Even before the
publication of the Obama bill, FAA Administrator Blakey was
attempting to educate the Senator about the state of affairs
surrounding the ongoing negotiation between the FAA and NATCA.
While Blakey makes a compelling case for the FAA in the January
13th, 2006 letter (submitted below), Obama and a number of other
Senate Democrats decided to inject themselves in these complex
negotiations quite a long time after they were initiated.
Administrator Blakey's Letter To Senator Barack Obama
Thank you for your letter of December 7, 2005 concerning the
ongoing contract negotiations between the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) and our controllers' union, the National Air
Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), and my recent call for
federal mediation. We have also since received a copy of your draft
bill to amend the current aviation law (49 U.S.C. §40122) by
changing Congress' longstanding role with respect to resolution of
impasses between the FAA and its labor unions over wages and
benefits. My senior staff recently met with a representative from
your office, Danny Sepulveda, as well. I thought it would be
helpful to respond to your letter, as well as your legislative
proposal, at the same time as the issues they raise are clearly
related.
At the outset, I want to assure you that agency negotiators are
working very hard, in good faith, to obtain an agreement with
NATCA. Negotiations resumed January 9th, and I am hopeful of
reaching an agreement this month. It has always been -- and remains
-- my strong preference to resolve our contract issues on a
voluntary basis to avoid use of the very impasse resolution
mechanism that your letter criticizes. As in any negotiation, the
agency stands prepared to compromise, but NATCA must show genuine
movement on its part on the central wage and work rule issues for
an agreement to be reached. Thus far, unfortunately, the union has
shown little willingness to engage us on those issues and has put
forward proposals that are completely unrealistic.
While we have been frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations
and the limited nature of progress at the bargaining table we have
not given up on a negotiated settlement. That is why we have called
upon NATCA to invite in the Federal Mediation and Conciliation
Service (FMCS). This was not an empty gesture on our part or simply
"the first step" toward declaring impasse. Rather, we think that
federal mediation could really help bring the two sides together
and avoid an impasse, and that is why we privately asked NATCA
twice to agree to FMCS involvement before calling on them publicly
to do so. I hope you will consider urging NATCA to accept
mediation.
Senator, the stakes for
the taxpayers in these negotiations could not be higher. Under the
1998 agreement, base salaries for controllers have soared by more
than 75 percent – from $64,877 in 1998 to $113,615 in 2005.
When you add on premium pay and benefits (including special
retirement payments not generally available to other federal
employees), average cash compensation now exceeds $128,000 a year
and total compensation, $166,000 a year. By comparison, FAA safety
inspectors with considerable expertise and experience make
significantly less. Current controller salaries are not only far
out of line with the rest of government, they are also glaringly
inappropriate given the financial circumstances of the commercial
airline industry the system serves. This contract has also been
burdensome to the agency in other equally important ways,
restricting our operational flexibility in key areas including
scheduling, staffing, and technology deployment. The FAA faces a
major challenge in modernizing the air traffic system so that we
can accommodate future passenger growth, and we must have the
ability to operate more like a business with reasonable labor
rates.
We cannot afford an agreement like 1998 that saddled the FAA
with excessive costs, archaic work rules, and restrictions on our
ability to modernize the system.
For a variety of reasons
we would not support any effort to alter the statutory impasse
mechanism, such as the bill you plan to introduce or any of the
similar proposals NATCA has pressed in the past. The proposed bill
would disrupt the negotiating dynamic currently underlying the
talks between NATCA and the FAA, essentially changing the rules of
the game during half time. It would likely prompt the union to be
even more aggressive in its demands. Given that the pay proposal
the union has on the table would already cost $2.02 billion over 5
years, this would not be a wise course of action. In fact, last
October, the Administration advised the Senate in its Statement of
Administration Policy on the then-pending DOT appropriations bill,
H.R. 3058, that the President's senior advisers would recommend a
veto of a similar proposal to alter how impasses are resolved if it
were added to the bill.
We do not agree with the premise being offered for these
proposals that the current law has a structural flaw or imbalance
that needs to be remedied. The impasse mechanism contained in the
FAA's governing statutes is unique for a DOT agency and cannot be
understood in isolation. That mechanism was part of a carefully
balanced approach in which the labor unions at FAA were given the
right to bargain over compensation and benefits – a right
that virtually no other. federal workforce possesses. Most federal
agencies simply set compensation and benefits on a unilateral
basis. The logical quid pro quo for allowing negotiations over
compensation and benefits was permitting the agency, following good
faith negotiation, to implement its proposal after giving Congress
the final say in any pay dispute. The current statute has allowed
NATCA to enjoy unprecedented wage gains. In fact, our proposal
would preserve the base salaries and most premium pay categories
for all existing controllers by "grandfathering" current wage
rates.
Adopting NATCA's
suggestion for binding arbitration, and letting an arbiter now
decide the outcome of economic impasses, would essentially give a
third party ultimate decision making authority that appropriately
belong to the President and the Congress. We believe that to ensure
accountability to the flying public and the taxpayers, the FAA
should maintain authority to bargain over compensation and benefits
and, if necessary, determine how impasses are resolved.
I want to acknowledge your legitimate interest in and concern
for the welfare of our air traffic controllers. We are striving for
an agreement that is fair to controllers, fair to the agency and
fair to the taxpayer. I pledge to keep you, as well as members of
our authorizing and appropriating committees, informed of the
status of negotiations and hope that our next communication will be
to share news of genuine progress. In the meantime, we would be
happy to provide you with further information.
Sincerely, Marion C. Blakey