Posted on 06/03/2006 5:06:44 AM PDT by MoodyBlu
Not what some Republicans in Congress are poised to do with air-traffic controllers.
When President Ronald Reagan fired those striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, he refused to let union members impose unreasonable demands on the federal government. In that case, 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) had illegally walked off the job. Next week, however, in stark contrast to Reagan, Congress is poised to surrender to PATCO’s successor union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), by refusing to let a final employment-terms offer from the Federal Aviation Administration take effect.
In 1996, the Clinton administration allowed NATCA to bargain over wages and benefits, a right enjoyed by few federal-employee unions. NATCA has been driving a hard bargain with the FAA ever since. Since getting a new contract in 1998, NATCA controllers’ compensation has increased by 75 percent to an average of $173,000 a year. To control ballooning costs, the FAA has offered a proposal that would protect the total compensation of all current controllers, but would reduce the compensation of new hires by offering $127,000 in salary and benefits in the first five years.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
I understand that many professions endure the same, however, I didn't make the rules. Yep, Clinton and Garvey gave the world to NATCA and now the FAA is trying to take some of it back. Next week is going to be interesting!
Sort of like a nurse?
$173,000 is absurd for what essentially is a blue-collar job. (My IFR instructor was a PATCO member.)
ML/NJ
Many are eligible to retire, 50 years of age and at least 20 years of controlling live traffic. Mandatory retirement is the last day of your birth month when you turn 56. I am eligible now but will be around 5 more years, providing I continue to pass my annual physical and I don't get "tired" of all th BS.
And a cop.
And a fireman.
And an intern.
And a soldier/sailor/airman.
Yes it's an important job, but it's not like these condition are suddenly new or unusual.
Still, I hope they get a fair deal.
Federal salaries make me sick. Overall, they are 30% over private sector averages. I guess that makes the rest of us just chumps.
As a career firefighter I disagree. You say 173,000.00 is absurd. The next person will say 80,000.00 is absurd. The next 40,000.00 absurd. It's all a matter of opinion. Just like everyone has an opinion on what is a "fair" minimum wage. After seeing what Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay, and Dennis K. from Tyco did for years to their employee's/company I have no problem cashing my paycheck. I go to work and put my life on line everytime I walk through the door. I am not ashamed one bit of my salary.
<< $173,000 is absurd for what essentially is a blue-collar job. >>
"Job" is a considerable stretch for the controller's lot in life. Maybe 24-30 coddled duty hours per at-"work" week in airconditioned comfort one of the most featherbedded roles on the planet.
And particularly when one considers that America's many scores of thousands of FRee Enterprise employers, companies and even its corporations, have alredy fished, trawled, netted, long-lined, seined and dredged our nation's talent pool before the local, state and feral gummints and their agencies got to bottom scavange for whatever usually otherwise deservedly unemployed were left.
And then put whoever and whatever that was in charge. Including an at the trailing-edge of tailcone's static wick's FAA, forever floundering about and out of its depth in a shock wave ahead of the tip of the pitot-head aerospace/aviation profession.
Don't forget to factor an additional 20-30% for benefits that they get no or low cost and the rest of us have to pay for. That makes $173K closer to $220K.
That would constitute unequal treatment for the original PATCO members and the resulting lwsuits would be massive.
Lets, see, 25 years of back pay at GS-13, with average advancement....
I ran into one of the guys Reagan fired. He was working the counter at a pizza place I frequented. When he told me that he'd been ATC I told him I'd been in the air flying home from Europe at 30,000 feet when he went on strike. Not a good day for either of us. But the next day I still had a job.
Benefits ARE factored into the $173K that the FAA uses when describing controller compensation. Truth is controllers receive night differential after 6pm to 6am, Sunday differential, double pay on holidays, and true time and a half for overtime and there has been almost unlimited overtime in my 25 years of vectoring and saying cleared for takeoff.
The numbers the FAA uses are very misleading, although I admit compared to some other "stressful" occupations, we do quite well. But, we didn't make the rules, Congress, Clinton and Garvey did.
With the weather we have experienced in the northeast the last week, you want us/me at the scopes. Been some real big boogers floating around!
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