June 7, 2006
FAA Imposes Contract on Controllers
Twenty-five years after Ronald Reagan fired striking PATCO Air Traffic Controllers, the Bush Administration picked up where Reagan left off by abandoning negotiations with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and unilaterally imposing contract terms on 14,500 controllers.
Bush-appointed managers at the Federal Aviation Administration are demanding $2 billion in cost reductions from the employees who oversee the safety of 90,000 flights each day and more than 600 million people per year.
FAA management has stonewalled negotiations, declared an impasse and now imposed its draconian contract terms on employees. The shortsighted move will cause more controllers to retire and make it harder to recruit new employees, dangerously straining an already overburdened air traffic control system.
Congress is considering legislation, H.R. 5449 in the House and similar legislation in the Senate, to stop the FAA from unfairly imposing contract terms and restore good faith collective bargaining in the dispute. Click here for more information and to send a letter to your legislators to stop the FAA’s war on its workers.
