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

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.natca.org, www.senate.gov