Union, FAA agree to extend collective bargaining agreement

The Federal Aviation Administration has reached a tentative agreement with air traffic control union leaders to extend a five-year-old collective bargaining agreement for another two years.

"I want to acknowledge a shared commitment between the FAA and NATCA [National Air Traffic Controllers Association] toward the agency's fundamental mission to maintain and enhance the safety and efficiency of America's skies during a critical time for the aviation industry," FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said in a Jan. 7 press release announcing the agreement. "This tentative agreement demonstrates a desire by both parties to devote our energy and focus to our safety mission, and to meet the needs of a new work force."

The "agreement in principle" brokered by Blakey and NATCA President John Carr will extend the current collective bargaining agreement to September 2005. The current agreement expires in September.

"With the enormous amount of work we are doing with the FAA on a wide array of subjects, from modernizing the National Airspace System, to redesigning the airspace to enhancing the safety of air travel in the skies and on the runways and taxiways, it was vitally important to us to resolve the issue of our collective bargaining agreement as efficiently as possible," Carr said. "I'm pleased to report Administrator Blakey felt the same way."

According to Carr, staffing levels still need to be ironed out because the current ceiling of 15,606 for controllers is insufficient to meet the demands of the system.

"We will be working on a new staffing agreement as the new year unfolds," Carr said. "Staffing is one of our most pressing concerns. Not only do we need more controllers, we need to hire replacements for the 5,000 controllers the General Accounting Office says will be eligible to retire within the next five years. It's critically important to the continued safety and efficiency of the system that we have enough qualified and trained controllers working."

The previous agreement, which dated to 1998, included an incentive that gave extra pay to controllers who met specified agency safety and performance goals and increased pay for work at the busiest air traffic hubs. In return, the union agreed to productivity gains by allowing controllers to be assigned training, briefing and quality assurance tasks while not controlling traffic. To pay for raises, FAA agreed to reduce the number of air traffic control supervisors through attrition and by expanding the 40-year-old controller-in-charge program (CIC). CICs have temporary authority to run air traffic control operations when supervisors are absent.

A November 2001 GAO investigation found that the controller-in-charge measure would save the agency $141.5 million over the life of the contract, but questioned the overall effectiveness of FAA's CIC training as well as the amount of productivity that could be gained from expanding the program. Language included in the fiscal 2002 Transportation Appropriations Act required the FAA to stop expansion of the CIC program.

Recently, the Transportation Department said air traffic control activities were not inherently governmental, sparking criticism from NATCA, which claimed the new categorization could lead to the eventual outsourcing of air traffic control jobs.