Invest1 publisher3 min readPublished
TSA is pulling the chairs from ID-check stations at airports nationwide
TSA has confirmed it is removing all chairs from the document-checker stations at airport checkpoints nationwide. Its spokesperson justified the move with fitness for duty, a standard OPM rules now let agencies use to discipline or fire staff.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- AFGE TSA Council 100, the union for TSA officers, said it had no role in the decision and called it a disregard for workers rights and safety.
- David Cummins became TSA administrator in August, bringing a set of changes called the Horizon 25 Strategy that is tied to the agency's 25th anniversary.
- A union coalition including AFGE and NFFE sued in August, arguing OPM exceeded its statutory authority with the suitability and fitness regulations.
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Why it matters
- exposure By tying the chairs to fitness for duty, TSA places an officer's ability to stay on their feet at the station inside a standard agencies can now use to discipline or fire.
- constraint The unions' legal challenge targets OPM's fitness and expedited-firing rules, so as reported the chair removal itself sits outside the case and can stand whatever the court decides.
- cost TSA claims a gain in security and hospitality, while the cost the union names is physical and falls on officers who stand and walk on hard surfaces all day.
Fitness is the word in TSA's statement that has legal force. "All officers must meet fitness for duty requirements to be capable of performing their vital national security function while simultaneously creating a welcoming and professional environment for travelers," a TSA spokesperson said [4]. Since July 2026 that word has had a defined use across the federal workforce. An OPM final rule, the product of an executive order Trump signed last March, lets agencies judge staff on "suitability and fitness" [6]. Fitness can now be grounds to discipline or fire a current employee, and agencies can still use it to screen applicants [7].
The dates sit close together. David Cummins took over TSA the month after the OPM rule took effect, and in the same month the unions filed suit [1].
The Fortune report does not show the chair removal as a written rule, or TSA citing the OPM regulation by name. So far the union's challenge to the chairs is a statement saying it had no role in the change [8]. The lawsuit is aimed at OPM. It seeks to reverse the rule applying suitability standards to current employees, and a second rule permitting expedited firings of workers who fail suitability and fitness standards [12]. The unions are also fighting OPM's new performance system, which ends a decades-long ban on sorting workers into top, average and low performers [13].
TSA's own account is the simplest reading. Document checkers are "the first to interact with the traveling public," the spokesperson said [15], and having them stand supports "our security posture and our commitment to hospitality" [3]. On that view the chairs are a customer-service decision and fitness is a figure of speech.
The union's reading is about bodies. "These chairs serve as basic ergonomic and safety support for officers that stand and walk on hard surfaces all day," the union said [9], adding that "it is basic safety and common decency for the workforce" [10].
I think the evidence points to a third reading. Taking the chairs away sets a physical standard for the job without a negotiation, since the union says it was not consulted [8]. TSA then described that standard in the same vocabulary that, under OPM's rule, can justify a firing [7]. The counter-case is TSA's own words. A spokesperson's phrase is not a disciplinary policy, and what TSA confirmed to Fortune was the removal of the chairs [2].
NFFE, which represents more than 110,000 workers, is one of the plaintiffs [11]. "This is yet another blatant effort by the Trump administration to make it easier to unjustly discipline and fire dedicated federal workers and diminish the critical public services they provide every day," NFFE National President Randy Erwin said [14]. He was speaking about the OPM rules. According to Fortune, workers have argued the fitness changes are part of a wider push to shrink the federal workforce [16].
The thesis is wrong if TSA never links an officer's ability to stand at the station to a fitness finding against that officer. If so, the chair removal is what the spokesperson called it, a "welcome change" [3].
What to watch
- A court ruling on the AFGE and NFFE challenge to OPM's suitability, fitness and expedited-firing rules.
- Whether AFGE TSA Council 100 moves from a public statement to a formal grievance or bargaining demand over the chairs.
- Further Horizon 25 changes under Cummins that TSA justifies in fitness-for-duty terms.