"Airport Insecurity, Part 2 of 3: A strained work force"

Monday, July 12, 2004

Airport Insecurity, Part 2 of 3: A strained work force
Workplace conditions jeopardize passenger safety, screeners say
Low morale, high injury rates and long hours spell trouble for public
safety
By Ken Armstrong, Cheryl Phillips and Steve Miletich
The Seattle (WA) Times


On any given day, federal workers who screen passengers and luggage at
the nation's airports stand a good chance of being berated by bosses,
harassed on the job, injured while lugging heavy bags, ordered to work
extra hours or cheated on their pay. 

In Seattle, a screener received a letter of admonishment for this
offense: "Hands in uniform pants pockets." A Denver screener says a
supervisor repeatedly called him "boy" - and explained it away by saying
that where he is from, that's what blacks are called. A Los Angeles
screener injured his arm lifting a passenger's bag that held not clothes
or toiletries but a small engine block. 

Some screeners struggle to stay awake while trying to spot weapons in
grainy X-ray images. Some get distracted by managers prowling for petty
infractions. Some have been fired by mistake, victims of bureaucratic
bungling. 

Morale has suffered, and with it, security. 

Since the 1970s, the federal government has linked working conditions
for screeners with public safety. Time and again, audits have blamed
failure to detect guns, knives or bombs on low pay, high turnover,
insufficient training and a kind of thankless work that combines tedium
with stress. 

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), created after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was supposed to change all that. A
revolving door of privately employed screeners, paid as little as
fast-food workers, would be replaced by federal workers - highly
trained, fairly compensated and guided by uniform standards. 

But the kinds of security lapses that preceded the 2001 hijackings
continue. Fatigue, fear and confusion undermine the work of federal
screeners, creating a daily risk of another major breakdown. 

"We've got bad morale and got the seniority thing and vacation thing and
rotation thing and promotion thing and this rumor, that rumor. Before
you know, your head's swimming in everything but what you're hired to do
- and that's security," a Minneapolis screener said. 

"False promises" 

An internal TSA memo, obtained by The Seattle Times, chronicles the
agency's management failures - and, coming from management itself, helps
validate the complaints of screeners to TSA, Congress and others. 

The Feb. 20 memo was sent to TSA's acting administrator, David Stone,
from an advisory council of TSA directors in charge of security at
individual airports. It warns that TSA has subjected screeners, "our
most valuable resource," to a litany of abuses. 

TSA forces screeners to sacrifice vacation time "for the good of the
agency" but turns around and fires screeners with little explanation,
the memo says. 

TSA has subjected screeners to "extreme stress," the memo says. It
places impossible obstacles before them. It whipsaws them with shifting
directives on how to do their job. 

"We expect consistency but provide none ourselves," says the memo,
written by council Chairwoman Marcia Florian, who oversees security at
the Phoenix airport. 

"Our screeners have endured false promises from hiring contractors,
weeks or months with no (or incorrect) pay or benefits, competency
testing, right-sizing, mandatory conversion to part time, forced
overtime, and now a recertification process that shows no regard for
screener morale, effectiveness, or livelihood," the memo says. 

More than 100 current or former TSA employees interviewed by The Seattle
Times echoed Florian. In stories striking for their similarity - whether
their airport is in Los Angeles, Houston, Boston or elsewhere -
employees described a workplace defined by intimidation, pettiness and
marching orders that fluctuate by supervisor, shift and airport. 

Without doubt, some TSA workers are quick to complain, call in sick or
ignore reasonable orders. But even Stone has told senators that TSA
needs to do better by its employees. 

TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said that while hiring and dispatching tens
of thousands of screeners under tight deadlines, the agency stumbled. He
rattled off examples. Workers didn't receive proper credit for previous
federal or military service, and he personally went a year before his
annual vacation time was accurately recorded. 

But, Hatfield said, such missteps occurred largely because the fledgling
agency needed to borrow a patchwork of support services, with
contractors involved in everything from hiring to firing to processing
employee complaints. Now, he said, the agency has more people to handle
such tasks and is determined to let local directors make key personnel
decisions. 

"We clearly failed in some of the basic nurturing and caring of our work
force," Hatfield said. "And I think it's also fair to say that we have
made a very deliberate effort and have seen very significant successes
in remediating that situation." 

Without question, the TSA has made some improvements since the days when
screeners were hired by the airlines. The pay is better. Workers get
benefits. Turnover, though still high, isn't what it was. 
 
But those gains almost get lost in a workplace where many employees
worry more about losing their job than doing it well, where they watch
their backs as much as the X-ray images before them. 

The blue-ink rule 

At TSA, screeners say, it doesn't take much to run afoul of the rules
and of certain supervisors. 

Socks must be black (supervisors can conduct sock checks, ordering
screeners to lift their pant legs), and ink must be blue (former Albany,
N.Y., supervisor Todd Grandy says a boss "had a conniption" when he used
a green pen to make checkmarks on a form). 

Some managers dictate posture, ordering screeners to keep their hands
out of their pockets or to stand at parade rest - hands clasped behind
back, feet a foot apart - as though in the military. 

In Portland, Ore., screeners could not take breaks in the concourse
areas unless they wore coats over their uniforms and were there to buy a
meal. (A cup of coffee, they were told, would not suffice.) The policy
was rescinded only after screeners pointed out how much they spent at
airport restaurants. 

Many screeners interviewed by The Times complained of inexperienced
supervisors, leadership by intimidation, and promotions based on
favoritism (at least two security directors have lost their jobs over
nepotism charges). 

Most screeners requested anonymity for fear of being fired. But with few
exceptions, The Times was able to obtain corroboration from documents or
other screeners. 

Screener cited for hands in pockets 

Airport screeners say TSA managers sometimes write them up for petty
infractions, distracting them from their primary task of trying to spot
weapons on passengers or in luggage. Last year, a Seattle screener
received the following admonishment letter: 

"Performance or Misconduct being discussed: Appearance - Hands in
uniform pants pockets." 

"On Friday, November 21, 2003 at approximately 0840 hours, [a screening
manager] observed you standing at the D exit with your hands in your
pockets. [A supervisor] spoke to you regarding your hands in your
pockets while on duty on post. You were advised not to have your hands
in your pockets, that it was unprofessional in appearance and that the
perception reflects negatively on all of TSA." 

The letter warned that should the screener's misconduct continue, "a
more severe corrective action may be instigated." 

One screener provided The Times with love letters from his supervisor -
letters with sappy expressions of unrequited affection, with entreaties
to pay less attention to co-workers and more attention to him. But the
screener hasn't complained. He won't. He's convinced it won't do any
good - and, he said, he needs the job. 

Mismanagement hobbled TSA from the very beginning. TSA began recruiting
screeners in March 2002, offering a starting salary of $23,600, with
extra pay in areas with high living costs. Before that year was over,
55,600 people were tapped from an applicant pool of 1.7 million, a
hiring pace so frenetic that, at times, 5,000 people a week were signed
up. 

To handle recruitment, TSA hired NCS Pearson, a data-processing company
that billed the government $740 million, more than seven times its
original contract. TSA failed to keep proper tabs on Pearson and other
human-resources contractors, creating a host of problems, according to a
government audit. 
 
At least 18,000 screeners were hired without timely background checks.
TSA wrongly hired felons - at least 85 were fired when their criminal
records were discovered - and wrongly fired at least 169 people with
clean records. 

Some screeners say TSA used bait-and-switch tactics. A former Boston
screener provided The Times with his hiring letter, which promised pay
of $31,200 and included this cheery sign-off: "You should find here a
great opportunity for public service and a distinguished career in
transportation security." 

But TSA paid him only $26,800, according to pay records. He complained,
he said, only to be told his hiring letter wasn't an official contract. 

Employee discontent, though widespread, is not universal. "I enjoy my
job and I get along with most people there," said Carlo Pedone, a Boston
screener. Said Carl Maccario, another Boston screener, "It's a brand-new
organization that sprang up overnight, and it's going to have growing
pains." 

A screener at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport said: "Most
of the people who complain are slackers. I give it all. I just keep
right on going. There's some people there where nothing goes right for
them. Most of them don't do a good job." 

But many screeners say distrust divides management and front-line
workers. Some managers document screener missteps in such detail that
personnel files become hundreds of pages thick. (A Portland screener's
is 493 pages - and that covers only 10 months.) One screener told The
Times he secretly tape-recorded conversations with managers. One
supervisor said he refused to use a work locker, afraid a manager might
plant something incriminating inside. 

Sometimes the animosity has become downright ugly. In Seattle, workers
wrote "slut" on one manager's picture and drew horns and a Star of David
on a Jewish supervisor's photograph. 

Across the country, many screeners have reached out to unions, members
of Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although
TSA forbids screeners to bargain collectively, about 700 employees have
joined the American Federation of Government Employees, seeking help
with lawsuits, discrimination complaints and better working conditions. 

"There is no effective safety valve at TSA," said Peter Winch, a
national organizer for the union. "There is no good way to raise
concerns about the way you're being treated." 

Hatfield, the TSA spokesman, said the agency is addressing that. Its
civil-rights office, which received about 1,850 discrimination claims
last year, has expanded from two to 26 employees. 

TSA's ombudsman's office has grown from 22 to 49 employees. Last year,
Hatfield said, 7,000 employees contacted the office with questions or
complaints. 

Training falls short 

For decades, government reports have blamed insufficient training for
airport screeners missing weapons. 

When they worked for private security agencies hired by airlines,
screeners received minimal instruction. A 1987 government audit
described training sessions where screeners simply watched a videotape
without anyone there to answer questions. Screeners also weren't tested
on what they had learned. 

TSA's training program is designed to be more demanding, but in some
ways doesn't achieve its promise. 

TSA requires, for example, that screeners get three hours of refresher
training a week, emphasizing such screening techniques as interpreting
X-ray images. But some screeners in Houston say their training consists
mostly of a supervisor reading from a document, with little give and
take. 

And security directors at the nation's five largest airports have told
congressional investigators that they don't comply. Diverting so many
screeners to training would leave checkpoints understaffed, the
directors said. Instead of three hours a week, their screeners get about
three hours of training a month. 

A former screening supervisor in one Midwestern city told The Times that
managers directed her to submit false training reports. She complained
at first, but then went along, she said. Her reports said screeners had
met the three-hour requirement, when in fact they had not because of
competing demands. 

"Yes, I did do it - I'm not proud of it but I did," she said. 

In Seattle, a building devoted to training - rented by the TSA for
$7,500 a month - lacks phone lines, making it difficult to access online
training, TSA employees said. 

Government inspectors also have faulted the TSA for providing
insufficient training to supervisors and for lax certification
requirements. 

The TSA hired contractors to help train and certify about 30,000 baggage
screeners on the use of explosives-detection equipment. But a government
audit denounced the certification process. 

Instructors used practice questions identical to those on the final
exam. And some questions offered little challenge anyway. One asked what
a detonator does. It detonates, the correct answer said. Another asked
what an explosives-detection system detects. Explosive devices, the
correct answer said. 

That test, Hatfield said, has since been overhauled. 

To keep their jobs, federal screeners must pass annual recertification
tests. But that process has come under fire, too. 

In her February memo to Stone, Florian described how TSA keeps changing
the procedures screeners must follow - even doing so during the
recertification process. Screeners who flunk receive only 30 minutes of
remedial training and are retested within 24 hours. "We are not aware of
any other non-probationary federal employee that is subjected to this
type of treatment," Florian wrote. 

In Seattle, managers were asked by TSA headquarters to speed up the
termination process for employees who failed the recertification test.
But in e-mails, Seattle managers reminded headquarters that screeners
had a right to appeal. The managers also said some screeners had
received less than the allotted half-hour of remedial training. 

Injuries, long hours 

TSA employees get hurt or sick more than any other federal employees,
suffering back, shoulder and knee injuries, pulled muscles, tendinitis,
and cuts and puncture wounds from sharp objects tucked in luggage. 

In the fiscal year that ended last September, nearly one in five TSA
employees sought workers' compensation, according to the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. 

Overall, 4.2 percent of federal workers suffered work-related injuries
or illness. TSA's percentage was 19.4 - nearly five times as high,
topping Park Service employees and federal marshals. 

Even worse numbers loom. This fiscal year, one in four TSA workers will
get sick or injured, according to an OSHA projection using first-quarter
statistics. 

Those numbers also create a cycle: the more workers out sick or hurt,
the greater the strain on those who remain, causing fatigue and more
injuries. 

Without question, more physical labor is demanded of the typical TSA
employee than, say, a financial analyst for the Office of Management and
Budget. In fact, Hatfield said, TSA's injury rate isn't much higher than
United Parcel Service's. 

But many screeners attribute TSA's injury rate to insufficient training
and inadequate safety equipment. They want, for example, more training
on lifting heavy objects, and gloves that resist punctures. 

Screeners say they regularly lift bags weighing 70 pounds or more. TSA
tells screeners to get help with bags heavier than 40 pounds and warns
that not doing so could jeopardize workers' compensation claims. But
because of staffing shortages, screeners say, help is hard to come by. 

In Los Angeles, screener Obed Quintero said he hurt his back lifting
heavy bags and went on workers' compensation for seven months. When his
compensation stopped, Quintero said, he asked for light duty. But the
TSA couldn't find him a position, Quintero said, and let him go. 

"I did an excellent job," he said. "It's kind of a shame, because what
we were doing was very important." 

Too often, screeners say, their claims for workers' compensation meet
with delay or denial. Jonathan David, a Portland, Ore., screener who
injured his back, said he was nearly evicted from his apartment as he
waited for his claim to be approved. Some screeners say such
frustrations even dissuaded them from pursuing compensation - suggesting
the agency's injury rate may be higher than reported. 

Sometimes, long hours compound the stress. Screeners can go weeks
without a day off. In Boston, some have worked so many double shifts
"they are ready to drop," says Michael Jasilewicz, a former screener. 

Breaks can be six hours apart. After two hungry and tired screeners were
denied breaks, they actually passed out, Jasilewicz said. 

In Los Angeles, a screener who works 10-hour shifts said the last two
hours are the hardest. "I keep saying, 'I can do this, I can do this,' "
she says. When working the X-ray machines, she sometimes has to catch
herself. "If I feel like I'm falling asleep and dozing off, I'll look up
to see if anybody can relieve me. And nobody's out there. Everybody is
doing two to three things at a time. And I don't want to interrupt
anybody, because they're busy." 

TSA officials acknowledge that they rely heavily on overtime, especially
during the busy summer months. In 2003, TSA employees worked more than 7
million hours of overtime - an average of three weeks per employee. 

Overtime has declined this year, but some screeners at busier airports
say they still pull long hours, sometimes clocking 20 hours of overtime
in a week. 

For screeners, mandatory overtime and rigid scheduling create stress,
dashing planned vacations or requiring personal affairs to be rearranged
on a moment's notice. 

In Seattle, a screener ordered to work overtime reluctantly left her
children, ages 12 and under, at home for three hours, unsupervised. She
said her supervisors told her: Work, or lose your job. 

One Boston screener was to be best man at his nephew's January 2003
wedding in Florida. In October, he requested the time, only to have
supervisors say he was asking too early. So he asked again in November,
only to be told in late December - mere days before the wedding - that
his request was denied. 

Ordered to work, he quit. He went to the wedding. 

More than a year later, TSA sent him a letter. Because of a payroll
error, it said, he owed TSA about $1,000. 

Employee "ghosts" 

Work conditions that include forced overtime, a high injury rate and
flagging morale typically lead to high turnover. And at TSA, examples
abound of workers calling it quits. When a Seattle screener resigned in
December, she wrote: "The stress of this job is far too much for me to
endure." 

Nonetheless, TSA's turnover is a vast improvement over that of the
private work force that preceded the agency. 

In 1987, screener turnover at some airports was about 100 percent a year
- churn so great that the entire work force was, in effect, replaced. By
1999, turnover had reached 126 percent. Screeners would bolt for other
jobs just as they mastered such tasks as detecting weapons in X-ray
images. 

TSA, by comparison, reported turnover of 15 percent last year. So far
this year, Hatfield said, it's running at a rate of 18 percent. 

But TSA's turnover may be higher than reported, because of the agency's
struggle to track its workers. 

In fiscal year 2003, the government reported that 131 of TSA's Seattle
employees left. But internal pay records, obtained by The Times, show
the actual number was at least 193 - a substantial difference that would
drive turnover up. 

TSA employees in Seattle told The Times that the airport has had
multiple staffing lists with inconsistent employee counts. 

Instead of tracking each screener's hours electronically - an early goal
of the agency - TSA records pay manually, then sends the information to
personnel contractors that have been widely criticized for losing or
mishandling paperwork. 

In some cases, TSA has ended up with what one internal document calls
"ghosts" - hires who didn't show up for work but are still listed as
employees. 

In Seattle, screener Tenya Manny quit Jan. 6. TSA stopped paying her,
but for five months it still listed her as an employee - a mix-up that
kept her from collecting nearly $2,000 in outstanding compensation. 

Manny said it took the intervention of a congressman's staff to clean up
the mess. 

"It happens," she said, "when you have a collection of people that
couldn't fight their way out of a box with instructions." 

Quotes from screeners 

"With people killing themselves with overtime, what kind of shape are
they in? ... It's particularly important here because we're looking for
bombs." - Michael Jasilewicz, former screener for Boston's Logan
International Airport 

"It's kind of like I am in a place where I don't know the rules. The
people who manage me know the rules and I keep running in circles." - A
screener from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport 

"We're not speaking out because we're doing a half-ass job here, but
we're speaking out because we want to make sure DIA is safe." - A
screening supervisor at Denver International Airport, explaining why he
and others have complained about problems at the airport 

"And I was only there for six months." - David Erickson, former
screening manager at Albany (N.Y.) International Airport, referring to
the size of his personnel file: 278 pages 

"That is basically the way the TSA worked, worry about the small
insignificant things and ignore the rest." - A Los Angeles screener,
describing one trainer's fixation on a male employee's earring.

Reporting the story 
 
For this series, The Seattle Times interviewed more than 120 TSA
employees and obtained internal memos, e-mails, databases and other
records documenting TSA's struggles. 

Most of those interviewed were screeners and supervisors on the front
lines of the nation's aviation security system. Some are former
employees. Most worked in Boston, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles,
Portland, Ore., or Seattle. Reporters also interviewed TSA employees in
at least a dozen other cities. 

Most employees insisted upon anonymity, saying they feared being
punished. In memos or briefings, some TSA managers ordered screeners not
to talk to reporters. Houston screeners were told TSA has a "one-voice
policy." A TSA spokesman in Denver asked The Times to stop calling
screeners, saying: "You know they're not allowed to talk to you. You
know it." 

In most instances, The Times was able to corroborate employees' accounts
through documents or TSA co-workers. Documents included hiring letters,
pay records, termination letters and disciplinary write-ups. 

Tomorrow in The Seattle Times 

Airport Insecurity, Part 3: Can the system be fixed? 

Ken Armstrong: 206-464-3730 or karmstrong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Cheryl Phillips: 206-464-2411 or cphillips@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Steve Miletich: 206-464-3302 or smiletich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Attached Photo's:

A new security screening station in use at Seattle-Tacoma International
Airport.

After searching a bag, Richard Sysinger, a Transportation Security
Administration worker, hefts it onto a conveyor belt at Seattle-Tacoma
International Airport.

Crowds are building but wait times are still short at a Sea-Tac
checkpoint at 10 a.m. on a recent weekday.

airport_insecurity6.jpg

airport_insecurity7.jpg

airport_insecurity8.jpg