Airport screeners cry
foul over Feds’ hiring

Former top employees
of private companies say
they deserve better

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By Nelson Daranciang
ndaranciang@starbulletin.com

Former private screeners at Honolulu Airport say they were passed over for higher paying positions when they took new jobs with the Transportation Security Administration.

Their applications with the TSA were the last to be considered for employment to ensure that posts would still be manned during the hiring process. If they qualified, they were guaranteed jobs.

But by the time they were hired, the TSA had already filled all of the supervisor and lead screener positions. Even if they passed the written examination and pre-employment assessment for those jobs, the only positions available to them were screeners.

"We should have had a better system to accommodate the incumbent screeners. They were penalized," said Sidney Hayakawa, federal security director for the Honolulu Airport.

Of the 500 TSA employees assigned to Honolulu Airport, about 60 previously worked there as screeners for private companies. Hayakawa does not know how many of them qualified as supervisors or lead screeners because NCS Pearson, the federal contractor that did the testing and screening, has their personnel files.

About 20 of the 157 screeners at the Kona and Hilo Airports had worked there for private security companies, said James Correa, federal security director for Big Island airports.

There are about 250 TSA screeners at the Kahului, Molokai and Lanai airports and 76 at the Lihue Airport. TSA officials were not able to determine how many of those screeners previously worked at those airports.

Some incumbent screeners are upset because they believe they were guaranteed the job for which they qualified. And they said they are being asked to train supervisors and lead screeners or are performing those responsibilities because of their experience, but are being paid as screeners.

But the former Honolulu general manager of one of the airport security companies said his employees were only promised "a job."

"They didn't guarantee a position," said Kenneth Vacek, former general manager of International Total Services.

Vacek said TSA officials had several meetings with ITS screeners before anyone was hired. And he said they made it clear that even if the private screeners qualified as supervisors or lead screeners, they were not guaranteed those jobs.

Vacek is now employed as a screener for TSA.

More supervisors, lead screeners and screeners will need to be hired for airports to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to screen every piece of luggage going aboard airlines.

Hayakawa said he will hire another 400-500 employees and hopes to fill some of the supervisor and lead screener positions with incumbent screeners.

"We're going to make every effort to give them an opportunity because it wasn't fair," Hayakawa said.

But he admits the assessment center has already shut down and there is a ready pool of qualified applicants waiting to fill those jobs.