TSA says "Whaaaaa!"

[furloughfodder]

Airport screeners' strains, sprains highest

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAYWed Jan 11, 9:35 AM ET

Federal airport screeners continue to have the highest injury rate among the nation's workers nearly two years after the Transportation Security Administration discovered the problem.
The rate of screeners injured on the job fell in 2005 to 29% from 36% the previous year, according to the latest TSA figures. But the rate remains higher than any of about 600 job categories tracked by the Labor Department.
The injury rate for screeners far exceeds the 4.5% injury rate for the rest of the federal workforce. The private sector rate was 4.8% in 2004, the most recent year for which Labor Department figures are available. These figures include all job injuries, even if an employee didn't miss work. In general, about a third of workplace injuries result in lost job time.
Screeners are five times more likely to get injured than coal miners and seven times more likely than textile millworkers, according to TSA and Labor Department data.
"It is a physically demanding job," TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter says. Screeners "repeatedly lift and move heavy bags."
The 48,000 full- and part-time screeners missed nearly a quarter-million days because of injuries in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Labor Department figures show.
Absenteeism aggravates staffing problems in airport security. Screeners have missed training and violated a law requiring checked luggage to go through bomb-detection machines because of staffing shortages, according to the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department inspector general.
The injuries cost taxpayers $52 million in fiscal 2005 to cover wages and medical payments for injured screeners, the TSA says.
To cut down on worker strains, sprains and spasms, the TSA has moved luggage-scanning machines in airports so screeners don't have to carry suitcases far.
In September, the agency hired a contractor to review medical records of injured screeners, crack down on fraud and get workers back to work more quickly.
Gil Harris, a screener on a safety committee at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, says local TSA officials have asked the agency to buy devices that would lift suitcases onto luggage scanners but haven't gotten approval.
Harris, who missed two weeks of work a year ago when he pinched a nerve while lifting a heavy suitcase, says, "There's a lot that can still be done."

 

[SkiFishFly]

TSA
Thousands Spraining Ankles...

 

[DC-8_FR8]

What about all of those hurt feeling when people yell at them.

 

[NTS ALL 4]

heavy= more money

TSA, don't tell the airline baggage handlers about how hard it is to lift a bag when you get paid the gov't rate. They will all quit the ramp to go work for the TSA.

Maybe the airlines can add a 'heavy carry-on bag' rate to the ridiculously high hourly rate they receive now.

Cheers!

 

[AA717driver]

It's the gov't gravy train. They should've figured that out when they hired all the goobers that worked for the contract security outfits. They may be morons but it doesn't take a moron to figure out the gov't. pays out pretty well for disability.TC

 

[Diesel]

Wah the TSA is complaining? Have you seen the size of some of them.

You want pain. Try jamming 3 suburbans worth of bags into the cargo hold of a yugo. TC knows what i'm talking about.

 

[densoo]

In September, the agency hired a contractor to review medical records of injured screeners, crack down on fraud and get workers back to work more quickly.

Ah, yes. Here it comes.

-We don't want you to work sick. You might make others sick.
-But if you call in sick we will fine-tooth screen your medical records.

-No, why would you think we're trying to make you work sick? That might cause you to make errors on the job.
-But if you call in sick you will be investigated for fraud.

-What? Please, do not come to work sick. Airline security is at stake.
-But if you call in sick we will call you in for a friendly chat to you back to work more quickly.

-And remember, if you work sick and make a security error, not only might you be fired, but you might be liable to fines and jail time for violating federal laws. Look at what happened to the riverboat captain in NY. He got 18 months. Now you don't want that to happen to you, do you? So do not, under and circumstances, come to work sick.
-But you're out of sick days and if you call in sick another day you're fired.

-Why are you shouting "my mother, my sister" over and over again?

 

[Andy]

What about all of those hurt feeling when people yell at them.

Anyone who yells at a TSA employee has got to be nuts.
I can almost hear the snap of the rubber glove freshly fitted onto the TSA employee's hand as he says, 'please follow me for a secondary screening.'