Reaping Seeds Sown In 1981, 1993

By PATCO President Ron Taylor

The FAA has just released its 97-page report entitled "A Plan For The Future, The FAA Ten Year Strategy For The Air Traffic Controller Workforce." These guys are still operating in a time warp and this brainstorm idea has all the characteristics of what they said they were going to do, back during the PATCO strike of 1981 and the promise to rebuild the ATC system even better than ever, so let’s try this again.

 
This latest scramble to hire desperately needed Air Traffic Controllers only shows that this agency has been out of control for 23-years, and part of their light bulb filament came on when they realized that the workforce hired after the 1981 PATCO strike and the subsequent firing of its members by President Ronald Reagan, was about to retire. 
 
Now, the FAA should have and could have avoided this whole crisis management circus back in 1993 when President Clinton lifted the ban against hiring PATCO Controllers. Then, more than 5,000 highly qualified PATCO controllers re-applied for their jobs. Of that number, only about 846 were actually hired back. The operative word for the FAA on hiring back any more PATCO Controllers has been " litigate" rather than "alleviate" the staffing problems.

PATCO has been fighting the FAA for years, alleging age discrimination against its members. There are currently cases all over the country. Currently, PATCO has filed for an injunction filed against the FAA in Tennessee federal court. The union is now awaiting a hearing to address its allegations of FAA discrimination.
 
The agency states in its report, that it plans to hire 12,500 controllers over the next ten years. The breakdown shows that in FY 05 the FAA plans to hire only 435 controllers and only 1,249 in 2006. In the plan, the FAA declarees it will "leverage the existing inventory of potential candidates in FY 05 and FY 06 to meet the demand for new hires." If the FAA is really sincere in its latest "leverage" scheme, then its leaders should address the 3,653 PATCO controllers who have been on their list of eligible re-hires for the past 11 years -- and yet, remain sitting by the phone, waiting for the recall. Based upon the FAA's own statistics in this report, it is quite obvious that this is not their intent. That leaves PATCO's only remedy in a court of law.

FMI: www.patco81.com