Copyright 2002 The Washington Post

The Washington Post
November 19, 2002 Tuesday
Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A08

LENGTH: 542 words

HEADLINE: Agency Meets Deadline For Airport Screeners

BYLINE: Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:


Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said yesterday that his agency has met a crucial deadline to hire more than 44,000 federal screeners to man almost every airport security checkpoint by today, a milestone that many critics had doubted could be completed within a one-year time frame.

After the terrorist hijackings last year, Congress passed a law requiring that federal workers take over airport screening duties in response to concerns that those working for private firms were too poorly trained to keep terrorists off of airplanes and were paid too little to prevent high turnover.

The law meant that the government had to assemble a massive workforce in just a few months. The Transportation Security Administration, itself less than a year old, had to review more than 1.4 million applicants, hire about 3,300 a week and conduct training sessions that sometimes lasted past midnight.

At a news conference at Reagan National Airport, Mineta said, "We are proud that we have met so many deadlines, but we are not resting." He acknowledged that the TSA would not meet a Dec. 31 deadline, included in last year's legislation, to scan all passenger luggage using explosive-detection machines. The House has approved a one-year extension of the deadline as part of the homeland-security bill. The Senate has not yet voted on the bill.

TSA officials said that about 10 to 15 airports don't have enough space in their terminals to fit bulky explosive-detection machines by the end of the year, but they declined to name the airports.

In the Washington area, National appears to be on track to meet the bag-screening deadline, according to airport officials. Although officials from Baltimore-Washington International Airport said earlier that they would have problems, after reviewing new proposals they now say they are more optimistic.

Dulles International is "going to be incredibly difficult," said James A. Wilding, president of the airport authority that runs National and Dulles. "But I don't want to say it's not going to be done."

BWI was the first airport to get federal screeners in May.

The TSA was initially criticized for hiring a mostly white, male workforce, but as of October, 35 percent of the screeners were women and 40 percent were minorities. The federal screeners are paid better and receive more training than the private-sector employees.

The new security effort caused many screeners, especially foreigners, to lose their jobs, because the law requires federal screeners to be U.S. citizens and speak English. The law also requires federal screeners to have a high school diploma or one year of experience as a screener.

Those requirements displaced hundreds of people employed at Washington's airports; at least 90 lost their jobs at National airport because they were not U.S. citizens, said Abdul Kamus, project manager at the Ethiopian Community Development Council.

Last week, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the ban on non-U.S. citizens was unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction allowing the nine noncitizen screeners who brought the case to apply for the federal jobs at Los Angeles and San Francisco airports. Attorneys for the screeners said the case could have nationwide implications.

LOAD-DATE: November 19, 2002