{"id":2914,"date":"2009-12-29T17:36:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T22:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=2914"},"modified":"2009-12-29T17:36:40","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T22:36:40","slug":"tsa-to-unionize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/2914\/tsa-to-unionize\/","title":{"rendered":"TSA to Unionize?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2009\/12\/29\/lawmakers-spar-nominee-tsa-chief-wake-terror-attempt\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Politics%2529\" target=\"_blank\">fracas<\/a> surrounding Senator Jim DeMint\u2019s (R-SC) hold on Erroll Southers\u2019 nomination to be the Transportation Security Administration\u2019s (TSA) next chief shows the endurance of two liberal pastimes.\u00a0 First, the refusal of any of DeMint\u2019s critics to directly address his concerns that Southers will clear the path for TSA workers to unionize.\u00a0 The second is the enshrinement of unelected bureaucrats as the <em>sine qua non<\/em> of a workable federal government.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, the TSA\u2019s supposed top priority is to protect Americans traveling through the nation\u2019s airports and on its airways.\u00a0 If TSA\u2019s workers are allowed to unionize its primary focus, like all other public employee unions, will become job protection and expanding compensation.\u00a0 To Senator DeMint that means less flexibility in personnel decisions and higher taxes.\u00a0 Apparently, Southers hasn\u2019t been candid about whether he supports unionization.\u00a0 Disregarding the senator\u2019s qualms, pilots unions and trade associations are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-tsa29-2009dec29,0,3060401.story\" target=\"_blank\">calling for DeMint to relent<\/a>.\u00a0 For those familiar with him, that isn\u2019t likely.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps what\u2019s more amazing (or disgusting, depending on your current level of holiday cheer) is the implied premise of Southers\u2019 supporters that TSA is \u201crudderless\u201d without a permanent, Senate-approved leader.\u00a0 Granted, Congress is on an extended vacation and the president is golfing in Hawaii, but no one can seriously argue that TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, or the myriad of other federal departments, agencies, or bureaus touching on domestic safety are insufficiently empowered to decide who gets on an American airplane.\u00a0 If anything, the admission that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab\u2019s name was on a terror watch list and had been reported to the American government by his own father indicate that \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0061512\/ \" target=\"_blank\">what we\u2019ve got here is\u2026failure to communicate<\/a>\u201d among various federal entities.<\/p>\n<p>If it takes a new law to make that possible, so be it.\u00a0 But fast-tracking a stealth unionization administrator can wait until he and his supporters come up with a better reason than a civil servant&#8217;s indispensability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fracas surrounding Senator Jim DeMint\u2019s (R-SC) hold on Erroll Southers\u2019 nomination to be the Transportation Security Administration\u2019s (TSA) next chief shows the endurance of two liberal pastimes.\u00a0 First, the refusal of any of DeMint\u2019s critics to directly address his concerns that Southers will clear the path for TSA workers to unionize.\u00a0 The second is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[684,271,683],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-erroll-southers","tag-jim-demint","tag-tsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2921,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions\/2921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}