Before 9/11, U.S. airports had private companies do security screenings at most U.S. airports. Other countries with safety concerns – such as Israel – had the same structure.

In the rush to pursue the war on terror, unions pressured Congress to create the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).  Since then, it has grown to almost 50,000 mostly unionized employees. That may explain why TSA is infamously slow to adopt new technology that would reduce waiting lines at airports.

This may change with Friday’s announcement that the Department of Homeland Security will end union collective bargaining for TSA agents. DHS says unionization is “being exploited by a select few poor performers, placing greater burden on officers at the expense of American travelers and taxpayers.”

In an eye-popping revelation, DHS says TSA “has more people doing full-time union work than we have performing screening functions at 86% of our airports.

“Imagine going to the grocery store and seeing more cashiers chatting in the break room than at the registers–things would get backed up quickly,” say our friends at Nevada News & Views who live in Las Vegas, one of the busiest airports in the world.

Federal government unions have launched lawsuits against any attempts to roll back union power at the nation’s airports. But why not go further and revitalize a long dormant provision of the law creating TSA – that any airport should be able to switch back to private screeners as long as they met new federal standards?