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Air Traffic Controllers, FAA Get Set to Do Battle

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 20--Labor negotiations between the Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic controllers' union began Tuesday, with both sides making public their dissatisfaction with each other.

In what union representatives said was a "coordinated media assault," FAA representatives held news conferences at 11 a.m. local time in 20 busy airports across the nation, including Salt Lake City International, charging controllers make too much money under their current contract.

It was a curious start to a process that by law neither side can speak openly about, said Brady Allred, a Salt Lake City spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA).

"We want to negotiate with the FAA [in a way] that's fair to the FAA, fair to the traffic controllers and fair to the taxpayer," he said. "Our fear is, based on today's action, they are setting the stage for not wanting to work with us."

The existing contract, struck in 1998 and given a two-year extension in 2003, doesn't allow the agency enough flexibility in its daily operations of the air traffic control system, FAA spokesman Paul Turk said in Salt Lake City.

The contract expires in September. But Allred said there is no threat of a strike like the one in 1981, when more than 70 percent of the members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization walked off the job and were subsequently fired by President Reagan.

Allred said the NATCA charter forbids striking. Further, there is no "midnight hour" expiration of the 1998 contract, which self-renews if a timely labor agreement isn't reached.

In a move that could signal a willingness to get rough, the FAA hired Joe Miniace as its new deputy administrator for labor relations. Miniace is the former head of the Pacific Maritime Association, an organization of port owners that locked out 10,500 West Coast dockworkers during 2002 contract talks. The 10-day lockout at 29 Pacific ports, often mischaracterized as a strike, ended when President Bush intervened on the side of the Maritime Association and invoked the 1948 Taft-Hartley Act to reopen the ports. The lockout was estimated to cost the U.S. economy more than $10 billion.

The rhetoric war has been heating up since at least early June, when the FAA released a report critical of New York air traffic controllers and the union hired a public relations firm to bolster its favorable image with the public. Last week, FAA chief Marion Blakey and NATCA President John Carr sparred publicly over issues central to labor negotiations.

FAA spokesmen on Monday denied they were seeking public support for cutting air traffic controllers' pay. But they emphasized that labor costs account for 80 percent of the agency' operating budget. Total controller compensation has ballooned from $1.4 billion to nearly $2.4 billion, the agency claimed.

Turk said average controller compensation, including salary and benefits, is $165,000 per year, and that 10 percent of the controllers make $200,000 per year.

Carr responded that the FAA was trying to justify having fewer controllers guiding more planes and that a hiring and transfer freeze has left some airports with fewer air traffic controllers than required under FAA's own standards. That has contributed to spiraling overtime costs, he said.

The FAA's own standards require 56 controllers at Salt Lake City International Airport, but right now there are only 45, Allred said. Of those, only 39 are fully certified to work airplanes.

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Source: The Salt Lake Tribune

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