Democrats introduce bill to force FAA contract arbitration

Four Democratic senators unveiled legislation Thursday that would tighten the rules governing heated contract negotiations between the Federal Aviation Administration and its air traffic controllers.

The bill would send unresolved negotiations to binding arbitration unless Congress intervenes.

As it stands now, the FAA can send its contract offer to Congress when an impasse occurs. Congress then has 60 days to intercede, but if that time passes without action, the FAA offer becomes final. Unions argue this is a major loophole.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the FAA have been locked in contentious contract negotiations over wages and benefits since July. The FAA is a rare government agency in which employee unions have the ability to negotiate pay, and its controllers are among the highest paid employees in the federal government.

NATCA president John Carr held a press conference Thursday morning to announce the bill, which was introduced by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and co-sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.

Obama said he introduced the bill "to help diffuse the growing management-labor tension at the FAA."

Carr said introduction of this legislation, which NATCA is following up on with hundreds of congressional visits next week, will force the FAA to negotiate in good faith.

"FAA management seems to be less focused on good-faith bargaining and more determined on executing their predetermined plan to send these negotiations to impasse and unilaterally impose a contract on controllers," he said.

After seeing a draft of the bill, FAA administrator Marion Blakey sent a letter to Obama. In the Jan. 13 message, she denied any attempt to sidestep contract negotiations.

"I want to assure you that agency negotiators are working very hard, in good faith, to obtain an agreement with NATCA," Blakey wrote. "It has always been -- and remains -- my strong preference to resolve our contract issues on a voluntary basis."

Robert Poole, a transportation expert at the Reason Public Policy Institute, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, said NATCA likely is using the bill as a tactic to swing negotiations its way.

"This is clearly something that the unions want because they don't seem to be gaining any headway in the negotiations, and they're obviously afraid with the law as it is that the path of least resistance for Congress is [to say], 'We're just going to wash our hands so of it,' " Poole said.

He said Lautenberg has a strong history of backing the controllers' union, meaning that this bill does not represent a new stronghold of support.

When asked if a bill introduced by four Democratic senators had serious hope of being passed into law, Carr expressed optimism.

"I believe they are going to rush to join us," Carr said. "I really believe it's got legs…we're going to be working both sides and we have friends on both sides."