Warning: Political Screed

Remember after 9/11 when a lot of congressmen (mostly with D following their name) demanded that we federalize all airport screeners to improve security? Remember also the campaign to allow these workers to be unionized?

At the time, I just couldn't buy that simply making someone a Federal employee, improving their salary, and then allowing them into a union would really improve that person's productivity. It wasn't as if they fired all the screeners and then they re-hired at better wages - that probably would attract better talent. Instead, we just kept the same people in their jobs and boosted the money and benefits.

Well, the results are now in.

Private screeners outperform federal peers at US airports

Note, this article doesn't even mention COSTS, just effectiveness.

I'm sure the private screeners are much cheaper. Now, we all know that Bush has created a massive deficit that we desperately need to cut to save our children's future. Well, now is a golden opportunity to cut some costs while improving the screening. Do you think we will see any Democratic congressmen stand up and say that we should now privatize the screening jobs?

Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio, a senior Democrat on the aviation subcommittee, opposes private screeners.

I guess not. After all, he says they are only slightly better than the federal employees. Ignore that "slightly better" when applied to millions of passengers could potentially catch the next terrorist. (For example, 33.5 million passengers use Phoenix airport yearly.)

The saddest part of this story?

The Homeland Security Department's acting inspector general, Richard Skinner, issued a separate report on Tuesday that said the screeners' performance hadn't improved since the previous audit, which indicated screeners had not improved since before the 2001 terror attacks.

So, all the work at the TSA, all the laws passed, all the shoes checked etc. was basically for nothing.