Washington Examiner: Napolitano wants to unionize TSA employees despite safety concerns

Why politics shouldn't trump safety

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Napolitano-wants-to-unionize-TSA-employees-despite-safety-concerns-80206432.html

By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
12/28/09 11:37 AM EST

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano hasn't exactly inspired confidence after proclaiming "the system worked" in response to the recent thwarted terrorist attack. A radical Islamic terrorist -- whose father had warned the U.S. embassy of his dangerous intentions -- smuggled explosives on board a flight into the U.S. and nearly detonated them. It was hardly a victory for Homeland Security. In fact, this paper called for her resignation this morning.

Well, as if that weren't bad enough, Napolitano was already at work undermining security measures long before the most recent terrorist attacks. Over the weekend, Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sounded the alarm about the Obama administration's attempts unionize Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) employees:

The administration is intent in on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses [and] collective bargaining, and this is at a time, as Senator Lieberman says, we've got to use our imagination we've got to be constantly flexible. We have to out think the terrorists. When we formed the airport security system we realize we could not use collective bargaining and unionization because of that need to be flexible. Yet that appears to be the top priority of the administration.

The flexibility that DeMint speaks of is crucial. After a British airliner bombing plot was uncovered in 2006, the TSA overhauled security procedures in a matter of 12 hours to deal with the threat of liquid explosives. It's difficult to imagine that kind of flexibility under ossified union rules.