Contract negotiations have reached an impasse. Basically the FAA has had it in for NATCA from the get-go. FAA officials had no intention to negotiate a fair contract at all. Before the FAA's Marion Blakey gets her tee-vee time trashing our nation's Air Traffic Controllers, let's hear from NATCA President John Carr:
It is clear, now, that the FAA never had ANY intention of negotiating an
>agreement in good faith with NATCA. In fact, it is abundantly clear that
>the FAA has no intention of negotiating an agreement in good faith with ANY
>of their employees. FAA Administrator Marion Blakey has yet to reach a
>voluntary term agreement with any of her employees except for AFSCME, and
>the agency has refused to implement that contract to this day.
>
>FAA Administrator Marion Blakey does not respect work and she does not
>respect workers. I have been in virtually daily contact with her, and I am
>deeply disappointed in her conduct over the last week. I have appealed to
>her to get personally involved in contract talks and she has refused. I
>have asked her to discuss specifics of our proposals together with me, and
>she has feigned ignorance, claiming, "I'm not a labor relations
>specialist." I have asked her to meet together with the FMCS in a
>principals-only meeting and she has refused. In conversation after
>conversation the FAA Administrator has avoided doing any real work on the
>issues between us.
>
>Now it has all become clear. While the FAA Administrator was making small
>talk with me she had her minions preparing their submission to the
>Congress. You see, the FAA walked out of contract talks shortly after 3pm
>on Wednesday, and by 6pm they already had sent a several hundred page,
>bound, collated, multi-color contract submission to the Congress.
>Stunningly, the FAA Administrator once AGAIN disregarded Federal Law
>(49USC40122,) by having her puppets create, and then submit the "union's
>objections" and the "reasons for those objections." By later Wednesday
>evening the agency had posted PDF Executive Summaries on their websites,
>put forward press releases, distributed Congressional packages and sent out
>employee notices.
>
>This betrayal exposes the FAA lie. On Friday, the FAA insisted that
>negotiations were continuous and ongoing. FAA Spokesmodel Greg Martin
>bleated to the press on Friday that contract talks continued. Over the
>weekend, the Administrator alluded privately to the parties getting
>together during the week to continue negotiations. During conversations
>early this week, the FAA Administrator again suggested that bargaining was
>continuing. Meanwhile, the agency had made the decision to declare
>impasse, and was secretly preparing their submission, even as their
>contract team pretended to engage the union across the bargaining table.
>
>NATCA convened an emergency telcon between the NATCA National Executive
>Board and the Contract Team on Tuesday evening at five pm. Subsequent to
>these discussions the Contract Team set about modifying NATCA's offer in
>order to address specific concerns of the FAA Administrator as described to
>the President of the Union. The Administrator specifically requested a cut
>to the bottoms of the pay bands, and this was accomplished. The
>Administrator specifically mentioned hard to staff facilities and the need
>for a program to address their unique situations, and this was addressed,
>as well. The NATCA Contract Team worked nonstop for the remainder of the
>afternoon and evening to address the FAA Administrator's concerns. This
>work was completed at 10pm on Tuesday, and the economic proposal was
>hand-delivered to the FAA at that time.
>
>On Wednesday, the parties met at 9:30am to go over each other's
>submissions. The agency's pay proposal remained virtually unchanged from
>their first proposal of July of last year: 2 BILLION dollars in wage cuts
>and givebacks, and a 30% cut to the pay bands. The creation of a whole new
>pay system, invented out of whole cloth, devoid of any research or rigor.
>The imposition of pay cuts and career-long pay freezes to virtually every
>single working controller.
>
>NATCA offered an economic package that represented 1.4 BILLION dollars in
>savings over the life of the agreement. We will be releasing both the
>NATCA and FAA initial proposals shortly, and we will be releasing the NATCA
>and FAA last offers on pay, as well.
>
>In addition to the economic proposal, the agency failed in their obligation
>to negotiate in good faith on many other articles, and has submitted to the
>Congress disputed articles covering
>
>Annual Leave
>Child Care Subsidy
>Tuition For Dependent Children Outside the CONUS
>Student Loan Repayment Program
>Prime Time Leave Periods
>Work Assignments
>Holidays
>Relief Periods
>Overtime
>Dress Code
>
>We have filed Unfair Labor Practice charges against the FAA for bad faith
>bargaining on Articles 18 and 108, and we have filed negotiability appeals
>on articles 111 (Flight Training,) 116 (Child Care Subsidy,) 125 (Runway
>Incursion Prevention,) 143 (Student Load Repayment Program,) and 150 (ATC
>Facility Levels.)
>
>The agency has clearly ignored the will of Congress by failing in their
>obligation to reach a voluntary collective bargaining agreement with the
>Union. The FAA failed in their obligation to the taxpayer, the Congress,
>and the employees. But if you carefully consider what has transpired here,
>the FAA Administrator has given us a gift, really: The best possible
>opportunity for us to fix this problem, once and for all. Not just for
>this negotiation, and not just for NATCA. For all time, and for all of us.
>
>We are prepared for this battle, and the victory will be sweeter than any
>contract ever could be. It will restore fairness to our system and to our
>futures, once and for all.
>
>This victory is within our grasp, and together we are just the team to do
>it. With your help, we will lead FAA employees in restoring fairness and
>accountability to collective bargaining in our agency. With your hard
>work, we will take our case directly to the American public and the
>Congress, and together we will prevail.
>
>We will have much more to say in the coming weeks and months as this debate
>unfolds before the Congress and the public. We will have information and
>instructions on how to get involved for everyone from current employees to
>CTI students and their families. In the short term, if you haven't visited
>www.fairfaa.com , now might be a good time to do that. Send a letter to
>your Congressional representatives, and call them using the toll free
>number.
>
>Stay strong, stay united and keep the faith. For the last nine months of
>negotiations the FAA Administrator and her team have shown you the level of
>their trust, honor and integrity. When it mattered most...in the eleventh
>hour of contract negotiations...they lied. Now, and for the next sixty
>days, we will show the FAA, the public and the Congress the level of our
>trust, honor and integrity. And on the sixty-first day, we'll see where we
>stand.
>
>For my part, I will stand where I have always stood: With you, the men and
>women who stood fast on the morning of September 11th. With you, the men
>and women who drove south, towards the air traffic control facilities on
>the Gulf Coast, as everyone else drove north. With you, the men and women
>who worked Bagram and Baghdad Towers. With you, the very best and
>brightest in public service, who have given so much to our nation and who
>have asked for nothing more than a fair opportunity to negotiate in good
>faith.
>
>We know now that the FAA Administrator does not stand with you.
>
>She stands alone.
>
>In Solidarity,
>
>John S. Carr
>President
>NATCA
>AFL-CIO
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