Union cries foul over anthrax safety announcements

Union officials filed an unfair labor practice complaint Monday against the Federal Aviation Administration over allegations that the agency declined to negotiate over how to convey anthrax safety information. When several Postal Service employees fell ill from exposure to anthrax bacteria, union officials representing FAA employees decided to immediately tell their FAA members how to handle suspicious-looking envelopes or packages, according to Tom Brantley, vice president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union. Union officials had expected to formally negotiate with the agency over how to convey information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Postal Service and the Public Health Service to their members at FAA. "We sent over some proposals to the agency because we wanted to get some guidance out to members that might be faced with potential problems and we wanted to make sure they had information readily available if they encountered something," Brantley said. "The matter had some urgency and one of the problems we had is [FAA] didn't respond very quickly, they took their time and then when they did respond they refused to negotiate over it." The FAA's action prompted PASS, which represents more than 11,000 FAA employees, to file a complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority. "It's an absolute outrage," said PASS President Michael Fanfalone. "Somebody higher up ought to tell the FAA that the nation faces a continuing terrorist threat for some time to come and that it behooves the agency to take this simple, precautionary step if it cares about its employees and the safety of the nation's airspace system." Adding fuel to the fire was the discovery of anthrax spores in Dulles International Airport, said Fanfalone. According to union officials, FAA employees were not told of that anthrax threat until the CDC reported its testing results four days later. "We don't believe the way the agency handled it was correct," Brantley said. "It wasn't until a positive test result came back that we even knew there was a potential problem and keeping people in the dark and not taking those precautionary measures is irresponsible." PASS has asked the labor relations authority to expedite its investigation because of the urgent nature of the situation and, in the meantime, has included anthrax safety information on its Web site. "I would sure hate to find someone who was faced with a problem and didn't know what to do, that's probably the worst scenario," Brantley said.