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Legislation & Politics | ||
Letter to Chairman of House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure re: FAA Contract BargainingMarch 8, 2007 The Honorable James Oberstar Dear Mr. Chairman: On behalf of the 1.4 million members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the thousands of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) professional employees that we represent at FAA Headquarters, I am writing to make you aware that AFSCME members fall under the grossly unfair bargaining process that currently exists at FAA. Much like the air traffic controllers, AFSCME members are working without a contract and have FAA-imposed work rules and pay and no genuine grievance procedure. Furthermore, FAA has imposed its own terms on AFSCME-represented employees despite a negotiated and ratified contract since early 2001. Under a hybrid negotiation system created by Congress in 1996, AFSCME and FAA initiated bargaining in June of 2000 over the new personnel system pursuant to a congressional mandate. AFSCME and FAA came to agreement over the personnel system in January 2001. The FAA made several proposals to restructure the pay system, including broad-banding pay, pay for performance, elimination of within-grade raises and market based adjustments to pay bands. In exchange for AFSCME's concessions, FAA agreed to provide an eight percent pay increase over seven years. This increase was in line with or below increases in other negotiated and implemented contracts at FAA. The pay rates were within the established pay ranges for positions outside the agency. Additionally, AFSCME agreed to generate productivity increases sufficient to fully fund the eight percent over seven years. Basically, the contract was revenue neutral. However, after successfully negotiating a contract mutually agreeable to both parties, FAA informed AFSCME that they would not implement the agreement. Although this contract was revenue neutral and the employees ratified the contract, FAA said they were barred from implementing the agreement because the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not approve of the contract. It should be noted that OMB approval was never part of the FAA Personnel Reform legislation that Congress passed in either the FY 06 FAA Appropriations bill or the FAA Reauthorization Act of 1996 (see attachment). In AFSCME’s case, FAA did not even take the contract to Congress for review. AFSCME has attempted to resolve this dispute with FAA and has even asked Congress to direct the FAA to implement the contract but, six years later, the contract has not been implemented and Congress's direction has been ignored. Now, AFSCME has agreed to go back into negotiations to resolve the matter. However, unless Congress acts legislatively to force FAA to bargain in good faith through binding arbitration, the negotiation process may yield the same result, employee morale at FAA will continue to slide and more and more employees will choose to leave. The other unions at FAA, including the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, are in similar circumstances. The personnel system at FAA is broken and badly needs mending. FAA has misused their authority and all FAA employees are suffering under imposed rules and pay. It was never the intention of Congress to allow FAA to run roughshod over their employees in this manner. Sincerely, |
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