NEWARK — Capping a yearlong investigation prompted by reports of theft in a baggage room at Newark Liberty International Airport, federal aviation officials moved to fire 25 employees today and suspend 19 others for failing to ensure that checked bags were being screened adequately.

The 44 Newark employees served with termination or suspension proposals, combined with eight dismissals proposed in June under the same investigation, make it the largest personnel action taken by the Transportation Security Administration since the agency was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Under TSA labor rules, the employees, who were not identified, have seven days to respond, by accepting or rejecting the actions outright, or offering to take a lesser penalty. A union official said appeals were likely.

"TSA holds all of its employees to the highest professional and ethical standards and has a zero tolerance for misconduct in the workplace," agency spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in a statement. "Accountability is an important aspect of our work and TSA takes prompt and appropriate action with any employee who does not follow our procedures and engages in misconduct."

The total of 52 employees caught up in the Newark probe surpasses the 48 screeners and supervisors disciplined by the TSA last year at Honolulu International Airport for failing to check bags for explosives.

The Newark employees ranged from entry-level transportation screening officers to the airport’s TSA leadership team under Federal Security Director Donald Drummer, who remains in charge.

Drummer has led an effort to improve performance at Newark Liberty since taking charge of the airport’s screening operation in April 2011, after a string of high-profile security lapses and plummeting morale.

Today’s action was applauded by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who last year asked the Inspector General’s Office at the Department of Homeland Security to look into security operations at Newark Liberty in light of recurring security breaches.

"TSA has taken meaningful steps to improve performance," said Lautenberg, vice chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. "I will keep working to ensure all TSA employees are properly managed, trained and equipped to keep Newark Airport secure."

Today’s announcement prompted a different response from Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, who has been a vocal TSA critic and an advocate for allowing airport screening to return to private hands.

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"Clearly this is not a Newark problem or a Honolulu problem, or a problem isolated to one or two airports," Mica said in a statement. "I lay the blame at TSA because it’s a bureaucracy that doesn’t know how to manage an army of 65,000 employees."

The investigation was run by the Inspector General’s Office in conjunction with the TSA’s Office of Inspection.

The inquiry began last fall, following reports that a TSA employee was stealing from checked luggage in a baggage screening room away from public view at Newark’s Terminal B. That person later resigned.

But what began as a limited investigation into suspected property theft quickly evolved into a wide-ranging probe of lax screening procedures and inadequate supervision threatening public safety.

Using hidden security cameras during November and December, the TSA said it caught dozens of screeners on tape failing to physically search bags that had been flagged during the X-ray process. Investigators also determined that supervisors and managers had failed to ensure bags were searched.

Farbstein said today’s action "reaffirms our strong commitment to ensure the safety of the traveling public and to hold all our employees to the highest standards of conduct and accountability."

Stacy Bodtmann, a Newark screener and official of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents 44,000 screeners nationwide, said it was likely at least some of the employees would appeal the proposals.

TIMING QUESTIONED

Bodtmann declined to comment on the merits of today’s action, noting she had not reviewed the proposal packets, which include copies of employee videotapes.

But Bodtmann questioned the timing of the action, noting it came less than two weeks before the Nov. 1 effective date for screeners’ arbitration rights won by her union as a side deal in conjunction with recently completed negotiations for TSA employees’ first collective bargaining agreement. A nationwide electronic ratification vote on the agreement is underway.

Under current TSA labor rules, Bodtmann said employee appeals of disciplinary actions are heard by an internal TSA panel known as the Disciplinary Review Board.

Under arbitration, however, appeals will be heard by the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent panel outside the TSA. She said all of the employees proposed for dismissal in June had appealed, though at least some of the dismissals had been upheld.

"The rush to give serve those proposals has to do with arbitration going into effect on Nov. 1," Bodtmann said.

Farbstein dismissed the assertion, saying arbitration will only apply to disciplinary measures involving conduct that occurs after Nov. 1.

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