Air traffic controllers union rejects final FAA contract offer

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association rejected the Federal Aviation Administration's final offer of new contract terms on Thursday, saying that only a return to the bargaining table would satisfy the union.

The agency and the union clashed sharply in written communications. FAA acting Administrator Robert Sturgell said the agency rejected a counteroffer NATCA made in March because of its "regressive nature and excessive cost, among other reasons."

Sturgell offered a 5 percent increase of the minimum salaries in each air traffic controller payband in fiscal 2009 and guaranteed payband increases in 2009 and 2010. He also offered to lift the more restrictive terms of the dress code that had prompted spontaneous protests by controllers, and allow air traffic controllers to wear jeans and athletic shoes while on the job.

"While this offer makes several accommodations that will be difficult for the agency, we are willing to make them to advance our labor-management relationship," Sturgell wrote.

NATCA President Pat Forrey reiterated statements from a January letter in which he told Sturgell the agency's terms represented "just another tactic to delay the only true resolution to the dispute between our organizations: a return to good faith negotiations over a successor collective bargaining agreement subject to ratification by NATCA's membership."

Forrey said the payband proposals were unacceptable.

"This proposal is worse than the proposal made one year ago with regard to the paybands," he wrote. "There is no need to wait until your Aug. 30 deadline to come and go. Your settlement offer is rejected."

NATCA spokesman Doug Church said the FAA offered in March 2007 to raise the minimum on the pay bands by 15 percent over five years. Pay and work rules imposed in 2006 already guaranteed an 8 percent hike on the minimum pay in each band, and the agency offered an additional 7 percent as part of a contract offer for a 15 percent total increase.

The exchange continues a tense standoff that began in 2005 when the existing contract between the controllers and FAA expired. A provision in the 1996 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act allows the agency's administrator to impose a final offer on the union if negotiations deadlock. In 2006, FAA's administrator at the time, Marion Blakey, imposed new pay and work rules on controllers.

That dispute has spilled over into the current debate over FAA reauthorization. Democratic lawmakers have sought to send the agency and the union back to the bargaining table, but President Bush has threatened to veto a bill that contains that language. FAA currently is running on an extension of its fiscal 2007 funding, which expires on June 30.

This deadlock also leaves unresolved numerous grievances and unfair labor practices NATCA members filed against the 2006 pay and work rules. Forrey said the union will not withdraw those complaints without a negotiated contract.