the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in a statement.

The election was conducted by the Federal Labor Relations Authority, an independent administrative federal agency that oversees collective bargaining for most federal government employees.

This article is adapted from a report that appeared on the national AFL-CIO news blog.

For more information
Visit the AFGE website
Visit the NTEU website