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The two largest federal employee unions are fighting over who can better represent Transportation Security Administration employees at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The dispute shines a light on the groups' efforts to grow their membership and gain a toehold in the agency.

J. David Cox, national secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees, said this week that 800 employees represented by the National Treasury Employees Union are leaving the union and joining an AFGE local chapter that will represent workers at New York and New Jersey airports.

"They believe that we are definitely a stronger union, that we've been involved with TSA from the very beginning, that we've been in the fight since day one, and we will be in the fight," Cox said.

NTEU President Colleen Kelley questioned Cox's figure and his claim that employees who left NTEU in January did so in favor of AFGE.

"I don't know where they're getting their numbers. I would say their numbers appear inflated," Kelley said. "The numbers I have show that 71 [employees] have signed the form to leave NTEU, but I cannot tell you that 71 have signed the form to join AFGE."

Mark Roth, AFGE's general counsel, said about 300 employees had completed the process to leave NTEU and join AFGE. He said AFGE's TSA local eventually would be larger than that of NTEU, covering airports in both New York and New Jersey.

Roth said JFK's TSA employees are impressed by AFGE's track record.

"We have a better win rate in front of their own in-house board than other unions have in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board," he said. "What also was impressive to them was we had the first court case establishing their constitutional rights." Roth said AFGE was the only union to file a complaint against the Bush administration for violating international labor law -- a complaint upheld by the International Labor Organization.

Kelley countered that NTEU has established a strong track record, and was winning on-the-job fights on behalf of JFK employees. "We're not interested in having members just sign up to be members of NTEU and then not providing that representation," she said. "We're going to train local stewards so they can provide that on-the-ground representation, and we're going to provide staff and attorneys to our members. That is a very different model than AFGE has; they do not routinely provide that on-the-ground representation or training that NTEU considers as our hallmark and our reputation."

AFGE's Cox said the union planned to organize TSA locals wherever transportation security officers were employed -- not just in the New York metropolitan area. "We're concerned about each one of them, no matter where they're at, not just big areas where you could get a quick concentration. I think that's a big difference between us and NTEU."

There seems little room for cooperation between the two unions. "They're separate," Cox said, when asked about any plans between AFGE and NTEU to coordinate organizing efforts. "We are the TSA union."