Air Traffic Controllers in Labor SpatThe National Air Traffic Controllers Association has enlisted the help of four Senate Democrats to block the Federal Aviation Administration from imposing a new contract on them if labor talks fail. Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Patty Murray of Washington, and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey late last month introduced legislation to send any contract dispute to binding arbitration. "We need this legislation now because the FAA administrator is engaged in contract negotiations with the agency's two largest groups of workers—the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and Professional Airways Systems Specialists," Obama said in a speech on the floor of the Senate. "In both cases, negotiations have been contentious, and the FAA's workers fear that the administrator is not intent on reaching fair, voluntary agreements given her previous negotiations." The union and FAA have been negotiating a new contract since July, with the government saying controllers are overcompensated. FAA administrator Marion Blakey sought a federal mediator in November, a move criticized by the union as a first step toward imposing a new contract using what it calls a loophole in the law. Three days before the senators introduced their legislation, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told the Aero Club in Washington, D.C., that the U.S. can't "afford" the salary increases sought by the union. Air traffic controllers currently earn about $128,000 annually, excluding benefits. Blakey wants the union to accept a contract that pays new hires about $95,000 a year, including benefits; FAA expects to hire about 12,000 new controllers in coming years as an aging workforce retires. NATCA president John Carr said the legislation is aimed at forcing the government to return to the bargaining table in good faith.
NTSB Assails Bad-Weather Landing ProcedureThe National Transportation Safety Board urged the Federal Aviation Administration to ban a landing procedure that pilots use in winter weather, after a Southwest Airlines plane in December skidded off a runway at Chicago's Midway Airport and killed a 6-year-old boy in a car. In a statement marked "urgent," NTSB said FAA must prohibit the procedure in which pilots decide to use reverse thrusters immediately upon touching down on a snowy runway. In the Chicago incident, the thrusters didn't engage until 18 seconds after the plane touched down, negating any benefit from employing the technique, the safety board said. Thrust reversers slow an airplane when it lands.
DOT Inspector General Mead To RetireKenneth Mead, who has been the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Transportation since 1997, is retiring effective Feb. 11 to pursue other opportunities, his spokesman said. Mead blew the whistle on a number of Transportation Department misdeeds during his tenure, most recently raising alarms about the unregulated maintenance work performed on U.S. aircraft by independent contractors, including many overseas
(BTN, Jan. 23). In a statement, Mead he was pleased to have had an impact and hoped he had contributed "positive outcomes and results for the traveling public." He was the department's longest-serving inspector general. Prior to becoming the Transportation Department's inspector general, Mead was an investigator at the Government Accountability Office, formerly known as the General Accounting Office, for 22 years. "Taxpayers are losing a fierce ally," Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said in a statement. Deputy inspector general Todd Zinser will serve as acting inspector general until President George W. Bush appoints a successor.