House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security Hearing
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Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Richmond, and Members of the Subcommittee: My name is
Oversight of TSA's management of the SPP must extend beyond the ease with which contractors are approved for SPP contracts. It must also include a close examination of the effect of the program on aviation security and the TSO workforce. TSA SPP FAQs clearly state that "Federal and privatized screening have comparable performance, and there is no measurement indicating there is a difference in customer service." SPP decisions are not based on TSO performance at a given airport. Private screeners follow the same standard operating procedures and use the same equipment as federal TSOs. The only difference is that after privatization, the TSOs risk replacement by workers lacking their training and on-the-job experience while all federal TSA management remains on the job. SPP does not exist to further aviation security or save taxpayer money. TSOs, the frontline of aviation security, bear the brunt of an outsourcing program that benefits no party involved except security contractors.
Background
In the aftermath of the terrible events of
The SPP runs counter to the national consensus that the screening of passengers and baggage at our nation's airports should be performed by federal employees to tighten the aviation security safety net. There is no documentation of the superiority of private screeners to TSOs. There are no cost savings. Airports seeking to escape TSA management through SPP risk losing an experienced and trained screening workforce, yet they will retain every single layer of expensive TSA management. TSA's cost comparison analysis is opaque at best. Indeed, the current SPP upends the lives and careers of an airport's TSO workforce, leave the traveling public no safer, and provides no taxpayer savings.
It is important to note that changes to the SPP included in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 were never subject to the Congressional debate and scrutiny applied to the decision to federalize aviation security. The provisions of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act are so broad and so biased in favor of privatization that it could unravel the aviation security safety net our country has worked so hard to achieve if not modified by
There is No Demand for SPP
First, only 18 of the nation's 457 commercial airports have private sector security screeners. That's less than four percent. Except for
Second, despite legislation passed in 2012 making it easier for airports to apply to privatize their TSA workforce, only a handful of airports have applied to do so. Aside from Montana, over the last two years, only three airports - the small
Third, when larger airports consider SPP and then learn the facts, they stick with the TSOs. In 2013, the elected managers of
So where does the interest come from? It's striking how little the privatizers actually talk about security in their public discussion of the issues. Companies like Firstline constantly talk about how SPP provides them with "flexibility" to move employees around, but never discuss the task of securing the American flying public. That's because they are interested in profit, not security. And how do they make that profit? They make it by paying lower wages and providing fewer and less comprehensive benefits, such as health insurance and pensions. That does nothing but line the pockets of contractors and deprives airport security screeners of the living standards and financial security they deserve.
Despite the fact that security is not improved by going private, the federal government and U.S. taxpayers are forced to bear the costs of any airport that shifts from federal to private. Airports with a troubled relationship with TSA find little resolution to their problem by applying to SPP: the same TSA management, policies, and procedures remain after privatization. The only new factor is a very inexperienced workforce of private screeners.
SPP Leaves the TSO Workforce in a "No Win" Situation With Few Good Alternatives
TSA accepted the joint bid of
Our union has opposed the SPP since its inception. It is inconsistent with ATSA's goal of federalizing the process of screening passengers and baggage. TSA has approved bids from contractors that provide substantially lower pay and benefits those received by TSOs. It also allows SPP contractors to deviate from the Staffing Allocation Model (SAM) that applies to federal airports. It is AFGE's position that security contractors would be unable to show the "cost-efficiencies" required under the law, if not for TSA's permissive allowance for lower pay, benefits that shift the cost to worker or are virtually non-existent, and a lack of compliance with the SAM. The table will be set for aviation security to devolve to pre-
Union members in
Importantly, federal TSOs and other federal employees are given credit for years of honorable military service in calculating their eligibility for annual leave accrual. Thus, a TSO who has served his country in the armed services for any amount of time (including both active duty and active duty for training) will earn annual leave according to tenure with includes his time served in the military. Agencies also have the flexibility to provide service credit for prior non-federal/non-military service when determining a new employee's annual leave accrual rates. This is an important management flexibility that assists in recruitment, given the fact that federal salaries lag those in the private sector.
Federal TSOs are also eligible for leave sharing, leave transfer, and carrying over up to 30 days of paid time off. They receive paid "administrative" time off to serve on a jury or to be a witness in a legal proceeding. Federal employees are also entitled to take up to three days of funeral leave to arrange or attend the funeral of a close relative who dies as a result of military service in a combat zone.
The health insurance benefit being offered by the contractor is almost laughable as health insurance, but there is nothing funny about how inferior it is to FEHBP's plans. Its value to the employee is far below that of any of the eleven nationwide plans currently available to TSOs in
The differences in the value of the health insurance benefit the contractor is offering and what is currently available to TSOs who work for TSA are enormous. We can begin our comparison by noting that the contractor offers only one choice; FEHBP offers 11 choices in nationwide plans and an additional two specific to Montana. The contractor offers only a high-deductible plan with premiums of
Although there are many more differences, another important one is that the GEHA high deductible plan under FEHBP allows for a Health Savings Account (HSA) or a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) and the contractor's plan allows only a HRA. HRAs offer a vastly inferior economic benefit to the employee, because unlike HSAs, assets in an HRA do not earn interest and are forfeited by the employee if he switches health plans or leaves the job for reasons other than retirement. They belong to the employer, not the employee. An employer uses an HRA to pay for actual health care costs incurred by their employees. With an HSA, employer contributions are made whether or not the costs are incurred, and an employee gets to keep all unused HSA contributions made by both themselves and their employer when they leave the job. Indeed, because HRAs benefit only the employer, the "Arrangement" undermines the incentive systems on which high deductible plans are based. The employee has far less incentive to minimize expenditures, since the money belongs not to him, but rather to his boss.
This is not nearly an exhaustive description of the ways that the contractor's healthcare plan is of inferior value to the employee as compared to the high-deductible plan available to TSOs in
1. Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option
2. Blue Cross Blue Shield Basic Option
3. NALC
4. GEHA Benefit Plan
5. Mailhandlers Benefit Value Plan
6. SAMBA
7. Mailhandlers Standard
8. APWU Health Plan
9. Mailhandlers Benefit Plan Consumer Option
10. NALC Value Option Plan
And two additional Montana plans:
1. Aetna Healthfund HDHP for South/Southeast/
2. Aetna HealthFund CDHP and Value Plan, South/Southeast/Western Mt. areas
While it is difficult to quantify the economic value of choice among 13 plans versus no choice, no one could describe an employer offering only one choice as providing a benefit that is "not less than the level" of benefit offered by the federal government.
Thus far, we conducted an apples-to-apples comparison of the contractor's health insurance plan and the government's worst plan, even though the contractor's plan is clearly a rotten apple. But how about comparing it to the best plan FEHBP has to offer TSAs - and by "best" I mean most popular:
Comparison of Contractor Health Plan vs. FEHBP Plans available to TSOs at TSA
Type of Contractor Contractor GEHA High GEHA High BCBS BCBS
Type of Coverage Contractor Plan** Contractor Plan** GEHA High Deductible* GEHA High Deductible* BCBS Standard* BCBS Standard*
Biweekly Employee Premium Biweekly Employee Premium Biweekly Employee Premium Biweekly Employee Premium Biweekly Employee Premium Biweekly Employee Premium
Self Only
Self and Family
** CSSI Firstline Documents provided to AFGE
*http://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/healthcare/plan-information/premiums/2014/nonpostal-hmo.pdf
As is clear from the above, the economic value of the health insurance benefit, as measured by the employer cost for provision of the benefit, shows clearly that the contractor's plan is inferior. We know that the actuarial value of the benefits of both the contractor's plan and the GEHA high deductible plan are lower than the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option Plan. But we have shown that the GEHA plan offers superior benefits, and although we do not know the contractor's cost for the HRA/High Deductible plan, we know that it is far lower than TSA's costs for either the GEHA or the BCBS plan, and thus does not meet the standard in the statute.
The contractor appears not to provide any retirement benefit at all. There is no mention of a pension plan: no 401 (K) savings plan, no profit-sharing plan, no simplified employee pension plan (SEP) or IRA, no money purchase pension plan, no cash balance plan, no stock bonus plan, and no employee stock ownership plan. In short, this employer does not even make the smallest gesture toward the benefit equivalence that the statute demands in the area of retirement income security.
Incumbent
Congress Should Not Limit Its SPP Oversight to the Treatment of Contractors
In their
H.R. 4115 would make these significant improvements to the SPP program:
* Bans the subsidiaries of foreign-owned corporations from obtaining SPP contracts.
* Requires covert testing of contract screeners and penalizes cheating on those tests;
* Protects TSO jobs and benefits if a security contractor is awarded a contract at their airport;
* Protects those who disclose wrongdoing by private screening companies,;
* Requires reporting of security breaches by private screening companies; and
* Ensures transparency by requiring a cost analysis of private screening companies to be conducted by the Comptroller General.
The relevance of the Contract Screener Reform and Accountability Act to the SPP, the TSO workforce, and aviation security cannot be understated. H.R. 4115 should be passed by the House.
Conclusion
A video of the checkpoint at
Read this original document at: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/HM/HM07/20140729/102549/HHRG-113-HM07-Wstate-CoxJ-20140729.pdf
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