***GRASSROOTS ACTION ALERT***

The house will bring FAA reauthorization to the floor again this week (the best guess is Wednesday) when the rules committee figures out a procedure for a recommit vote.  It is expected that John Carr will be calling for a massive one or two day grassroots effort a day before the vote.  Needless to say it is beyond critical that we have extensive participation from the field with calls to your Congressmen and probably Senators before this vote.  John Mica continues to try and exempt some airports from privatization in exchange for Republican votes, contract out what they can for now and get the rest of the ATC system next time.  Actually he has a plan to get us all soon, which you can read about in a few paragraphs.  The grassroots effort will be short in duration so that it will be targeted right before the vote and we don’t “peak” to early.  Here is a little tidbit for the Missouri constituents about how things are on the Senate side.

National Journal's CongressDaily

October 23, 2003 Thursday 10:30 am Eastern Time

HEADLINE: Missouri Republicans Viewed As Undecided On FAA Towers

BODY:
As the debate continues over private air traffic control language in the FAA reauthorization, Missouri Republican Sens. Christopher (Kit) Bond and Jim Talent are "still on the fence about whether to prohibit privatization," according to John Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Carr joined Missouri Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay Wednesday to urge the entire Missouri delegation to support not only stripping the privatization language from the reauthorization, but also reinserting a provision, included in the House and Senate bills, expressly barring privatization in the future.

In June, both Talent and Bond voted to prohibit privatization, but Carr said Wednesday he was receiving mixed signals from the senators.

In response to Carr's statement, Talent said he opposes privatizing control towers in his home state, but he indicated he might be willing to support a bill that included privatization language.

Calls to Bond's office were not returned Wednesday.

***Air Traffic Control … Sir yes Sir!***

In his newest twist; John Mica will be holding hearings on November 6^th to see if he can put all of ATC under control of the military.  He states that this will keep it in the government, control salaries (bye bye reclass) and preclude any Union rights (bye bye NATCA).  If this were to become a reality it is anybody’s guess as to what the final product would look like.  Either way it would not be good for you and me.  Pay, retirement, workplace rights … heck you name it … would be forfeit.  For those of you who have been sleeping the blissful slumber of ignorance, now would be a great time to wake up.  It doesn’t matter if you are tower or center, new hire or T-minus three from retirement, a few powerful people in leadership positions, with the White House leading the charge, are going directly after you.  We can fight this if you give us the tools.  Call your representatives when asked and for crying out loud give to the NATCA PAC!  Here is a bit more press on the subject.

October 23, 2003

Unions oppose transferring air traffic control to the military

By Chris Strohm
cstrohm@govexec.com

Unions representing airline industry workers will fight a plan to transfer the nation's air traffic control workforce to the military, saying such a move would create a political food fight and jeopardize aviation safety.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., is floating a proposal that would shift command of the air traffic control workforce to the Defense Department. Mica plans to hold a hearing Nov. 6 to discuss the possibility.

"As we assess the future of our air traffic control systems, this would be a good time to consider the merits of transferring air traffic control to the military," said Gary Burns, a spokesman for Mica.

Burns said Mica is making the proposal because the military is highly professional and does not "get bogged down in union politics." He added that Mica believes such a move would save money.

However, he acknowledged the proposal would not fly with unions. "By transferring this function over to the military, you have no more union jobs," he said.

Tens of thousands of airline industry workers are employed by the Federal Aviation Administration and represented by unions such as the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) and the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS).

During the last few months, the unions have been fighting against language inserted into the FAA reauthorization bill that would allow the privatization of air traffic controller jobs. Republicans inserted the language during conference negotiations, even though the original reauthorization bills passed by both the House and Senate expressly prohibited the privatization of the air traffic control workforce. Now the unions may face a battle to prevent their jobs from going to the military.

"Make no mistake, we are firmly against this idea because it would not be a wise move for the national airspace system," said NATCA spokesman Doug Church. "We have the best system in the world right now and there is no reason to change it."

Church added that his union's opposition isn't about just protecting union jobs, but about protecting the safety of passengers and airlines.

PASS President Tom Brantley said in a statement on Wednesday that aviation safety is a national priority and should not become a political football.

"America's armed services are there to respond to threats to our national security," he said, "and they seem to be pretty occupied these days fulfilling their mission. To suggest injecting these dedicated men and women into the middle of a political food fight is just an attempt to divert attention from the real issue at hand-selling certification of the air traffic control system to private interests."

Burns acknowledged the military is stretched thin with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, but said he believes Defense has the capacity to absorb the responsibility of conducting civil air traffic control.

"From a policy proposal, we're not suggesting that you put your special force operatives in there," he said. "We're suggesting that they have personnel that work on military control towers and we're questioning whether this should be expanded”.

 ***Money and Venom***

The Transportation Appropriations bill, which has all of the nasty language on core comp, sick leave, retirements etc. that I documented in earlier updates will be wrapped in to what is called an “omnibus” bill.  The Senate should take up the House passed bill this week for a vote.  The bill is gigantic, Transportation and Treasury (our worry) will be combined with appropriations bills from Agriculture, commerce-justice-state, District of Columbia, foreign operations, and VA-HUD to make one big happy omnibus bill.  This method is used when congress is way behind the power curve in timely passage of individual bills and lump them all together to save time.  The problem is our own bill is pretty big and it is a challenge to make folks take the time to address hostile language.  Combine it with five other agencies bills and the difficulty increases exponentially.  I’ll let you know how things turn out.

I’m going to quit here and not tempt the “Blue Screen of Death” gods any further.  Have a great week and please be ready to call your representatives in Washington when asked.

Grant Anderson
ganderson@natca.org
pin #50501