Barack Obama

FAA and controller union wrangle

Friday, January 27, 2006

NEW YORK NEWSDAY
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN

The Federal Aviation Administration and the nation's air traffic controllers have been in contract talks since last July.

So how close to an agreement are they? Not very.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents 15,000 controllers around the country, says talks are going well, and many key issues - with the exception of the crucial one, pay - have been resolved. But the FAA says the talks are stalled.

The union charges that senior FAA officials - not the ones the controllers are negotiating with - claim talks are going nowhere so that an impasse will be declared. That would trigger steps that could lead to unresolved issues being sent to Congress. If Congress didn't act within 60 days, the FAA could impose its last, best offer.

The FAA denies the union's assertions.

Yesterday, the union announced that three Democratic U.S. senators will propose legislation to deny the FAA the ability to unilaterally impose a contract. The give-and-take may ultimately affect the flying public.

A provision in the controller association charter prevents the union from striking or taking any job action. But association officials say the FAA is making controllers' jobs less attractive to younger people, who are needed as workers retire. About 703 unionized controllers work at three major metropolitan area airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark - and at the Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Westbury and Long Island MacArthur Airport in Bohemia.

"This is an agency that is very difficult to work for right now," said Doug Church, a controllers' union spokesman. "They're out to intimidate the workforce and assert these management rights."

The FAA says that's untrue and that the controllers' union is causing delays. FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the agency and the union have been working under the current system for a decade. "Now they want to change it in the middle of negotiations because they're not happy with the results," Martin said.

John Carr, union president, said in a teleconference yesterday that Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), will introduce a bill to create a three-step process for resolving an impasse.

If no agreement is reached, the FAA and union will use the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. If that doesn't work, the FAA would be able to send the contract to Congress, but would have to include the union's objections to the disputed portions.

The FAA could not implement the offer without legislation being passed; if Congress does not enact a bill within 60 days of receiving the FAA's offer, the agency and the union would go to binding arbitration. The FAA said the proposal will "disrupt the negotiating dynamic currently underlying the talks."