Air Controllers: FAA Contract ‘Offer’ Just Another Delaying Tactic

by Mike Hall, Jun 20, 2008

The Federal Aviation Administration’s so-called “settlement” offer, what the agency says is its “last and final offer,” is

…just another tactic to delay the only true resolution to the dispute between our organizations, a return to good faith negotiations.

That’s how Patrick Forrey, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), describes the second FAA contract proposal in as many years. Like the FAA’s previous proposal, it fails to address issues that weren’t resolved before the FAA unilaterally walked away from negotiations in September 2006.

After the FAA left the bargaining table in 2006, it imposed a set of harsh work and pay rules on air traffic controllers. Those draconian rules have worsened a staffing crisis in the nation’s towers and radar facilities.

The ranks of fully trained and certified controllers are down to their lowest levels since 1992. More than 2,600 controllers have left their jobs—nearly 20 percent of the workforce—after the new work rules were imposed.

In a letter to the FAA rejecting the latest offer, Forrey says:

With each controller departure, training becomes more unmanageable, fatigue is increased and the safety of the system is degraded. The reason employees are leaving the air traffic control ranks as quickly as they are is due to the FAA’s intransigence in refusing to reach a collective barging agreement with NATCA.

The union repeatedly has called for a resumption of contract talks with the FAA to address the staffing crisis, controller fatigue and other vital issues, but the Bush administration’s FAA has rebuffed every offer. A House-passed FAA reauthorization bill would require the agency to go back to the table with NATCA, but the Senate has yet to act. Forrey adds:

In fact, this proposal is worse than the proposal made one year ago…I remain willing and able to meet face-to-face, anytime, to engage in comprehensive collective bargaining. Passing settlement offers back and forth every few months is insufficient to bridge the gap caused by the FAA’s termination of bargaining in April 2006.

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