Okay, I confess I have a lot of philosophical objections to making airport security workers federal employees, but there’s also a more practical reason — such a move would reduce rather than improve safety at airports.
Just look at what happened when a man managed to get past security with a bag full of knives. According to CNN, United Airlines immediately fired six security personnel and their supervisor who worked for a private security firm.
If they had been federal employees, however, firing these incompetents would have been a process that would have taken many months at a minimum. Given the strong role that unions have among federal employees, whether or not they could have been fired at all is questionable.
Yes, the Senate bill does contain language that would supposedly expedite the hiring and firing of security workers, but once the crisis atmosphere passes (and agencies like the EEOC inevitably water down the meaning of such provisions) these are likely to be a dead letter.
Personally, I don’t understand why there is such an emphasis on preventing people from being obvious weapons onto airplanes. Did I miss something here? Did the 9/11 terrorist sneak guns on board? Did they bring knives? Bombs?
No, they used box cutters and makeshift implements. You can spend all the money in the world and there is simply no way to prevent terrorists from bringing makeshift weapons onboard a plane. The current approach to airplane security seems to be adopting the “zero tolerance” philosophy of the war on drugs and recent anti-violence initiatives in schools, both of which have largely backfired.
I guess if what people really want is an illusion of security, then perhaps we’re accomplishing something — but not much more than that.