TTD's Greg Regan on TSA Rights, Overtime Pay and the Jones Act

Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast for his monthly check-in to address three pressing issues hitting transportation workers hard. Regan called out the drafting flaws in a federal overtime tax deduction that excludes workers covered under the Railway Labor Act — including airline, rail, trucking and maritime employees — and described a coalition letter from nearly two dozen unions urging Congress to fix it.

He also detailed the long-running fight to pass the Rights for the TSA Workforce Act, which would restore collective bargaining rights and full federal employee protections for Transportation Security Officers. He also pushed back on the Trump Administration's Jones Act waiver, calling it an ineffective political maneuver that does nothing to address the real drivers of rising gas prices.

• A provision in pending federal legislation would allow most hourly workers to deduct up to $25,000 in qualified overtime compensation from their annual income, but as currently drafted it excludes workers covered under the Railway Labor Act — a broad category that includes airline, rail, trucking and maritime workers who regularly log overtime hours — and nearly two dozen unions have sent a joint letter to Congress demanding the exclusion be corrected.
• TSA Transportation Security Officers have been subjected to three government shutdowns without consistent pay. These critical federal employees operate under a separate and lower pay scale than other Department of Homeland Security employees and are now facing an attempt to roll back the collective bargaining rights they gained under the Obama administration — rights the TSA Workforce Rights Act would restore and codify permanently under Title 5 federal employee protections.
• The Trump administration's 90-day Jones Act waiver — now extended — was framed as a measure to lower gas prices. Still, Regan said the data does not support that claim, arguing the waiver affects only a small share of domestic oil shipments and that the real driver of elevated fuel costs lies elsewhere entirely.

Transportation Workers Are Fighting on Three Fronts — and Winning None of Them, Yet

Greg Regan has seen a lot in his years leading the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. But the current moment, he told America's Work Force Union Podcast listeners during his monthly appearance, stands out for the sheer number of simultaneous threats bearing down on the workers his organization represents. From an overtime tax deduction that excludes the very workers most likely to benefit, to a renewed assault on TSA collective bargaining rights, to a Jones Act waiver that Regan called pure political theater, transportation workers are navigating a legislative and regulatory environment that is moving against them on multiple fronts at once.

An Overtime Deduction That Leaves Out Too Many Workers

One of the headline provisions in the major federal spending legislation currently moving through Congress would shield overtime pay from federal income taxes, allowing most hourly workers to deduct up to $25,000 in qualified overtime compensation from their annual income. In concept, Regan said, the idea has merit — workers who put in extra hours should keep more of what they earn. The problem, he said, is in the execution.

As currently drafted, the provision excludes workers covered under the Railway Labor Act. That captures a significant slice of the American workforce: airline employees, rail workers, trucking and maritime workers — people who routinely work overtime and who, by any reasonable standard, are exactly the kind of working-class earners the provision was designed to help. Regan stopped short of attributing the exclusion to intent, suggesting instead that it reflects hasty and careless bill drafting rather than deliberate targeting. But the effect is the same regardless of the cause.

Nearly two dozen unions have now signed a joint letter to Congress calling for the provision to be rewritten to cover all workers who earn overtime, not just those whose employment falls outside the Railway Labor Act's jurisdiction. If lawmakers are going to offer a tax benefit tied to overtime work, it should apply fairly to everyone who works overtime, Regan said.

TSA Workers Are Still Being Treated as Second-Class Federal Employees

The fight over TSA Transportation Security Officers' (TSOs) workplace rights is not new, but it has taken on fresh urgency. When the Transportation Security Administration was created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration deliberately classified TSOs outside the standard federal employee framework, stripping them of collective bargaining rights and Title 5 protections. That changed under the Obama administration, which extended collective bargaining rights to the workforce. Now, Regan said, there are active efforts to reverse that progress — including an attempt by the current administration to cancel the TSOs' collective bargaining agreement outright, a move now being litigated in the courts.

The TSA Workforce Act would comprehensively address the situation. Beyond restoring collective bargaining rights, the legislation would bring TSOs fully under Title 5 of the federal code, giving them access to the Merit Systems Protection Board and placing them on the standard General Schedule pay scale rather than the separate, lower compensation system they currently operate under. Regan noted the fundamental inequity: TSOs work alongside other Department of Homeland Security employees who enjoy the full range of federal worker protections, yet the people responsible for screening passengers and keeping the nation's airports secure are denied those same rights.

The human cost of that inequity has been visible. TSOs have been required to report to work during multiple government shutdowns without reliable pay. Regan cited internal agency studies documenting extremely low morale among the workforce, a problem he attributed directly to the combination of inadequate pay, lack of protections and the chronic instability of their employment conditions. The resulting workforce shortages, in his view, are a predictable consequence of treating essential public safety workers as expendable.

The Jones Act Waiver Changes Nothing About Gas Prices

The third issue Regan addressed was the administration's decision to issue — and then extend — a 90-day waiver of the Jones Act, the century-old law requiring that cargo shipped between American ports be carried on American-built, American-owned and American-crewed vessels. The waiver was framed publicly as a measure to reduce gas prices by allowing foreign vessels to carry domestic oil shipments from coast to coast.

The Jones Act governs a relatively small portion of domestic oil shipments, Regan said, and the data does not support the claim that waiving it produces any meaningful cost reduction at the pump. In his assessment, the actual driver of elevated gas prices is the instability created by the administration's own foreign policy. This problem cannot be solved by adjusting how a fraction of domestic oil cargo moves between American ports, he stressed.

For Regan, the waiver represents something the TTD has long observed: the Jones Act is a perennial target for interests seeking to weaken or eliminate it, and the current moment has provided a convenient pretext to test how far a waiver can go. The law exists to protect American maritime jobs, sustain a domestic shipbuilding industry and preserve national security capacity. Extending a waiver that demonstrably does not accomplish its stated purpose, he argued, serves none of those goals and undermines all of them.

More information on the Transportation Trades Department's legislative priorities is available at ttd.org.

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