Are Air Traffic Controllers Exempt From Pay Freeze?

President Obama may exempt air traffic controllers from the impending governmentwide pay freeze if it is formally enacted by Congress, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

The Federal Aviation Administration has a separate pay and personnel system from the standard government General Schedule, and in the system, controllers are allowed to collectively bargain over pay.

Those pay negotiations often have been contentious. An impasse in 2006 stretched on for three years before the National Air Traffic Controllers Union ratified a contract last year that had been negotiated with the help of a mediation panel.

Under that contract, pay increases would go up an average of 4 percent in its second and third years. So in order to impose a freeze on controllers, Obama would have to break the agreement.

An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson told Bloomberg Businessweek that Obama will address the issue of whether the freeze will apply to federal employees whose pay is governed by collective bargaining agreements in a presidential directive after legislation is passed.