WASHINGTON>> The Department of Homeland Security said Friday it is ending the collective bargaining agreement with the tens of thousands of frontline employees at the Transportation Security Administration, marking a major effort to dismantle union protections under the Trump administration.

The TSA union called it on “unprovoked attack” and vowed to fight it.

The department criticized the union whose staffers are responsible for keeping weapons off airplanes and protecting air travel. Offiicals said poor performers were being allowed to stay on the job and the agreement was hindering the ability of the organization “to safeguard our transportation systems and keep Americans safe” — an assessment that faced immediate pushback from the union.

“This action will ensure Americans will have a more effective and modernized workforces across the nation’s transportation networks,” the agency said in a statement.

The American Federation of Government Employees is the union representing the TSA workers. The federation and TSA’s then-administrator, David Pekoske, signed the CBA in May. It came amid a push by Homeland Security to improve the pay of frontline workers, which has historically lagged behind other government employees.

The union said the order would strip collective bargaining rights from about 47,000 transportation security officers. Those are the people responsible for staffing airports and checking to make sure passengers do not have weapons or explosives. The decision comes at a time of increasing passenger travel.

The Trump administration has been laying the groundwork to weaken or eliminate protections for federal workers as it moves swiftly to shrink the bureaucracy. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to department and agency leaders demanding an accounting of time spent by employees in the last fiscal year on union matters such as contract negotiations and dispute resolutions.

Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump disavowed, calls for immediately ending the TSA union and eventually privatizing the agency.