Washington Redskins players go long in favor of TSA union

Locked out of their own league by a labor dispute, a pair of Washington Redskins football players said this week they supported efforts by workers at the Transportation Security Administration to form a union.

The Huffington Post reported that current Redskins linebacker Lorenzo Alexander and former defensive end Dexter Manley went to Reagan National Airport this week in a show of solidarity with TSA workers there as a union election for the agency is in an ongoing runoff.

"With the lockout going on, it's good to come out and support a fellow union, even though we're not recognized anymore," Alexander told the website, alluding to the fact that the NFL players union was decertified by players earlier this year.

Alexander told the website that TSA workers "have a hard job as it is."

"They get a lot of flack for just doing their job because people feel they're being violated," he said. "I can understand why they feel unappreciated."

The National Treasury Employees Union and American Federation of Government Employees competed in an April election to represent TSA employees after TSA Administrator John Pistole agreed to allow employees to decide if they wanted a union. Neither union won 50 percent plus one of the votes cast, so a runoff began this week.

The Redskins players have some time to keep on an eye on the TSA elections because an appeals court issued a stay on a decision by a Minnesota U.S. District Court to overturn the NFL lockout in April. The case is being reviewed now by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.