National Association of Air Traffic Specialists

Aviation Safety is Our Business

Bulletin #24

12/1/00

From

Don McLennan

The NAATS and FAA negotiation teams met at the downtown offices of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services Agency in Washington DC, on Monday, November 7, 2000. They met to discuss the fact they had arrived at impasse after nearly three years of trying to reach an agreement on work rules and a compensation package to cover the, FSS option, bargaining unit members.

The Chief Negotiators opened the session stating the respective positions of the two parties. There was nothing new from anything previously stated/written. Mr. Pike articulated our disagreement with management as consisting of "threshold" issues. He recounted that we have worked with management for several years to develop the proposal we eventually put forward. The primary issue is reclassification since the Agency and NAATS proposals are so far apart. Management stated that there is a considerable difference between what Center/Tower Controllers do and the work the FSS personnel perform. Management also stated that the Administrator was very worried that granting FSS employees a significant pay increase would risk the FAA's competitiveness with private enterprise that are vying for the work we now perform. They also indicated that staffing issues were also very important to resolve before we could reach agreement on a new contract. Additionally, the "Alaskan" issue was added as a significant aspect that needed to be resolved in the differences between our two proposals. They next stated they had no intention of offering anything more than 5.5% and this was a position of principle, especially since that is all they intend to offered to any of the other Unions within the Agency still struggling with their negotiations.

There is evidence we may not be as ready as we would like to be in order to be successful in mediation due to the little common ground between the two parties and the fact that we are so far apart in our proposals. We discussed, at length, the pros and cons of accepting the management proposal and coming to an agreement with them. Our position is that until the management team really wants to substantively discuss the issues there is no likelihood of success under this type of process.

The mediators briefly adjourned with us and met with management. When returning they asked us to try a new way of doing business. They suggested we try and set aside the money and hammer out a structure that works and put the dollar figures to it later. At that point either side can back out if they don't like the dollar values that fall out. In other words, you negotiate the dollars later. The tact here is that if we can at least get to the discussion of structure that would be one less thing we disagree on.

Our position is that since we have already dealt with the Agency on many workgroups with little progress, we would be willing to abandon the reclassification piece if a singular structure would help them begin to substantively discuss compensation.

Both sides of the table came back together. Mr. Pike made the above proposal to Management. They said that a single level would be fine but that would not change, in any way, the compensation offer they presently have on the table. However, they also seemed to have a real need to enter into discussions of developing a pay "structure". The Union did not surrender, in essence, our long and hard work on implementing the reclassification standard, but rather, is exploring comparability with the "old" GS-12 pay levels in the NATCA bargaining unit. We should accept nothing less than what the Agency has already given GS-12 Air Traffic Controllers. We have agreed to meet with management one more time on Tuesday, December 12 to see if there is any opportunity for movement by either side.

Back to Bulletin List.

Walter W. Pike, President

This page was last updated on 1 December, 2000