Mina O’Reilly is a Transportation Security Officer for the TSA at Logan Airport in Boston
Mina O’Reilly is a Transportation Security Officer for the TSA at Logan Airport in Boston (my hometown) and is asked to discipline an employee responsible for a security breach that resulted in a 45 minute closure of one of the terminals during peak travel times, causing not only a threat to traveler safety but in innumerable travel delays across the country. As you will find when reading the case, O’Reilly must also consider several serious work force issues compounding the situation and the concerns of TSA executives and the airlines who are very concerned about the breach and how she will handle it.
- If you were O’Reilly, what would you do? As you make your decision remember that you are limited by the specific penalties that are identified in the TSA”S contract with the union. It is clear that whatever she decides will have consequential ramifications at every level of Logan Airport’s operations.
- Please know that this case requires you to make a decision so please make sure you determine and specify a penalty for the TSA employee. Justify your answer by describing why it is the best option, but also support your choice by explaining why the other options are not appropriate.
- As always, think about the ideas and concepts we have studied thus far, but most especially, consider the material presented in Human Resources, Chapter 12, and reflect back to concepts in Chapter 2, Decision Making and Chapter 3, Environment and Culture.
Remember that you need to apply a minimum of ten terms from our course material to support your answer, so I can see that you are actually learning and applying the concepts that we are covering. The Case Study Questions are below.
Finally, to make you more aware of the importance of TSA and the hazards of a security breach, I have attached a link to a Video of the CBS New York nightly news that describes the aftermath of a breach at John F. Kennedy International Airport a couple of years ago.
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/
Case Study Questions:
- What is it like to be a Transportation Security Officer? Briefly consider their working conditions and what TSA employees give and get. (If you are interested, go on the TSA website and look at the salary and benefits paid to an entry level TSA employee in Chicago in 2020.)
- Very briefly describe what happened at Logan Airport? Why was this important?
- What should Mina O’Reilly do with Ludo Sanchez? (Please make a decision based on what TSA’s standard policies were. You cannot create penalties of your own choosing because these practices were agreed upon by the government and the TSA union.)
- Defend your decision! Explain why it is the correct choice and why the other options are not suitable.
- What are the consequences of Ms. O’Reilly’s decision? How should she communicate her decision to her superiors, to other TSA employees? (Think about the impact of this breach on the entire City of Boston, the TSA administration in Washington, DC, Logan Airport staff and employees, the other TSA employees in Boston and most of all, the airlines and travelers? (Remember, all of Terminal 3 was shut down for several hours; Have you ever had a flight delayed or cancelled and then missed your connecting flight?)
- Can TSA officials prevent future security breaches? How?
- Would the outcome of this case be different if TSA were a private contractor? Why or why not?
- Looking back on our course so far, what did you learn from this case? Please remember to apply TEN course concepts throughout your analysis and show how they are relevant?
Answer preview Mina O’Reilly is a Transportation Security Officer for the TSA at Logan Airport in Boston
APA
1032 words