More than 45,000 federal airport screeners could get collective bargaining rights and be put under the General Schedule pay system — instead of the pay-for-performance pay system they are under now — if a bill advancing in the House is approved by Congress.

The House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday approved HR 1881, the Transportation Security Workforce Enhancement Act, which would extend traditional federal labor rights protections to the Transportation Security Administration's airport screeners. The bill also would give them more whistleblower protections.

TSA has been plagued by low morale and high turnover, with roughly one in five screeners leaving each year.

Unions and other critics have said the agency's pay-for-performance system, called the Performance Accountability and Standards System (PASS), is unfair and fails to accurately measure how well a screener does his job.

"Under PASS, not only do the criteria for evaluation differ from year to year, but so does the passing grade," said Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. "Under this system, it is possible that a few points separate a poor performer from an exceptional performer. As a result, TSA workers do not know whether to expect a pink slip or a bonus."

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who sponsored the bill, said giving screeners more workplace protections such as collective bargaining rights will improve morale and encourage them to stay longer. High turnover rates increase the government's training costs and hurt transportation security, she said.

"If we continue to treat them like replaceable parts, we're going to be forced to perpetually replace experienced staff with inexperienced staff, and lose the money we've invested," Lowey said.

Rep. Peter King of New York, the committee's ranking Republican, voted against the bill, saying it is inappropriate to make a major change to TSA's workforce while the agency still lacks a permanent administrator.

"I don't know what the rush to judgment here is on this," King said.

The anticipation that Congress will give airport screeners collective bargaining rights has already sparked an intense competition for members between two large federal unions — the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union. In recent months, the unions have organized chapters across the country and signed up screeners in advance of an expected union vote.

Thompson said giving airport screeners the right to join unions will not keep managers from deploying personnel to respond to emergencies; nor will it prevent TSA from firing underperforming workers, or from changing their training and certification requirements. The bill specifies that screeners do not have the right to strike.

"To those who argue that giving collective bargaining rights will diminish TSA's ability to be nimble to address threats, I would note that there are nearly 69,000 federal law enforcement officers with these rights and that has not stopped their agencies from protecting the nation," Thompson said.

GREGG CARLSTROM contributed to this report.

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