PHILADELPHIA — LaShanda Palmer was helping two TSA officers in Philadelphia file grievances at their union office earlier this month when she received an unexpected message.

“We had to vacate,” said Palmer, president of the union that represents Transportation Security Administration officers at Philadelphia International Airport.

She learned from an email on March 7 that the Department of Homeland Security had stripped TSA employees of their union representation and collective bargaining rights. Soon after that, said Palmer, the president of Local 333 AFGE, TSA told the union to return its equipment and leave its office at PHL within days.

DHS had suddenly ended the union’s contract, which was ratified in May 2024 and set to expire in 2031, in an unprecedented decision.

It was a big ask, Palmer said, noting the stacks of confidential documents, bank filings, and other important paperwork in the office, which the union had occupied since October 2023. Palmer had to acquire a U-Haul and transfer the contents of the union’s basement office and cubicles to a storage unit before March 14.

In interviews, AFGE leaders and employees at PHL, where 750 transportation safety officers are union members, said they are concerned about how this decision could change their workplace environment. Morale has plummeted, they say.

“I had officers crying,” said Palmer, who is also a lead officer at PHL. “I have shed tears. It’s very detrimental as a government agency that something like this can actually happen to government employees and have all our rights and hard work stripped away.”

The union is pushing back. AFGE has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging the stripping of union protections is illegal.

TSA employees said they did not believe the removal of union representation would affect travelers at PHL.

The airport has not seen an impact and cannot speculate on the future, said Christine Ottow, a spokesperson for PHL.

TSA contends that “the new determination will eliminate the undue influence of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), streamline TSA operations, enhance efficiency and productivity, and ensure that TSOs can focus solely on their core mission of protecting the transportation system within the airport,” a TSA spokesperson said via email.

TSA employees can continue raising concerns or complaints, noted the spokesperson, adding that processes have not changed.

While she is no longer technically able to represent her members, Palmer says, she plans to continue assisting employees who come to her with issues.

“I’m committed to the fight,” she said.

A ‘real partnership’ no more?

Congress created the TSA in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in an effort to prevent similar attacks.

Today, travelers boarding flights must interact with TSA, which has roughly 47,000 security officers nationwide.

At PHL, the agency screened about 33,400 people on average each day as of last June. From January to early March this year, six firearms were confiscated at PHL’s TSA checkpoints. Last year, TSA employees prevented 40 firearms from going through security at the airport.

By taking away officers’ union representation, DHS wanted to remove “the constraints of collective bargaining,” TSA Senior Official Adam Stahl wrote in the March 7 email to staff, obtained by The Inquirer.

The change came at the direction of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Stahl wrote, saying “the decision aligns with the (Trump) administration’s vision of maximizing government productivity and efficiency and ensuring that our workforce can respond swiftly and effectively to evolving threats.”

The verdict was also made with “ensuring employee inclusivity and restoring meritocracy to the workforce” in mind, Stahl wrote.

It remained unclear whether this move was connected to the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s billionaire adviser, and tasked with streamlining government and cutting spending

DHS’s decision is ironic to Palmer, who has worked at PHL for almost 23 years and also represents Wilmington Airport. She said she just recently received a “partnership award” from TSA for her collaboration with management.

“I thought this was a real partnership, but just again, clearly, no sooner than the button was pushed to send an email, everything was done,” Palmer said.

‘Walking on eggshells’

Devone Calloway, 39, had been working full-time for the union for the last year, but since the contract was quashed, he and other union leaders have been transitioning back to nonunion work.

As a lead transportation security officer for TSA at PHL, Calloway ensures lanes are running smoothly and watches over pat-downs at the security checkpoint.

He said he was shocked to learn TSA employees were losing union representation when other federal workers were not. It now feels like colleagues are “walking on eggshells” because they don’t know what’s coming next, he said.

“It hurt me a lot, and it still hurts to this day,” Calloway said.

Calloway is a military veteran and has worked at TSA at the Philadelphia and Wilmington airports since 2022.

“This is one of the ways I could give back,” Calloway said.

In losing their contract, workers lost the ability to call out sick for up to three days without a doctor’s note, Calloway said, as well as protections from schedule changes.

In Congress, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and U.S. Rep Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., are cosponsoring the reintroduction of the Rights for the TSA Workforce Act, which would bolster protections for employees.

Calloway, for his part, says officers can continue reaching out to him if they have any issues.

“We are still here for you,” he said. “We’re not giving up.”

DHS: Procedures are ‘bureaucratic hurdles’

Union leaders at PHL disapprovingly recalled what working at the airport was like in the early 2000s, before President Barack Obama’s administration authorized agency employees to unionize in 2011.

Management lacked accountability. Shifts and PTO approvals were inconsistent, discipline was unchecked, and employees perceived favoritism in promotions, Palmer said.

Maggie Sabatino, executive vice president of Local 333, said she is concerned that a lack of union protections could force officers — many of whom have never served the agency without a contract — to leave, potentially creating a larger workload for officers that stay.

“They can go somewhere else and make the same amount of money and not have to have all these things that are negatively impact(ing) their job every day,” Sabatino said.

A DHS spokesperson described some union contract terms as “bureaucratic hurdles.”

The spokesperson said that employees now “can go straight to their supervisor without dealing with a third party” and that “poor performers will no longer get in the way of TSOs doing their jobs to safeguard our transportation systems and keep Americans safe.”

The TSA spokesperson also said at many airports, TSA employees were spending more time on union work than screening functions. Tim Kauffman, an AFGE spokesperson, called that “an intentionally misleading claim.”

Out of 47,000 TSA employees, 193 are dedicated exclusively to performing union duties, Kauffman said.

Kelly Ashlee Johnson, 39, a transportation security officer at PHL and former union chief steward, said she was “horrified” to learn union representation was ending. Knowing that she could call on the union’s support in the past brought her a sense of peace, she said.

Johnson, a 14-year TSA employee who remembers a time before union representation, says the collective bargaining agreement “is what makes TSA click and work together with management and supervisors.”

“That was our Bible,” she said.

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