Government changes way it will grade airport screeners
For airport screeners, failure is not an option.
The Transportation Security Administration is changing the way it grades airport screeners when it tests them on the finer aspects of their jobs. It is replacing the “pass/fail” grades with three alternative scores: achieves standards, exceeds standards, or role model of excellence, according to a TSA announcement to airport screeners.
The announcement did not mention a failing grade, although a TSA spokeswoman told CNN those who don’t measure up will be scored as “does not meet standards.”
The scoring system signals a significant change in the way airport screeners will be evaluated. While the TSA will still give annual tests to screeners, as required by Congress, it will not fire screeners for failing.
Beginning in 2007, screeners who perform poorly will be given remedial training and will be judged on their overall job performance, according to a TSA memo.
TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said airport screeners currently are the only civilian federal employees holding non-degreed positions who must pass annual tests to keep their jobs. Some 1,118 of the nation’s approximately 43,000 screeners lost their jobs during the past three years because they failed to recertify, TSA officials said.
Clark said the changes are in keeping with TSA Director Edmund “Kip” Hawley’s efforts to professionalize the screener workforce.
‘It’s long overdue’
Screeners contacted by CNN were generally pleased with the change but were skeptical about TSA’s ability to fairly grade their performance.
“It’s about time; it’s long overdue; it’s belated,” said A.J. Castilla, a screener at Boston’s Logan International Airport and a leader with the American Federation of Government Employees Local TSA 1.
“I mean the biggest disappointment and the biggest morale-buster and the biggest fear that every officer in TSA faced every year was this annual [recertification], and knowing that, going in there saying, ‘Gosh, I don’t see any other federal officer having to go through this kind of thing,’ ” Castilla said. “It remains to be seen if TSA can pull it off,” he said.
Castilla said he has faith in his supervisor, but “not everybody is lucky enough to have a supervisor that’s going to do the required paperwork.”
Cris D. Soulia, a screener in San Diego and a union representative echoed Castilla. “My initial reaction is that it’s a good thing. You no longer have that threat of termination over your head. I think we’re the only agency that goes through this thing.”
The new evaluation “raises more questions than it answers,” said another screener, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, calling the TSA a “finely tuned retaliatory machine.”
“What new methodology are they going to apply for firing people now that they’re not going to fire people for tests? What is going to be the next saber of death,” he said.
Recertification changes
Screeners said the annual tests are almost universally disliked and do not reflect real-world conditions. Managers spent valuable time teaching screeners how to pass the test, rather than how to improve job performance, they said.
“TSA is the only agency in the federal system that will fire a trained employee that otherwise has a good work ethic, good attendance, for just failing a test,” one screener said.
Under the old system, screeners were given two or three chances to pass, depending upon the type of test. Some tests were computer-based quizzes; others involved identifying dangerous or suspicious items on monitors similar to those on airport X-ray machines.
Castilla said screeners should get more training of the sort he received last November when explosive experts trained Logan screeners how to identify components of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
“This new guy, Kip Hawley, I will admit is moving us in that direction,” he said.
Internal audits have shown that plain-clothed investigators have consistently been able to smuggle guns and knives through airport checkpoints, but investigators say the outlook is likely to improve only when screeners are equipped with more sophisticated technology.
Hawley has sought to professionalize the workforce, renaming screeners “transportation security officers” and encouraging them to spend more time looking for concealed bombs instead of less-threatening small scissors and tools. He is working to create new jobs within the agency, including “behavior detection officers” skilled at identifying suspicious behaviors and “bomb appraisal officers.”
Castilla said he does not believe that the lack of a “failure” option in screener tests will matter. “Whatever the low [score] is, that’s the one that will get you out the door,” he said.
A TSA survey of employees, parts of which were released this week, show job satisfaction has increased since a similar survey in 2004.
According to this year’s survey, 14 percent identified themselves as “very satisfied” with their jobs as opposed to 6 percent in 2004; 45 percent said they were “satisfied,” compared to 29 percent two years ago; 19 percent said “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied,” down from 23 percent. While 14 percent said they were “dissatisfied” in the 2006 survey, 27 percent felt that way two years ago; 9 percent said they were “very dissatisfied” in this year’s survey, compared to 15 percent in 2004.
Clark said the survey was done before the changes to the recertification program were announced.