It seemed impossible, at a time when fingernail clippers were being confiscated by the hundreds at American airports, that a man could slip past a checkpoint at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with a bag of knives, mace and other weapons.
But security experts in the aviation industry were not surprised to learn that the workers running the scanners at that United Airlines terminal last Saturday were employed by Argenbright Security, the nation's largest and most frequently criticized airport-security company. The incident in Chicago only added to the long list of security breaches involving the company.
Argenbright has come to dominate the industry in the last 20 years with 6,000 checkpoint screeners, almost all of whom make little more than minimum wage and receive no health benefits or sick days. Its lapses and high turnover have become the principal argument of those in Congress who want to federalize airport security.
The company
The company -- which has 40 percent of the nation's airport security business -- has been an aggressive competitor in the battle to get security contracts with major airlines, rising from a small polygraph operation in 1979 to a diverse corporation extending far beyond the security industry. Its security operation alone sold for US$185 million last year, and its revenues at just one airport, in Philadelphia, were US$6 million in 1998, according to legal documents.
But as the airlines sought to cut costs and award security contracts to the lowest bidder, screening companies began what many in the industry call a race to the bottom, hiring employees at the lowest possible wage and cutting corners to keep checkpoints staffed, with turnover approaching 400 percent a year in some airports.
Argenbright's rise has been accompanied by federal convictions on conspiracy to avoid performing background checks for employees in Philadelphia last year, a jail term for one company supervisor, and probation for the company in Pennsylvania and Illinois. A judge ruled the company illegally tried to dismiss employees after they went on strike to protest low wages and benefits.
Not blind
"The corporation couldn't have been blind to what was going on in places like Philadelphia," said Billie Vincent, the director of civil aviation security at the Federal Aviation Administration in the 1980s and now president of an airline consulting firm in Virginia. "The system in effect forced them into dishonest activity and made it impossible to do the job without cutting corners."
On Sept. 11, two teams of hijackers carrying boxcutters passed through Argenbright checkpoints at airports in Washington and Newark, and at two other companies' checkpoints in Boston. Repeated security violations also led to the company's departure from Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
And the federal government said a few weeks ago that even after Argenbright agreed to conduct better background checks on its workers, it continued to hire them by the hundreds without adequately examining their pasts. Attorney General John Ashcroft accused the company of committing "an astonishing pattern of crimes that could have directly jeopardized public safety" at 13 of the nation's largest airports where it screens passengers.
"Argenbright Holdings continues to violate laws that protect the safety of Americans who travel by commercial airlines," Ashcroft said. "Our investigation shows Argenbright Holdings has hired screeners who have disqualifying criminal convictions, including convictions for theft, burglary and illegal drug possession, and that Argenbright Holdings made false statements about its employees' backgrounds."
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