IP: Take a train?: Officials to Ease Requirements on Hiring of Airline Screeners

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

[  I suspect the next shoe will be the requirement for citizenship. Once 
they are Federal employees there is no way that they will be fired and many 
of the poor screeners will remain. While there are a lot of good ones -- 
there are a lot of poor ones (the 9 mm gun that got through). Airlines and 
their passengers will be in trouble  if all that gets accomplished  by the 
Feeralization is that rather than a company that can be sued or fined , you 
will have the FAA which will be unlikely to fine itself
Dave]


Officials to Ease Requirements on Hiring of Airline Screeners

December 30, 2001

By DAVID FIRESTONE




After stoking high expectations that the federal takeover
of airport security would lead to a new breed of airport
security screener, one who was better educated and more
qualified to assume a position of increased responsibility,
the Department of Transportation has decided not to impose
rules that would displace thousands of current screeners.

Most significantly, the department will not insist that
screeners be high school graduates, a requirement that
would have disqualified a quarter of the present work force
of 28,000.

As recently as Dec. 20, the department said in a news
release that "screeners must be U.S. citizens, have a high
school diploma and pass a standardized examination."

But the Transportation Security Administration, the new
agency created to supervise aviation security, announced a
few days ago that it would allow a year of any similar work
experience in lieu of a high school diploma.

The decision has dismayed advocates of tighter airport
security, including groups representing flight attendants
and business travelers, who had expressed hope that
federalization would lead to an upgraded work force.

"We're dealing with very sophisticated and trained
individuals who are trying to blow up our commercial
aircraft," said James E. Hall, until recently the chairman
of the National Transportation Safety Board. "These
screeners are going to be an important line of defense, and
it seems to me we should have higher educational standards
for them. If all we're doing is recycling the existing
screeners, why have we made this tremendous investment in
creating a federal work force? It sends the wrong message."


Of particular concern to such critics is the agency's
position that it hopes to retain many screeners who lack
diplomas. Along with the decision to expedite the
naturalization process for screeners who will lose their
jobs if they do not become citizens, the relaxed education
requirement suggests that the government hopes to minimize
the turnover among the screeners when they become federal
employees next November.

The guidelines published by the agency say that applicants
for screening jobs must have a diploma or "one year of any
type of work experience that demonstrates the applicant's
ability to perform the work of the position." The agency
has not said what kind of work experience would qualify,
but a spokesman said it would apply to screeners who have
been on the job for a year.

"The idea is to allow current screeners who would otherwise
qualify but may not have high school diplomas to be
eligible, so they do not get left behind," said Paul
Takemoto, a spokesman for the security administration,
which is part of the Department of Transportation. "Having
a year of experience on the job is a valuable asset, and
many of those people are perfectly qualified, even if they
don't have a diploma."

But critics say the point of the new federal law was to
upgrade the work force, not to retain the current workers,
who have drawn fire in recent months for slipshod
performance.

Kevin P. Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel
Coalition, which represents many large corporate buyers of
travel services, said passengers have the right to expect a
basic educational level from the screeners, given their
importance in protecting aircraft from terrorists.

"This job is more than just looking at an X-ray screen -
it's about looking at people and interpreting their answers
to questions and making judgments," Mr. Mitchell said. "As
much as anything here, we have to restore the confidence of
the American people and the integrity of the aviation
system, and I think most people would view the lack of a
high school diploma with some alarm."

The Association of Flight Attendants, the largest flight
attendants union, has also protested the lack of an
education requirement, saying it fears the government will
hire too many of the same screeners who allowed terrorists
on the planes in the first place.

Security screeners now working for private companies are
already required by the Federal Aviation Administration to
speak, read and write English, and to demonstrate their
ability to operate X-ray equipment and conduct physical
searches of passengers. Transportation agency officials say
the new law toughens the requirements with strong federal
supervision of screeners, a criminal background check, and
a passing grade on a new test that will measure aptitude,
ability to deal with the public and English proficiency.

Those requirements will apply to all new screeners hired
after February, when the security agency takes over
responsibility for airport screening. Existing screeners
may stay on the job, but by November 2002, they will have
to reapply for their jobs and be hired by the federal
government under the new rules.

Transportation officials also said this month that they
planned to work with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to find ways to expedite the citizenship process
for screeners with good work records. They also plan to
increase the pay of screeners, which until recently had
been at minimum-wage levels, and to give a preference to
hiring displaced aviation workers.

Advocates for the current screeners agreed with the
agency's decision that experience, an aptitude test and a
background check are more important than a high school
diploma. Because of the high turnover in low-paying private
screener jobs up to now, anyone who has remained in the job
for a year has the kind of experience that the federal
government will prize, they say.

"Anyone who can go through the training and pass the new
tests is clearly qualified for the job, whatever their
educational level," said Jono Schaffer, director of
security organizing for the Service Employees International
Union, which represents screeners in Los Angeles and San
Francisco. "The only important requirement is whether they
can perform the duties of the job."

In the new law, Congress gave the under secretary of
transportation for security flexibility in interpreting the
educational requirement. The law says that federal
screeners must have a diploma "or experience that the under
secretary has determined to be sufficient for individual to
perform the duties of the position." Those were minimum
requirements, however; the agency could have insisted on a
diploma, but instead chose to accept a year of comparable
work experience.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas and one
of the principal authors of the new security law, said
Congress decided it was too limiting to restrict screeners
to being high school graduates.

"We know there are people who have dropped out of high
school who still have the basic intelligence to do that
job," Ms. Hutchison said. "The military service doesn't
require a high school diploma, and we think the
Transportation Department is also capable of making
judgment calls on a person's background. You don't want to
judge someone in a cookie-cutter way if they have a good
work record."

The private security industry, which lobbied hard against
the new law, agrees with that assessment. Kenneth P. Quinn,
counsel for an association of the private airline security
companies who will turn over their responsibilities to the
government next year, said the repetitive nature of the
screening jobs is often not a good fit for people with
higher educational backgrounds.

"There's no demonstrable nexus between advanced educational
degrees of any kind and the ability to perform at a high
level as a screener," Mr. Quinn said. "In fact, the
opposite is often true."

But many security experts say the government should begin
to have higher expectations of its screeners, giving them
more responsibility than just robotically working the
checkpoint machines.

"What we really need are people who understand how
terrorists work, who can spot a false passport, who can ask
the right questions of the right people," said Isaac
Yeffet, former director of general security for El Al
Airlines and now a private security consultant in Cliffside
Park, N.J. "Every screener is holding on his shoulders a
747 full of passengers. It is impossible to imagine that
they would have dropped out of high school."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/national/30AIRL.html?ex=1010673985&ei=1&en=4c1b5841611456ac



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