Update May 9, 2004
Since we’ve reached a Congressional lull in bill consideration directly affecting us, I thought I’d take a departure from my usual reporting and fill you in on what approximately 26 of your Central Region NATCA brothers and sisters will be doing on your behalf next week.  Those folks, along with hundreds from the other regions, will start arriving Sunday in Washington DC for our annual lobbying effort called NATCA in Washington (NIW).  As many of you are acutely aware of after our grassroots efforts of this past year concerning privatization, contracting out, the agency’s attempts to bypass our collective bargaining rights etc, our profession, our employment, our working conditions all the way to the safety and continuity of the Air Traffic System are all ultimately created, maintained and modified by our ultimate employers the public through the authorization and funding processes of the US Congress.  NATCA, through our employees and leadership in DC, regional legislative activists and general members in grassroots actions are constantly working to keep the Congress informed and educated about the realities and challenges which have an effect on the system.  Once yearly we feel it is important enough to bring a significant portion of the membership in to the Capital to be educated on the process and current state of affairs and also to act, in their role as constituents, to speak to the issues with our elected representatives.

NIW has become a mature event.  What started many years ago as a fledgling effort of a newborn Union to bring activists in has now become a well organized, fast paced and highly compressed few days of whirlwind activity that we are rightly proud of for its content, polish and effectiveness.  Your Union brethren will be “treated” to a grueling schedule of briefings, education on the issues, opportunities to hear “how it really is” from the movers and shakers within Congress and then take that knowledge out on capital hill for meetings with Congressmen, Senators and their staff.  In fact what used to be a weeklong event (and is still commonly referred to as Lobby Week) has been condensed into a mere three days but with nearly twice the content.  If you are beholden to the image of your controlling buddies spiriting off for a NATCA vacation in DC while you’re stuck covering on position I have some bad news for you.  This isn’t much of a vacation, it’s not even particularly a working vacation, it’s more like just … well … working.  And the two hours on position, maximum 8 hours per day provisions do not apply.  Your benevolent Union will work these people like the FAA would like to work you daily.  With little mercy. 

After re-reading the previous paragraph I feel it only fair to point out that there are opportunities for socializing after hours (although some elect to catch what sleep they can and I don’t blame them).  Some elect to take advantage of their Union funded airfare to take a bit more annual and arrive a few days earlier or later, find lodging on their own and enjoy some of sights and sounds of our Capital while taking advantage of the  scores of educational and tourist opportunities in DC. I did want to point out that, while we are thankful to the rest of you for covering for them at the facility, you should also thank them on their return because while they are there on the Union dime, we’re getting 15 cents out of them.  Most folks come away from this event exhausted but with an eye opening and rewarding education plus a few more friends and contacts across the country.  They return with a better grasp of how their system of government affects us all, hopefully passing on that knowledge and keeping up contacts throughout the year. And most return again another year. If you haven’t been I highly recommend it. 

We select a few main issues to focus on each year at NIW.  Last year was dominated with battling the Administration’s privatization efforts but since Marion Blakey has grudgingly provided a stay of execution for this fiscal year, we will shift most of our focus to staffing and Cru-X.  I could write pages and pages on these subjects with reams of documentation but in the interest of brevity and my own impending carpal tunnel syndrome I’ll just give you a brief synopsis.  As you are well aware from our mailings, government investigations and probably your own experiences at your facility we have problems with controller staffing which is made all the worse when considering the massive amounts of retirements coming soon of all those hired soon after the strike.  It’s probably not surprising to you, as a professional working within a bureaucracy, that the FAA claims they have this under control but in fact are doing next to nothing to address it.  Here’s a pop quiz.  With all this knowledge how many new controllers has the FAA Administrator requested funding for in 2005?  The answer is 0 (that’s Z-E-R-O, zip, nada, zilch).  Cru-X is that wonderful software that is a fine example of a great and useful idea completely bollixed up by the Agency.  After years of efforts to produce this product, while mostly ignoring NATCA input, we now have an overdue piece of garbage whose single greatest feature is crashing the computers it is installed on.  But we are mandated to deploy this concept and it’s high time the Agency realized their folly and started using workable software.  And we are ready to help if they’ll just let us.  In a wonderful segue back to staffing the Inspector General of the DOT feels we can’t address staffing issues without labor data reporting information originally meant to be a major part of Cru-X.  Both staffing and Cru-x are critical issues that are rapidly passing the point of panic with regard to the tardiness of action on them.

I’ll be leaving several days early to help set up for NIW doing my best to act as a coordinator, fireman, construction worker, general gopher and host.  I’ll earn my keep as well while on the NATCA dime but one of the activities I won’t be doing is writing an update for next week, so have a great couple of weeks and I’ll write again soon.