Request for Information

 Dear Ms. Baker-Amos: (Director, Labor Relations, TSA)

On September 8, 2021, Transportation Security Administration (“TSA”) Administrator David Pekoske submitted to Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas its plan to provide salaries to TSA employees that mirror the salaries set forth in the General Schedule locality pay system. In doing so, TSA estimated the total resources it believed would be required for implementing full collective bargaining, Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) appeal rights, and compensation changes. Surprisingly, it concluded that “TSA would require $1,128,111,723 in the first year of implementation and $7,928,008,552 over the FYHSP to implement…” its proposal. See Cover Memo at 1. This estimate is radically at odds with many previous cost estimates of moving the TSA screening workforce to a Title 5 labor framework with pay under the General Schedule. As such, the American Federation of Government Employees (“AFGE”) needs to have a more thorough understanding of the basis for TSA’s estimate. 

Therefore, in accordance with Section IV.C.1.c of the July 13, 2019 Determination on Transportation Security Officers and Collective Bargaining, as modified on August 8, 2019, March 5, 2020, February 19, 2021, and June 17, 2021 (“Determination”), and consistent with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between AFGE and TSA, AFGE hereby exercises its right to “[r]equest and receive from TSA information maintained by TSA in the normal course of business, reasonably available, and relevant and necessary to understanding issues subject to collective bargaining…consistent with TSA’s requirements for Sensitive Security Information (SSI).” 

INFORMATION REQUESTED 

Specifically, AFGE requests all information, documents, and other materials relied on by TSA in preparing the cost estimates, also known as the budgetary “basis of estimate”, associated with its TSA Workforce Compensation Initiatives presented to DHS Secretary Mayorkas on or about September 8, 2021. 

For the purposes of this request, the term “information, documents, and other materials” includes, but is not limited to, any typewritten or handwritten memoranda, reports, summaries, notes, charts, computer database materials, issuances, advisory letters, audio and/or video AFGE Request for Information 9/22/21 recordings, or other data in whatever form it might appear prepared, recorded, or otherwise maintained by TSA. 

More specifically, AFGE seeks the estimates used in the budgetary formulation for staffing of all TSA offices. This may be provided in summary fashion, but at a minimum should include the number of positions (titles, grades and pay) in TSA’s current budget versus the estimated pay and benefit assumptions that TSA used to develop the September 8, 2021 estimate showing costs to be incurred under a Title 5 pay system. Full staffing numbers, including grades and pay, should be provided as part of the information to be released (both under the current TSA pay system and those projected under the Title 5 system). AFGE needs to be able to better understand the basis for the increased pay and benefit costs that TSA is projecting. The information provided in Administrator Pekoske’s September 8, 2021 submission did not include much of the supporting data used as a basis for estimates provided. It is that supporting data that AFGE seeks. 

This information is relevant and necessary to understanding issues subject to collective bargaining pursuant to Section IV.C.1.c of the Determination. The proposed pay initiative and expanded procedural rights are fundamental to the terms and conditions of employment for TSA screeners and affect not only the rights contained in the current CBA (which at the moment is being mediated with the expanded understanding of “terms and conditions of employment” as described in Chapter 71 of Title 5), but also concern the imminent collective bargaining efforts we expect to embark on following the Administrator’s new Determination. 

Please provide the above-requested information by Friday, October 1, 2021. Should you not be able to completely satisfy this information request, please provide AFGE with the name and title of the person denying this request along with a written statement of the authority and reason(s) relied upon for not releasing each specific item denied. In the event TSA denies any portion of the request, please provide the remaining information. If necessary, individual information may be sanitized for purposes of complying with the Privacy Act.