Mary Gay Scanlon: “On Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 877, providing for consideration of H.R. 1140…”

“On Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 877, providing for consideration of H.R. 1140, the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act of 2020, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Homeland Security and makes in order nine amendments. Lastly, the rule provides suspension authority for Thursday and same- day authority for Wednesday and Thursday, both limited to the consideration of a supplemental appropriations bill. Madam Speaker, when the Transportation Security Administration was established as a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, its Administrator was given broad authority over its workforce with respect to setting up pay and workplace conditions. As such, Transportation Security officers, TSOs, have been unable to benefit from Fair Labor Standards Act protections or fall under the general schedule pay scale. This distinction puts TSOs in a different class from other federal workers, preventing them from having the representational rights afforded through the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Each day, TSOs screen more than 2 million passengers at over 440 airports nationwide. These workers are critical to helping Americans travel safely and make up more than 70 percent of the Transportation Security Administration's workforce.…”