Union workers protest for increased TSA funding

The union representing Transportation Security Administration officers picketed outside Bush Intercontinental Airport Sunday, asking the government to increase funding for the agency that is facing both a shortage of workers and rising security demands.

"When you're short staffed and you've got a limited number of people to work two or three positions, how are they going to help that mother that's got three kids and trying to get on the plane?" said Cynthia Sanders,a  union member and former Transportation Security Officer. "We're short staffed. You did that to yourself, TSA – that wasn't us."

The small group of former officers who protested with Houston's chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees union pushed for funding to hire an additional 6,000 workers.

The TSA has buckled down on security protocol in the wake of growing terroristic threats around the world – coupled with high employee turnover and staff shortages, wait times in security checkpoints are only seeming longer and longer.

Airline passengers have expressed increasing irritation with the TSA over the past few years as they endure the longer lines – sometimes resulting in missed flights, as was the case for 450 travelers at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on May 15.

Since 2013, airports have seen 10 percent fewer screeners and 15 percent more passengers.

Timothy Harris, a former Transportation Security Officer, 27, said he thinks hiring more screeners would decrease the amount of passengers who are disgruntled with long wait times at security checkpoints. 

"[The TSA is] living off the minimum," Harris said. "You get people standing next to you and you're doing your job, but they're not moving. Frustration levels have escalated."

TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger experienced a brief victory when he most recently secured 1,600 positions that were in danger of being cut, and got $8 million in congressional funding to hire 768 new screeners.

Still, about 5,000 fewer screeners are employed than in 2011, because of congressional budget cuts. 

"That's not enough, and that partly came through the misinterpretation of the budgeting process by my friends and colleagues in Congress," Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee said. "We lost a lot of our individuals. That's not good."