FAA-Imposed Labor Day Contract Means Less Sleep for Air Traffic Controllers

by James Parks, Sep 5, 2006

The Bush Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) used the Labor Day weekend to unilaterally impose work rules on its air traffic controllers—rules that air traffic controllers say will reduce passenger safety.

The move was a “brazen, arrogant trampling of the collective bargaining process,” National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Pat Forrey says:

It’s like getting fired on Christmas. It’s the worst, punch-in-the-gut blow to the morale of this workforce imaginable. But our position is very simple: We do not consider the imposed work rules to be valid because they were not negotiated and have not been ratified by the NATCA membership.

Some of the new rules pose real and potentially dangerous consequences for the safety of airline passengers and crews, NATCA says. For example:

• The new rules cut pay for current and future traffic controllers by as much as 30 percent, reduce pensions and, according to some aviation experts, could prompt more than 4,000 of the current 14,000 controller workforce to retire, exacerbating an already critical controller shortage.
• Under the imposed rules, controllers who do not feel they have gotten enough rest before a shift would be forced to work anyway. Controllers also can no longer take a break after two hours on the job, a longstanding practice that controllers say was a major way to fight fatigue.

Controller fatigue may have contributed to the fatal Comair crash in Lexington, Ky., last month. The lone air traffic controller on duty had only nine hours between two work shifts—and had only two hours sleep before going back on duty, according to the Associated Press.

With control towers already short of staff, controllers are forced to work overtime to ensure air travel is safe. The FAA claims the workers make enough money to be able to absorb a 30 percent pay cut. However, a big factor in controllers’ pay is forced overtime. On average, in some locations, controllers can be assigned 52 overtime shifts per year just to keep up with the huge number of planes in the air, NATCA says.

The result is massive fatigue across the air traffic control system. Overtime and fatigue were the controllers’ key issues in the contract negotiations.

In April, despite NATCA’s offer of more than $1.4 billion in pay and benefit cuts, the FAA cut off talks and declared an impasse. The U.S. House of Representatives on June 5 failed to pass a bill that would have forced the FAA to go back to the bargaining table with the nation’s air traffic controllers, enabling the FAA to impose the contract.

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