Working on Labor Day in a now-unionized job created by 9/11 attacks

Airport screener Joe Shuker would have liked to have marched in Monday's Labor Day parade along the Delaware waterfront, but he was working, scanning baggage at the Philadelphia International Airport.

"I feel good that we're protecting the skies," Shuker said. His line of work was created a decade ago, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "You feel like you're doing something of value every day."

Monday was Shuker's first Labor Day as an airport screener represented by a union. And on Thursday, days after the parade route has been swept up and the speaker's podium dismantled, there will be another first for Shuker and his fellow airport screeners across the country.

Leaders of his union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), will begin negotiating the group's first contract.

That explains why the president of Shuker's union, John Gage, was given something of a hero's introduction when he stepped up to the speakers' podium at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 hall, just south of Washington Avenue on Columbus Boulevard.

At a time when union membership is eroding, Gage's union now represents about 600,000 federal employees, including the 44,000 screeners; 700 of those screeners work at the Philadelphia International Airport.

When Gage addressed the crowd - a rainbow river of union T-shirts - he spoke of the value of work and the way it unites people. It was one speech of many delivered by a series of union dignitaries and politicians.

But in an interview before the marchers stepped off to Penn's Landing, Gage explained what it took to bring Shuker and the other workers into the union fold.

"Persistence," he said. "It took us nine years."

When the Transportation Security Administration was created under President George W. Bush, there was debate about whether these employees would be allowed to unionize.

A compromise was reached, and it was decided that the head of the TSA would decide whether to grant collective bargaining rights. Under the Bush administration, it didn't happen. In February, more than two years after President Obama came to office, TSA head John Pistole agreed to allow limited collective bargaining. Airport screeners, for example, are not allowed to strike, and there is no negotiation on security-related matters such as deployment.

Gage's union decided to pursue the screeners by acting as if it already represented them, even though collective bargaining had been prohibited at the agency since it began. For example, the union sat in on disciplinary hearings, organized locals, and even asked for and received dues from the workers.

"We never accepted the idea that being a union member is detrimental to national security," Gage said, adding that his union was unrelenting in making that point to federal legislators such as U.S. Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.) or Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), who have been staunch opponents of unionizing airport screeners. Calls made to their offices on Friday were not returned.

Unlike many union workplaces, where everyone who is employed becomes a dues-paying member, the TSA is open shop. In an open shop, the union must represent all the workers, but the members can choose whether to pay dues.

It means, Gage said, that the union can't simply win an organizing battle and then count on dues revenues. It has to prove its worth.

"It means," he said, "we have to service our members."