"Airport security revamp sputters"

Sunday, May 26, 2002

Airport security revamp sputters
U.S. to pay bonus to keep screeners from bailing out
By Jon Hilkevitch
The Chicago (IL) Tribune


The airport security screeners whom the government has been seeking to
replace will now be paid up to $500 in bonuses to stay on the job until the
federal program, mired by a sluggish start, is up and running.

The incentives, which the federal Transportation Security Administration
unveiled to the private screening companies last week, are necessary because
so many workers at airport passenger checkpoints are bailing out because of
their lame-duck jobs, officials acknowledged.

The bonus offer seeks to keep thousands of workers on their jobs at the
start of the summer travel season. The money will be paid to the security
companies, who can then pass on part or all of the incentives.

The security agency, which already faces billions of dollars in expenses
that haven't been fully funded by Congress, faces a Nov. 19 deadline to
deploy about 40,000 federal screeners to replace the private security
workers at 429 U.S. airports. To date, federal screeners are in place only
at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Hiring is taking place at
just five small and midsized airports, officials said.

Several factors are making it difficult to build the workforce of federal
screeners, including the failure of many applicants to pass criminal
background investigations and aptitude tests, officials said.

Pamela Pearson, the security agency's director of workforce creation, said
many potentially qualified screener candidates are looking only for
part-time positions.

"In addition, we saw a higher number of no-shows than we anticipated at our
assessment center," Pearson said.

Falling short in recruitment, officials reopened the application process
last week at some airports.

Meanwhile, the directors at a growing number of airports, citing deadlines
that they consider unrealistic, have urged the Bush administration to give
the security agency more time to hire the federal screeners to do the job
right.

Many airport security experts and airline officials also doubt the agency
will be able to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to screen 100 percent of checked
baggage for explosives.

The $500 incentive pay that will be provided by the Transportation Security
Administration is intended in part to boost the morale of the current
screeners, who historically are among the lowest-paid workers at airports.
Even before Congress decided on the federal takeover last November, the
turnover rate among airport screeners was exorbitant--several hundred
percent annually at some major airports, including O'Hare International
Airport.

Officials also are dangling the extra cash in front of the workers to help
ensure that proper procedures are followed in screening passengers, carry-on
items and checked baggage.

The Transportation Security Administration "will provide a bonus to contract
screening companies if they maintain current staffing levels and uphold
present quality standards until [federal] screeners arrive," said a security
agency memo obtained by the Tribune.

The size of the bonus will depend on the results of performance reviews
conducted by federal inspectors.

"You can earn more than $500 per worker if you do well on the operational
reviews," said Ron Harper, president of Globe Aviation Services Corp., which
employs about 7,500 screeners at 72 airports.

"We have tried to hire good people who we thought would be qualified to move
on to a [federal] screening career," Harper said.

A spokesman for the security agency said he could not provide the number of
federal screeners hired so far or how many current screeners have quit.

Officials at the security agency said they expect that up to half of the
federal screeners will be new hires, including many retired law-enforcement
officers and former military personnel. The rest will likely be current
employees of the private screening companies who can meet the tougher
performance standards imposed by Congress.

None of the successful screener applicants will be put to work until they
graduate a 40-hour course and pass a final exam that tests their ability to
spot weapons and other dangerous objects on an X-ray monitor and identify
banned objects by feeling around with their hands inside baggage. They will
then receive 60 hours of on-the-job training.

The salary range for the federal screeners is $22,000 to about $40,000 a
year, officials said, depending on previous experience in the security field
and location. Health insurance benefits are included. For current screeners
who get hired, the pay boost could exceed 60 percent of what they were
making before Sept. 11. The salary scale was improved after the terrorist
attacks.

At O'Hare, there are currently about 1,600 private screeners, and the first
of the 1,800 to 2,000 government screeners are not expected to arrive at the
airport until at least July.

"We will need to give the current screeners a bonus so they show up for work
every day. We don't want them going out to look for other jobs while the
[security agency] is interviewing their replacements," said Isaac
Richardson, the federal security director at O'Hare.

Interviewed Saturday, some O'Hare screeners said that they planned to apply
for the new federal positions and that the cash incentive would simply be
icing on the cake.

"I just want to make the switch," said Harold Bennett, a screener for Globe
Aviation Services Corp. in the American Airlines terminal. Bennett said he
likes his job and does not want to leave. "You meet lots of different people
and you're always busy," he said.

Others, however, are already in search of different work. And though $500
would be welcome, they said, it wouldn't change their plans.

"I'm looking for another job because I don't know what's going to happen,"
said an Argenbright Security Inc. screener who spoke on condition that her
name not be used. "I've been here a few months, but a lot have been here six
or seven years. They are worried about what's going to happen."

Richardson said the first switchover in Chicago will occur at United
Airlines' terminal, where screeners working for Argenbright now operate the
checkpoints.

The federal government has banned Argenbright from the airport security
business because of a pattern of violations that include falsifying employee
background checks.

But Argenbright has remained at O'Hare and four other airports because
neither other private firms nor the security agency has been able to fill
the staffing needs.

The spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration said the agency
is now hiring screeners at Grand Rapids' Gerald Ford International Airport
in Michigan, Louisville International Airport in Kentucky, Mobile Regional
Airport in Alabama, Norfolk International Airport in Virginia and Spokane
International Airport in Washington.

Next in line are Love Field in Dallas, McCarran International Airport in Las
Vegas, Orlando International Airport and San Francisco International
Airport, officials said.

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