From Federal News Radio comes the tale of TSA workers at Newark airport.
The Transportation Security Administration on Friday moved to fire 25 employees at Newark Liberty International Airport and suspend 19 others for what it said was improper screening of checked luggage, the latest in a series of problems at one of the country’s busiest airports.
The alleged screening failures were uncovered late last year after surveillance cameras were installed in one of the airport’s 25 screening rooms to check for possible thefts, the TSA said.
Eight employees were fired in June in the investigation. The latest action raises to 52 the number of TSA employees at Newark caught up in the investigation, making it the biggest single disciplinary action taken by the TSA at a U.S. airport.
True to form, a union plans to step in:
“The charges right now seem to be improper screening of bags, which we don’t feel is correct,” said Stacy Dodtmann, regional vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “We feel they performed their jobs to what they were trained to do.”