HONOLULU -- The man who blew the whistle on safety problems at Honolulu International Airport told KITV 4 News that the Transportation Safety Agency is retaliating against him.

Complaints forced TSA at the airport to stop the unsafe storage of hundreds of pounds of flammable materials like cigarette lighters seized at airport checkpoints.

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Robert Cravens fears that he will be fired by the Transportation Security Administration for bringing to light safety problems at the airport, so he decided to talk to KITV 4 News.

Cravens, 52, was a property clerk who inventoried thousands of banned items seized or surrendered at Honolulu International Airport. He said TSA had no plan to store hundreds of pounds of cigarette lighters seized since April -- along with other flammables, like matches, fireworks, paint and paint thinner.

So huge quantities of the stuff were being kept just steps away from the TSA operations center and an employee break room.

"It's just elementary hazmat 101 -- that you could possibly have an explosion," Cravens said. Starting June 1, he said he complained verbally and in writing about the situation. He lodged 12 complaints.

"I was complaining, complaining, complaining and they took no action," Cravens said. So he went outside the TSA to the U.S. Labor Department, the State Health Department and others. They inspected the site, found unsafe conditions and recommended changes that TSA made in the last week.

Cravens said in the middle of last month, after he'd been complaining for two weeks, managers transferred him to another job and cut his hours drastically.

"This comes under retaliatory tactics and it's unacceptable," Cravens said. He said his work schedule was reduced from 30 or more hours a week down to 18 hours. Because of the drop in hours he lost his medical benefits.

"And they cut my days down to four hours a day. It's just blatant retaliation," Cravens said. Sidney Hayakawa, who oversees TSA operations in Honolulu, said Cravens "has not been re-assigned because of what he said. We are investigating him because of an allegation of harassment against him by another employee."

"The totally false, outrageous allegations are that I harassed an employee and threatened an employee and that I falsified property clerk documents," Cravens said.

Cravens said he lodged a similar complaint against a female co-worker in the property clerk's office and believes she turned around and filed the same complaint against him.

Hayakawa said he transferred Cravens to separate the two employees with the conflict, as is called for in TSA personnel regulations.