This bill converts Transportation Security Administration employees from the TSA-specific personnel system to the civil-service rules in title 5, United States Code. It repeals the statutory authorities that allowed TSA to run its own HR system, brings screening agents under chapters 71 and 77 (collective bargaining and grievance/appeals), and requires agency and interagency steps to effect payroll, classification, and retirement transitions.
For compliance officers and HR leaders, the measure replaces TSA’s bespoke pay and personnel rules with uniform federal standards, preserves current pay and law-enforcement supplements during conversion, establishes a national bargaining baseline with limited local supplementation, and sets multiple near-term deadlines for operational, payroll, and reporting changes that will drive agency workload and budget needs.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill repeals TSA personnel authorities (including the 2022 Determination and statutory provisions under section 111(d) and 114(n)), terminates TSA’s chapter 97 authorities, and subjects covered TSA positions to title 5. It requires application of chapters 71 and 77 for screening agents, preserves adjusted basic pay and law-enforcement availability pay during conversion, and mandates OPM and National Finance Center support for classification and payroll changes.
Who It Affects
Primary targets are Transportation Security Officers, Federal air marshals, Transportation Security Inspectors, and other covered TSA staff; TSA human-resources, payroll, and operations offices; OPM and the National Finance Center; and the exclusive representative for screening agents (the labor organization certified June 29, 2011, or a successor).
Why It Matters
The change standardizes employment protections and dispute rights for a large, security-sensitive federal workforce and imposes binding timelines and reporting duties. That creates short-term operational and administrative strain for TSA and implementing agencies, and alters bargaining dynamics by locking in a national-level framework with limited local bargaining by mutual consent.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill forces a legal and operational switch: it removes TSA’s statutory authority to run a separate personnel system and brings TSA employees under the same protections and processes that govern most federal workers. That includes collective bargaining rights, grievance and appeal procedures, standard classification and pay rules, leave and retirement protections, and the Fair Labor Standards Act-style overtime framework for Federal air marshals.
The conversion is structured as a transition rather than an immediate swap—the existing TSA personnel policies remain in place during the transition period but must give way by a conversion date no later than December 31, 2025.
During transition the statute creates narrowly tailored exceptions: annual pay adjustments to maintain locality and comparability are allowed, and the Secretary can issue new policies only for issues not already addressed in existing policy or for short-term responses to emerging security threats, provided Congress is notified within seven days. The bill requires OPM to create classification standards and the National Finance Center to reconfigure payroll and HR systems so TSA records, leave, and pay align with chapter 53 of title 5.The measure protects individual employees through several safeguards: grievances and appeals pending at TSA at the time of conversion can either be preserved and moved into title 5 processes or adjudicated to finality by TSA; accrued leave, pay supplements, split-shift differentials, and certain retention incentives are explicitly preserved; and the law forbids conversion-caused reductions in adjusted basic pay or law-enforcement availability pay.
It also preserves and reconfirms criminal statutes that bar strikes by federal employees.Beyond the mechanics of conversion, the bill reorganizes bargaining relationships for screening agents by recognizing the union certified on June 29, 2011 (or a successor) as the exclusive representative and making collective bargaining principally national in scope with local agreements allowed only by mutual consent. It also layers oversight and transparency onto the process: the Comptroller General must review recruitment, implementation of the Act, promotion and leadership diversity, and harassment/assault policies; TSA must provide annual workforce reports and brief Congress on assaults and threats against screening agents.
Finally, the statute authorizes whatever appropriations are necessary, signaling anticipated implementation costs across agencies.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill repeals TSA’s statutory personnel authorities—section 111(d) of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and section 114(n) of title 49—and ends chapter 97 human-resources authorities for TSA.
Chapters 71 and 77 of title 5 (collective bargaining and appeal/grievance processes) must apply to screening agents within 90 days of enactment, and all TSA personnel systems must cease by a conversion date no later than December 31, 2025.
The labor organization certified on June 29, 2011 (or a successor) is treated as the exclusive representative of screening agents for chapter 71 purposes, and bargaining is required to occur at the national level with local-level bargaining permitted only by mutual consent.
The bill bars any reduction in a converted employee’s adjusted basic pay or law-enforcement availability pay and mandates that years of service in TSA pay bands count toward establishing the appropriate General Schedule step.
OPM must establish position-series and classification standards for Transportation Security Officer, Federal air marshal, and other requested positions within 180 days, and the National Finance Center must update payroll and HR systems to align with chapter 53 of title 5.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Repeal TSA personnel authorities and subject TSA to title 5
This section is the operational heart of the bill: it stops use of any TSA personnel management system, repeals the two statutory provisions that authorized TSA’s bespoke system, and requires covered positions to be governed by title 5. Practically, that means standard federal rules on hiring, promotion, pay, leave, discipline, and appeals will replace TSA-specific practices; the section also freezes existing TSA policy during the transition so employees retain an immediately applicable regime until conversion.
Pay protections, retirement proposals, and premium pay rules
This section lays out conversion mechanics and key protections. It forbids reductions in adjusted basic pay and law-enforcement availability pay for converted employees, requires crediting of TSA service into General Schedule steps, and tasks the Secretary to propose how to compute average pay for retirement annuities for employees who retire within three years. It also preserves certain premium-pay arrangements for Federal air marshals and requires OPM recognition of those payments for retirement and pay-credit purposes—practical details that payroll and benefits offices will need to operationalize.
Union recognition and bargaining framework
This section fixes bargaining relationships: the union certified June 29, 2011 (or successor) is treated as the exclusive representative for screening agents when chapter 71 applies. It mandates near-immediate consultation on conversion plans (within seven days) and requires written plans for how the Secretary will implement conversion. Importantly, collective bargaining is established as national-first with local supplementation allowed only by mutual consent, which preserves national consistency but limits local managerial flexibility.
GAO reviews on recruitment, implementation, diversity, and safety
The bill directs multiple Comptroller General reports: a recruitment review within one year, an implementation review starting within 60 days of conversion and reported within a year, analyses of promotion and leadership diversity, and an assessment of harassment and assault policies. Each review carries explicit direction to solicit input from employees and unions, and the harassment review must consider incidents involving the public—requirements that will shape oversight priorities and feed future congressional inquiries.
Required briefings and continuing workforce reporting
TSA must brief committees within 90 days on assaults and threats against screening agents dating back to 2019 and provide annual reports on employee survey results, retention by airport, and morale and retention measures. These provisions create regular transparency into workplace safety and workforce metrics and supply Congress with repeated checkpoints to assess whether conversion and operational changes affect retention, recruitment, and staff safety.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Employment across all five countries.
Explore Employment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Screening agents (Transportation Security Officers): They receive title 5 protections—collective bargaining and formal grievance and appeals processes—preservation of accrued leave and pay supplements, and explicit non-reduction protections for adjusted basic pay and law-enforcement availability pay.
- Federal air marshals: The bill preserves eligibility for premium pay and explicitly extends law-enforcement availability pay and overtime protections so air marshals' special pay treatments continue under title 5.
- Exclusive representative for screening agents (union certified June 29, 2011 or successor): The union gains formal recognition as the exclusive representative under chapter 71 and a guaranteed national bargaining role, increasing its leverage on pay, conditions, and national policy.
- OPM and National Finance Center (implementing agencies): They gain control of classification and payroll standards for TSA positions, standardizing series and pay administration across government, which can simplify cross-agency mobility and classification consistency.
- Employees seeking standard federal benefits: New hires and current staff gain uniform access to federal benefits, leave accrual rules, retirement computations (subject to the bill’s retirement proposal), and standard appeals routes, reducing variation in employee protections.
Who Bears the Cost
- Transportation Security Administration (agency leadership and budget): TSA must redesign HR systems, convert payroll, adjust classification schemes, and absorb implementation costs and operational disruption; these administrative and transition costs will fall on the agency and require appropriations.
- OPM and National Finance Center (implementation workload): Both must create classification standards and retrofit payroll/HR systems on a tight timeline, imposing programmatic and staffing burdens and requiring technical resources.
- Taxpayers/federal budget: The statute authorizes whatever sums are necessary; funding for conversion, OPM/NFC changes, and GAO reviews will increase near-term federal personnel and administrative spending.
- Local operational managers (Federal Security Directors): National-first bargaining reduces managerial discretion at local airports and could increase complexity when agreeing to local supplements, creating friction and potential operational constraints.
- TSA contractors and temporary-hire programs: Contract staffing and contingency HR arrangements may face renegotiation or administrative delays as positions and pay rules are standardized under title 5.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is the trade-off between granting TSA workers the protections and stability of the federal civil-service system—and the fairness and oversight that brings—versus preserving the flexibility and speed of a bespoke personnel system designed for a security-focused operational environment; strengthening employee rights improves workplace stability but can constrain operational managers and increase administrative and budgetary burdens during a sensitive transition.
The bill resolves a longstanding policy question—whether TSA employees should be treated like other federal workers—but leaves several knotty implementation tasks unresolved. The statute requires OPM to set classification standards and NFC to adjust payroll systems on accelerated schedules; those technical migrations are often time-consuming and risk payroll errors, misapplied leave, or retirement-service miscalculations without careful project management and funding.
The Secretary must propose a method for calculating ‘‘average pay’’ for retirement for employees who leave near conversion; that proposal will determine whether some employees see retirement annuities rise or fall and could require legislative changes to smooth anomalies.
The national-first collective-bargaining model simplifies negotiation of enterprise-wide terms but raises operational questions about how to reconcile national agreements with local airport needs, surge staffing, or unique security postures. Allowing local bargaining only by mutual consent limits local problem-solving and could create bottlenecks where local managers need rapid workplace changes.
Finally, while the bill preserves pay and certain differentials during conversion, legacy and special-pay programs (e.g., premium pay calculations, split-shift differentials, retention incentives) will need precise regulatory definitions to ensure parity and OPM crediting for retirement—areas where ambiguity can generate litigation or bargaining disputes.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.