Screeners' job jitters addressed

Officials hope attrition will take care of most cuts at Tampa and St. Petersburg-Clearwater international airports.

TAMPA - The Transportation Security Administration sent some top brass to Tampa International Airport on Friday to address the fears of baggage screeners facing the specter of layoffs.

A tight federal budget will squeeze 144 screeners from the current ranks of 828 at TIA by the end of September. St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport will lose 25 of its 102 screeners.

"The screeners are anxious," Carol DiBattiste, the TSA's chief of staff, reported after meeting with the group at the airport Friday afternoon. "They're team players, and they know we're going to protect them as best we can. But they're anxious."

Many of the positions lost - at TIA and elsewhere - will come through attrition, when people leave for other jobs, DiBattiste said. Other cuts will be made from among screeners with conduct or performance problems.

If still more cuts are required, screeners will be given skill and proficiency tests, and those with the lowest scores will go.

Dario Compain, the federal security director at TIA, said he had lost a significant number of people to attrition.

"I had one who became a member of the airport police department," he said. "And some people move back up North."

He said he hoped it wouldn't be necessary to eliminate the jobs of screeners who want to stay and are performing well.

Not all screeners cut from local airports will actually lose their jobs. At least 151 of the nation's 429 commercial airports don't have enough screeners, and additional jobs at those facilities will be filled as often as possible from the pool of screeners already trained but unassigned.

In Florida, Key West International Airport will get one additional screener, Orlando will gain 86, Sarasota-Bradenton's force will increase by 52 and Tallahassee will go up by six.

Miami will lose 195 of its 1,826 positions. Other airports losing large numbers of screeners are: Los Angeles International, down 154; Sacramento, down 112; Denver, down 197; Hartsfield (Atlanta), down 263; Chicago Midway, down 132; and Chicago O'Hare, down 170.

DiBattiste said security concerns remain paramount, and no airport would be compromised by the cuts. But she said fewer screeners could mean longer waits for passengers.

"We're going to do everything we can to keep the waits to a minimum," she said, "but people should know that they might notice a difference."

TSA said it would cut 3,000 positions by the end of May and another 3,000 by the end of September.

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