 Update March 28th, 2004 The Senate this week failed to recommit the corporate tax cut bill back to conference. The intent was to remove an amendment by the Central Regions own Sen. Tom Harkin which would block the presidents efforts to have the labor department implement changes in eligibility for overtime pay. After failing by a 51-47 margin, the future of the bill is now murky. We consider this a victory as most every controller, just by the salary test alone, would no longer be eligible for overtime pay if adopted. To be clear, OMB would leave it up to the Administrator whether or not to adopt the new private sector rules at the FAA, but her actions so far tell us she would implement this without the slightest hesitation. These new overtime rules could strip premium pay from as many as 8 million workers in just the private sector alone. Now it seems that if the Republican leadership cannot get this amendment out they may have to kill the whole bill to allow the Bush Administration the ability to still implement the overtime changes. The fight for us is, of course, far from over. If you read the last week’s issue of the Air Traffic Controller there is a great article on the FSIP issue and our fight with the Agency. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you check your mail and give it a good perusal. We caught a break this week when it turned out the Agency failed to send their submittal to the right people in Congress. So now we have an additional 26 days and that makes the answer to our motion for summary judgment due before the deadline for Congress to act. All that legalize means that we are not out of this fight. Thank you to all those who answered the grassroots email. Many members of Congress now realize what sort of underhanded maneuver the Agency is trying and some have even written her to cease and desist. I am still looking for more folks to attend NATCA in Washington. If you are at R90, OMA, LNK, DSM, SUX, ALO or CID and have an interest, please give me a call or drop a line. Rooms fill up fast but I will give preferential treatment to get a few more from those areas to the event. There will be a copy of the registration form at the end of this update or you can also get one at http://nlc.natca.net/niw2004/niwregistration2004.doc . Please fax any forms to me at 417-877-8957. Click to get NIW Registration form. Grant Anderson |
