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FAA Imposes Contract on Controllers, But Union Vows to Fight On

Air Safety Week, June 19, 2006

Although the air traffic controllers and House Democrats vow to continue their fight to force FAA back into negotiations with the main controllers' union, they appear to have an increasingly uphill battle.

Throughout the contentious 10-month negotiations, FAA maintained that it must curb compensation costs and regain a degree of management control over its controllers, while the controllers insisted there must be enough personnel in place to safely manage the nation's air traffic (Air Safety Week, Jan. 23).

Now, it's getting increasingly likely that FAA will have its way.

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First, on June 5, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey declared that Congress' 60-day period for intervening between the agency and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) was over, and the agency was now free to implement its version of the contract provisions (Blakey's full statement is at www.aviationtoday.com; click on "Daily News Archive" and then "June 6").

Two days later, House legislation (H.R. 5449), which would have obliged FAA to resume talks with the controllers, narrowly failed to get the two-thirds majority vote that it needed to pass (with 271 legislators voting for it and 148 opposed). A two-thirds majority was need because the bill was being considered "under suspension" of the normal rules of debate.

That left controllers and their supporters on Capitol Hill trying to push through another House measure, H.R. 4755, to oblige FAA and NATCA to submit to the results of binding arbitration. That measure also has become the focus of a "discharge petition" drive, in an effort to force it to the House floor for a full debate and a regular vote. If that ever happens, all it needs is a simple majority to pass.

In the wake of H.R. 5449's defeat, the petition for H.R. 4755 quickly garnered 197 signatures, all of them Democrats. It needs 218 signatures to pass and force a vote. But since June 7, the petition has picked up no additional supporters. So there it stands, although an aide to Rep. Jerry Costello (D- Ill.), a key sponsor of both House bills and the chief architect of the petition drive, tells Air Safety Week that his boss is continuing the fight to get Republicans names. Seventy-six Republicans voted for H.R. 5449.

If legislation eventually manages to get out of the House, attention would turn to the Senate, where there's currently no legislation similar to H.R. 5449 or H.R. 4755. A Democratic aide for the Senate Transportation Committee says that considering how things have just gone in the House, the sense in the Senate is that there's little sense in bringing forth a measure there.

President Bush has indicated he would veto such legislation. Then again, Bush has yet to veto any legislation during his presidency.

In the meantime, NATCA and the Democrats insist that, even though H.R. 5449 was defeated, the near two-thirds vote in support of continued negotiations raises the issue's profile.

NATCA President John Carr said, "Despite tremendous political pressure and an intense misinformation campaign from the White House, the FAA and [the Department of Transportation], 271 members voted in favor of HR 5449 -- 65 percent of all those members voting."

In a similar vein, Costello said, "the bill was brought up under suspension of the rules in order to scuttle the issue, but the opposite has happened. A strong majority has stood up for the collective bargaining rights of our air traffic controllers..."

Just over two months ago, FAA declared a stalemate in its talks with NATCA, and sent its contract proposal as well as NATCA's to Congress. The agency declared that if Congress didn't act on the situation within 60 days, it had the right to impose its proposal.

Moreover, FAA says its followingfederal law enacted in the mid 1990s, P.L. 104-264. The language about waiting 60 days for Congress is indeed there, but that apparently is supposed to come after the step of using federal mediators.

At best, it seems that the law is rather vague on which option FAA is supposed to use, says NATCA spokesman Doug Church.

Meanwhile, FAA says that it is already implementing its proposal. But until a lot of training and some other tasks have been done, personnel procedures will still closely resemble the terms of the previous contract from 1998, an FAA spokesman says. There is no timetable for making specific changes.

>>Contacts: House Transportation Committee (Democratic side), (202) 225- 4472; FAA Public Affairs Office, (202) 267-3883; NATCA, (202) 220-9813<<

It's in the Law, FAA Says

FAA points to federal law from the mid 1990s to justify its implementation of its air traffic controller personnel-management proposal, after waiting 60 days for Congress to decide if it wanted to intervene (see accompanying story). Below is the exact language from the law in question, Public Law 104-264, Sec. 253.

(1) CONSULTATION AND NEGOTIATION. ? In developing and making changes to the personnel management system initially implemented by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration on April 1, 1996, the Administrator shall negotiate with the exclusive bargaining representatives of employees of the Administration certified under section 7111 of title 5 and consult with other employees of the Administration.

Government Industry

FAA Imposes Contract on Controllers, But Union Vows to Fight On

Air Safety Week, June 19, 2006

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