Hello all,

It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote last as I have been out of town on business and vacation.  I expected a couple of congressional schemes to come to fruition by now but most have been delayed. 

BACK PAY

As you recall, transportation appropriations (which include the FAA) was passed as part of a huge omnibus bill back in January.  Our average 4.7% raise was incorporated in this but because it happened so late, the Presidents initial budget request stood until this was passed.  The president requested an average 4.7% for the military but just 2% for the federal civilian workers (what you are now seeing in your paychecks.)  We will get backpay at some point (without interest), but not until the President gets around to issuing an executive order acknowledging the will of Congress, and that is something he seems to be in no rush to do.  The White House cannot stop the pay raise, but they can be petty and avoid authorizing the funds for a while.  It all seems a bit vindictive to me.

As far as next years raises the President has proposed 3.5% (I believe) for the military, but once again a paltry 1.5% for us.  This Administrations loathing for the federal workforce is quite transparent and they are attempting some tactics to avoid pay parity next year.

Sen. Steny Hoyer, the minority leader, has led the charge the last several years to follow the guidelines and give equal raises.  This has been with large bipartisan support but the Bush Administration has shown they are very much opposed to this and are trying to introduce legislation requiring that any increase from the Presidents proposal be budgeted for in advance which would weaken or potentially kill any possibility for pay parity to be enforced.  As a life long Republican, I am really getting disillusioned with this Administrations ideologically driven disdain for all of us federal employees, regardless of position or function.

ATO

The new Air Traffic Organization, which was authorized years ago by a Clinton executive order (yea, the one that used to say “an inherently governmental function”) is definitely taking form at the DC level and the various regions are busy alternating between preparing for and fretting about it’s scheduled implementation at our level in July.  The massive central service area will be headed on the enroute side by the intrepid Herman Lyons (sorry ZKC, we sure could have done better) and probably by Nancy Shelton on the terminal side (we sure could have done worse).   I already wrote some about the challenges this will present on the LMR side with NATCA but it’s even harder to predict the impact at the local level. Russ Chew, the guy who was brave enough or foolish enough, depending on your perspective, to accept the job as CEO, is by all accounts a fine individual taking bold steps to accomplish the reforms necessary to get the middle and upper portions of the FAA in line to really actually support (as opposed to just create paperwork and speed bumps for) the product the air traffic field facilities put out and work proactively with our customers.  The question is whether he will really get the support of Marion Blakey (whom he reports to) and others to accomplish these difficult reforms.  And remember all the SES’s and GM15’s who are having there world potentially upturned by all this.  I guess we’ll just have to see.

One final note; apparently the FAA has been, without fanfare or advanced notice, deciding that only two allotments will be allowed with our paychecks.  I mention this because we have had some examples where folks with two allotments (say NATCA vision plan and NATCA PAC) who after adding a third resulted with the agency dropping their PAC allotment without notice.  This reeks of at best, poor management and at worst, some extremely dirty political tricks.  Please let John Tune or I know if you come across anything like this in your neck of the woods.