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Aviation Federal Agency Maligns Workers, Threatens Safety
Washington, DC –Transportation workers “will stand full force behind FAA employees in stopping the agency’s leadership from creating an environment of hostility and distrust with its own employees and jeopardizing the safety and efficiency of the air traffic control system,” leaders of AFL-CIO transportation unions declared today at the biannual meeting of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD). This action came in response to a national anti-union campaign being waged by the Federal Aviation Administration aimed at its air traffic controllers.
“The Federal Aviation Administration must cease and desist its reckless crusade to malign its own workers and blame them for the agency’s mismanagement of air traffic control modernization programs,” said Edward Wytkind, TTD President, who, in comments to the Executive Committee, added, “We will let the FAA Administrator know that her battles are with all of transportation labor.”
Leaders of TTD’s 29 affiliated unions unanimously adopted a policy statement chronicling the agency’s “scorched-earth” approach to labor-management relations, as well as their “tortured and questionable” legal basis for unilateral imposition of contract terms on FAA employees. At the same time as the agency scaled back air traffic control modernization programs, the agency conducted a 22-city press tour to slander controllers and their union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA)
Noting that the agency “continues to mismanage a looming staffing crisis,” the TTD statement decried that the FAA has, “abandoned, canceled, or significantly cut programs that would improve the safety and efficiency of our aviation system.” According to independent studies by both the Transportation Department’s Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office, mounting staffing shortages threaten safety, as over-stretched controllers are forced to manage more planes and work longer hours.
TTD called upon the agency to commit to good-faith bargaining instead of unilaterally imposing contract terms on employees, to swiftly address staffing shortages, and to live up to its commitment to expand and modernize our air traffic control system.
Please visit www.ttd.org for a copy of the full statement.
TTD represents 29 member unions in the rail, aviation, transit, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit www.ttd.org.