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You haven’t heard from me for a couple of weeks and that was due to preparation for and execution of NATCA in Washington (still occasionally known as Lobby Week). This years event was a remarkable success, some say the best ever, in representing your needs and issues to your real employer … Congress.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That’s the text of the first amendment to our constitution. The part about petitioning for redress of grievances is the whole justification for this lobbying effort, and let me tell you we certainly have some grievances!
This year, amongst others, we tackled the issues of the FAA’s apparent strategy to not bargain on a new collective bargaining agreement in good faith but to go to impasse early and let the issue be resolved by Congress; reduction in services including closures on the midnight shifts and consolidations; that old (and still very real) contracting out and/or privatization issue; Staffing plans and funding for them and the designee program which outsources safety and design inspections to the manufacturer, not FAA employees.
A long laundry list to be sure, but all of great importance. The brothers and sisters who attended on your behalf learned this material in a short time and applied that education in an exemplary fashion in meetings with individual members of Congress, Senators, and their staff. We all appreciate you covering for their absence from the facility and on the flipside; you need to thank these folks who mostly burned annual leave to represent you so well in Washington.
This tears participants were;
Aaron Crawley* ALO Anna Mitchell T75 Bill Henry STL Chris Bowers R90 Connie Presley ICT Dave Geiger R90 Dave Hansen SUX Gini Briggs SGF Howard Blankenship ZKC John Ojile ICT John Tune ZKC Lonnie Vance T75 Manuel Falcon OMA Mike O’Conner ALO Paul Hansen MCI Paul Riemer* CID Rick Schmidt T75 Tom Manson SGF (Asterisk* indicates first time participant)
Once again you owe them a thank you, they really worked very hard.
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