Re: Collective Bargaining Proposal

Dear Mr. Thoman:

I write in response to your May 9, 2003 letter in which you implicitly withdrew the Agency's proposal of a 5.5% wage increase with offsets, proffered a 0.0% increase or wage freeze, and suggested that we get together to negotiate and hopefully "arrive at a voluntary bilateral agreement" based on your proposal. I must say that this new proposal adds one more dimension to the overreaching issue, currently pending before the FLRA, as to whether the Agency has been bargaining with NAATS in good faith all these many years.

Nonetheless, I am more than willing to meet with you and would propose that we get together on June 25th to discuss matters, consistent with this letter. Indeed, NAATS is anxious to engage in genuine give-and-take collective bargaining provided that the Agency produces "principals" at the bargaining table, namely representatives who would be empowered to bind the Agency and sign off on any agreement that might be reached, subject only to agency head review as set forth in 5 U.S.C. � 7114(c). As you know, this is hardly an unreasonable request, particularly in light of the ALJ decision in Dept. of Transportation, Federal Aviation Admin. (AFSCME Council 26), FLRA Case No. WA-CA-O1-0386. Indeed, NAATS formalized that request by letter of November 7, 2002 to Secretary Mineta; unfortunately, AHR-1 Glenda Pate's December 12, 2002 reply, signed by you, while purporting to give assurances, danced around the issue.

Nonetheless, as I have previously indicated, we remain ready and willing to meet with Agency negotiators as soon as we receive reliable assurances that they will, in fact, be authorized to execute any agreement we might reach, then and there, at the bargaining table. Your response was to furnish me on May 20th with an exchange of correspondence between yourself and Michael Fanfalone, President of PASS, in which you represented only that "the necessary coordination and approval [of contract terms] will take place prior to the signing of an agreement" -- which goes without saying but does not specifically address our concern. And, while Mr. Fanfalone's response attempted to lock you into an understanding about the authority of the Agency's bargaining representatives, your failure to respond, and to accept or reject Fanfalone's understanding, provides no assurance whatsoever, not to Fanfalone and certainly not to NAATS.

Naturally, I share your "desire to move [our negotiation of a pay agreement] to resolution as quickly as feasible." However, I do not believe that, when enacting the Revitalization Act, Congress intended to authorize the FAA to achieve resolution of bargaining issues by artificially creating an impasse via bad faith bargaining, then submitting its bad faith proposal to Congress for its passive approval via inaction, as reported in the May 16, 2003 edition of Aviation Daily. To do so would be to debase and make a mockery of the collective bargaining process, as well as to undermine the Civil Service Reform Act, inter alia, by depriving the FLRA of any means effectively to remedy FAA violations of its statutory duty to bargain in good faith.

To be honest, I am concerned that your new proposal and invitation to meet is really just intended to give you an artificial opportunity to declare a bargaining "impasse" and then attempt to achieve a "quick resolution" of a pay agreement by using a questionable statutory artifice to dictate its terms to the Union, rather than achieve agreement by the Union. One other byproduct could be to moot the ULP charges pending before the FLRA. If correct, as press coverage suggests, this would be very troubling.

In other words, I think that a prompt bargaining session would be premature. First, we need to clear the air of the foregoing issues so that we can proceed in an atmosphere of genuine trust to engage in give-and take, good faith collective bargaining. I look forward to beginning that process as soon as possible.

Sincerely yours,