Strategy To Convince FAA To Return To The Bargaining
Table
Aero-News has learned
that Tom Brantley, national president of the Professional Airways
Systems Specialists (PASS, AFL-CIO), has sent the FAA's contract
proposal for the union's employees in the FAA's Air Traffic
Organization (ATO) out for a vote.
As Brantley says below, in his unedited comments, that is most
emphatically NOT an endorsement of the FAA's proposal. Instead,
Brantley states sending the contract for a vote is a way to get the
FAA to return to the bargaining table once the contract is rejected
-- instead of risking a final binding contract to be forced upon
ATO employees.
Earlier today, PASS accepted the FAA’s contract
proposal for PASS Air Traffic Organization technical
employees.
As the PASS bargaining team made clear to the FAA, PASS took
that action not because it thinks the FAA offer is fair or
reasonable, but to give the working members who keep the air
traffic system functioning safely an opportunity to speak their own
minds.
With the FAA showing no signs of negotiating in good faith,
it is now up to PASS members to tell the FAA whether they think the
agency’s offer is acceptable. Even though PASS made every
effort to negotiate with the FAA, the union could not continue on
that path knowing that the FAA would simply declare impasse and
then, through its misinterpretation of current law, send its final
proposal to Congress and, after 60 days, declare its proposal to be
a binding contract.
That course would give the employees no voice. Accepting the
agreement and allowing PASS members to vote on the offer delivers a
message to the FAA that PASS will not be intimidated into an unfair
and demeaning contract. Members will have the opportunity to vote
on the contract through a ratification process.
I am confident that PASS members will vote down the contract
offer, which will send PASS and the FAA back to the bargaining
table. Hopefully, the FAA will learn a lesson and approach the next
round of negotiations with the intention of actually negotiating in
good faith and securing a contract that is beneficial to all
parties involved.
PASS represents more than 11,000 employees of the Federal
Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense who install,
maintain, support and certify air traffic control and national
defense equipment, inspect and oversee the commercial and general
aviation industries, develop flight procedures and perform analyses
of the aviation systems.