"Opinion: Militarize, don't unionize, airport security personnel"

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Opinion
Militarize, don't unionize, airport security personnel
By James Pinkerton - Opinion Columnist
Newsday (NY)


Are we serious about homeland security?

If so, we shouldn't allow the unionization of homeland security personnel.

Homeland security should be militarized, not unionized.

At the same time, the status quo isn't acceptable, either. Big change is
needed truly to safeguard the homeland - although sadly, at the rate we're
going, that change won't come until after an American city is nuked.

Unionization atop bureaucratization is no way to get anything done, as the
Postal Service or the public schools have demonstrated.

In a unionized bureaucracy, the employee culture reorients itself from the
stated mission of the organization to the maintenance of good jobs at good
wages - and the elimination of any prospect of being fired for incompetence
or malfeasance.

So the effort in the new Democratic-controlled Congress to allow union
collective-bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration
employees is a discouraging sign that Democrats are seeing homeland security
as just another program.

Republicans, content with the status quo, are little better. Republicans
pushing for privatization of homeland security functions such as immigration
control are even worse.

In a world full of terrorists and their terrible weapons, homeland security
should be exalted into the same category as national security.

Both functions are sacred public trusts, best carried out by people so sworn
to their duty they wear uniforms to symbolize their devotion.

In return, these uniformed warriors for America receive significant
gratitude and admiration.

In the Greco-Roman political tradition - the tradition that gives us Greek
words such as democracy and Latin words such as republic - the highest
calling of all is military service, which is to say, willingness to lay down
one's life, if need be, for the love of one's country.

Because the stakes are so high, the military has comparatively little
tolerance for poor performance.

In the armed services, it's "up or out" after a certain number of years.
That's why one very rarely sees a thirtysomething lieutenant. If he or she
hasn't made captain by then, a mandatory separation from service is a near
certainty.

The Walter Reed Medical Center scandal was disturbing. But those most
disturbed were in the military. That's why two generals were quickly forced
out by Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. More will be forced out. That's the
right approach Yet it never would have happened if the military were
unionized.

So back to homeland security.

Once again, the question: Do we want homeland security to be effective?

If we do, we wouldn't unionize Transportation Security Administration
employees. We would militarize them.

We wouldn't provide homeland security personnel with union cards. We would
provide them with uniforms, esprit and medals. And give them a noble motto,
which could be borrowed from the U.S. Army: "This we'll defend."

Oh, and let's provide the Army of Homeland Security with better leadership,
too.

Does anybody think of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as an
inspiring leader? He's a lawyer. Enough said.

For tough leadership when the going gets rough, one looks to the military.

Some will say it's inappropriate to use soldiers on the home front, citing
the Posse Comitatus law of 1878.

Yet, aside from the common-sense principle that our 21st-century security
needs shouldn't be dictated by a 19th-century statute, it's worth recalling
the cynical origins of Posse Comitatus.

It was enacted by racist Southern Democrats to protect the Ku Klux Klan's
freedom to terrorize blacks.

Today, a tacit pro-Posse Comitatus alliance exists - a strange-bedfellowing
of neo-Confederates, the American Civil Liberties Union and those who want a
porky and patronage-y homeland security boondoggle, populated by AFL-CIO
members.

That's not the way to defend our country.

Pinkerton is a columnist for New York's Newsday.

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