Things didn’t go exactly as planned when our allies on the committee presented a General Accounting Office review of the report that said the comparisons between FAA and Contract towers were inappropriate based on the data used.  The IG said that fact was in his report (buried deep in the fine print after all the headlines) but it was still pretty damaging.  Marion Blakey and others spoke in support of keeping the “flexibility” to do something she keeps telling us she has no intention of doing.  All in all it could have been much worse for us but their hoped for media circus resulted, in my best guess assessment, with a push.

Later in the week an attempt was made to recommit the entire flight100 conference report back to conference.  This never made it to the floor because of a rule infraction but we can expect to see it again next week.  What did occur is a one-month continuing resolution was passed which funds the FAA and projects at 2003 levels.  Our Administrator has been scaring the daylights out of FAA employees with statements that the big bad controllers union was going to shut the Agency and cause furloughs.  This of course didn’t happen but we all need to be cognizant of this type of rhetoric and its intended purpose in creating discourse within different lines of business within the Agency.  Ideally she would create an “everybody against us” attitude within the FAA and she has had some success in getting a start on this.  The staffing, budget, you name it problems are being characterized as all air traffic’s (specifically the controllers) fault and this has even stirred some dissension within our own bargaining units as well as kindled some big facility vs. small facility discourse with a few individual members.

Please view this for what it is.  The only folks who followed the correct legislative process in this are our allies.  An abrogation of Civics101 occurred when just the Republican leadership of the conference committee struck unified language from both chambers of Congress. This occurred with no notice or debate and against how the rank and file Republican members had already voted. Our founding fathers viewed a separation of powers as important enough to make it the cornerstone of this country’s governmental process. If this stands, a couple of legislators under executive pressure will in effect be writing legislation for the entire country regardless of the wishes of a vast bipartisan majority in congress and, needless to say, there are a whole lot of Congressmen and Senators who are not keen on that idea.

I could wax on for much longer about the dangers of this and the threats to you as citizens and government employees by the Administrations (both White House and FAA) but I have done so in other updates and if your not getting the flick by now, another few paragraphs this week probably won’t do the trick.  Maybe next week?

Here is some more of the vitriol from the House Aviation Appropriations bill. Remember that no hostile language exists in the Senate version of this.  This will all lead to that conference committee thing in the near future.

CONTROLLING FAA'S OPERATING COSTS

According to the DOT Inspector General, the FAA will be faced with increasing difficulty in coming years, as it seeks to fuel a rapidly-growing operations budget with declining aviation trust fund revenues. The Committee notes that the recently-passed Flight 100 Century of Aviation Reauthorization Bill (H.R. 2115) authorized meager percentage increases for FAA's operating account in the coming years, as shown below. This is a clear signal from the House that the agency must do more--and quickly--to rein in its costs:

(The bill of course has not passed the entire congress but the funding scenarios are real)

-------------------------------------------------------------

Fiscal year Maximum authorized Maximum % authorized increase 

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2004            $7,591,000,000                           8.1 

2005             7,732,000,000                           1.9 

2006             7,889,000,000                           2.0 

2007             8,064,000,000                           2.2 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Some specific indications of FAA's budget problem are as follows:

The agency's average staff year cost in fiscal year 2004 is estimated at $125,920, an increase of 26.7 percent in the past four years. This high salary structure accounts for DOT's number one status among all cabinet agencies in per capita payroll cost;

Special pays will cost the agency $374,857,000 in fiscal year 2004, an increase of 11.7 percent over the previous year; 

(Do you think they will blame controllers for this?  Read on) 

FAA's health care cost increases under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program have averaged 9.7 percent over the past five years, a rate far greater than the agency's operating budget is likely to rise; (I can only hope we get some better negotiators involved in the health care contracts.  It is amazing to me that a company with 300 employees can often negotiate a far better health care contract than the federal government.  Makes you wonder if we are the cash cow in all this) 

Sick leave consumed by air traffic controllers is almost 40 percent above the government-wide average, raising the agency's staffing costs;

 
(Oh what a shock!  Notice no mention of our restrictive medical requirements or the agency’s consistent refusal to allow administrative or non-controlling [ergo flight data] duties when we are medically disqualified or not at the 100% required for ATC duties.  It’s not as if we can just drop some Dayquil and tough out the day like other jobs.  Should this 40% be a surprise?  Heck, I’m surprised the number isn’t larger.)

 The current salary structure is such that 1,044 air traffic controllers are paid more than the FAA Administrator, and 10,044 were paid more than $100,000 during calendar year 2002. The highest paid controller received $212,403, although this included significant special pays such as overtime.

(Ding ding!  There you have it.  The budget problems are all the Controllers fault.  This IG language keeps inserting itself in to documents.)

 Only about 8,500 of the agency's employees--approximately 17 percent--are covered by the pay for performance system known as core compensation. The balance have their pay negotiated in labor agreements.

(Now this is truly significant.  The ultimate goal here is a bypass of our reclass MOU’s and for us all to be put under core comp.  I don’t know what a 20% or so pay cut would to your finances but I’d feel it.) 

The Committee believes it is imperative that the FAA take significant and immediate action to lower its operating cost growth. This could include broader coverage of employees by core compensation, productivity improvements, process re-engineering, or firm review of the agency's organizational structure and administrative activities.

MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING

Last year the Committee requested the DOT Inspector General to review the number and scope of memoranda of understanding (MOUs) between the FAA and its labor unions. Preliminary findings from that work, which focused on the National Air Traffic Controllers Union, found approximately 1,150 MOUs, of which 63 percent were signed at the regional or local levels. The IG concluded that FAA would incur at least $26,800,000 in additional annual costs and $15,900,000 in one-time costs as a result of these agreements.

(Look closely because here it is.  OJT, Sunday, PCS and all negotiated pays including reclass as a whole are under the gun here.  When you hear about the MOU review process between the Agency and NATCA, listen intently)

The agreements include provisions for cash awards, time-off awards, and reassignment pay. The IG found that: (1) the agency had issued no standard guidance for negotiating, implementing, or signing MOUs; (2) no requirement had been issued specifying that a labor relations specialist participate in the negotiations on behalf of management; (3) there was no system for tracking the number and scope of signed MOUs; and (4) the agency had established no process for evaluating the cost implications of MOUs during the negotiation process. The Committee believes that this many MOUs undermines management's ability to provide executive direction for the agency in a way consistent and fair to all employee groups. In effect, they represent a set of `shadow regulations' which make a mockery of personnel reform and management flexibility. The Committee is encouraged by the FAA Administrator's recent actions to better manage the MOU process. In order to ensure that the agency follows through on its commitment to develop a comprehensive database of MOUs, the bill includes a prohibition on funding to execute or continue to implement any MOU, or revision to any MOU, that is not referenced in an automated, searchable database of national MOUs. The Committee intends to monitor this situation over the coming year to ensure that funds are not provided under an MOU that are excessive or wasteful.

(Ouch!  Not only do they want to trash our existing MOU’s but also they want to make it virtually impossible to negotiate any more.  Does this sound familiar at your facility?  This has been a Blakey marching order from the start.)