The National Treasury Employees Union today said securing collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration screeners will be its top legislative priority this year.

But NTEU National President Colleen Kelley doesn't think that any real progress towards organizing TSA will be made until the agency has a new administrator.

Kelley said NTEU is leaning on both the White House and Congress to get either of them to grant bargaining rights to TSA.

But while President Obama supports unionizing the government's 40,000 screeners, the administration has said it first wants to have a permanent director at TSA. And though a bill granting collective bargaining rights, HR 1881, could soon be voted on by the full House, a companion bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate.

NTEU said it is talking to Senate leaders such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., about introducing a bill. But NTEU said Lieberman also wants to see a permanent administrator in place before taking any action.

The White House yesterday said it would nominate retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding to run TSA.

"The announcement yesterday hopefully will put that issue to rest shortly and then maybe we can move on that problem," Kelley said. "NTEU has been lobbying for these collective bargaining rights for a very long time."

Harding has not yet made any public comments on his stance on collective bargaining. Obama's first choice to run TSA, Erroll Southers, dropped out in January after Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., placed a hold on his nomination. DeMint's hold was largely motivated by Southers' pledge to study collective bargaining rights for TSA employees, which DeMint strongly opposes.

NTEU's chief rival, the American Federation of Government Employees, last month asked the Federal Labor Relations Authority to hold an election to decide which union will represent TSA employees. Kelley said NTEU is ready to file to be added to the ballot once FLRA decides to hold an election.

NTEU also wants Congress to pass bills that: provide health care, retirement and other benefits for same-sex partners of gay and lesbian federal employees; reform how the government buys federal employees' prescription drugs; and permanently take away the Homeland Security Department's ability to create an alternative personnel system like the defunct MaxHR system.

And if Congress increases the 2011 pay raise for military service members, NTEU said it wants Congress to provide an equal pay raise for federal employees. The White House last month proposed a 1.4 percent pay raise for both feds and service members.

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