STATEMENT BY NATCA PRESIDENT PATRICK FORREY
OCT. 22, 2007
FAA air traffic controllers today are working their 415th day without a contract. This is taking a very serious toll on the controller workforce and the nation?s aviation system. Only once in our nation?s history have we seen conditions in our air traffic control facilities that are as acrimonious, overworked, overstressed, demoralized and angry as we do today and that was in the period leading up to the 1981 PATCO strike. The FAA, last Friday, rushed out a press release late in the day in a desperate attempt to put a positive spin on a situation that we firmly believe is quickly spinning out-of-control.
There is only one possible solution to this crisis: We must have a contract. The House of Representatives last month passed an FAA bill that would send us back to the contract table, but until the Senate acts on its own version, and the two bills are reconciled in conference, the situation will worsen. Veteran controllers must have an incentive NOT to retire once eligible. Experienced controllers need a reason to use the six-plus years of service they have left before mandatory retirement to keep the system running today and train tomorrow?s controllers without being burned out and driven to total exhaustion.
Make no mistake about it: Our system is on the brink of a total breakdown because of the careless and reckless actions of the FAA, which failed to get ahead of a staffing crisis years in the making. Flight delays are at an all-time high and will get worse. This is because the FAA is forcing veteran controllers with 20 or more years of experience out the door while they rush to bring in new hires, including many off the street with zero experience, who are being thrown into a firestorm of crushing traffic demands, fewer rest periods, and inadequate training. New controllers need years of seasoning to be able to move traffic as quickly as veterans who have been doing it for 20 years or more and possess the knowledge, quick decision-making, flexibility and moxie to move the system at peak efficiency.
During classroom training in Oklahoma City, the FAA is paying its new hires less than the servers at local restaurants, with no benefits and no student loan assistance. When they reach their first FAA facility, the agency is paying them 30 percent less than they did before the current contract impasse, which has led an unprecedented number of them to quit due to the inability to make ends meet. Two hundred and one quit in fiscal year 2007, to be exact. This problem has gotten worse: Four trainees at Miami Center have quit this month alone because there are too many new hires in the building than the FAA can handle and train.
In addition, we have learned that 85 percent of the job offers made to new employees in the FAA?s Eastern Terminal Service Unit this past year were declined! Of the 482 candidates offered a job as an air traffic controller, 417 turned the job down. The ETSU, as its called, comprises about one-third of the nation?s terminal air traffic control facilities. This is a major reason why the FAA, earlier this year, threw out its longstanding rule that you had to have either a college degree at an FAA-accredited program, military or civilian Department of Defense air traffic control experience in order to work as an FAA controller. The FAA went to Facebook, MySpace, Craig?s List and even advertised on city buses to find enough people off the street to fulfill their HR-driven new hire target for this past fiscal year, which, by the way, was re-baselined by nearly 700 from the original projection because of the record number of veteran controllers that retired due to the lack of a contract. Many of these new hires are being put into the busiest FAA facilities with zero experience. This has never happened before ? for good safety reasons -- and speaks to the level of desperation the FAA has reached. This is very dangerous and not fair for these new hires.
Today, we report to you some very sobering facts about how the lack of a contract is driving out our most experienced controllers into retirement.
From September 3, 2006, the Labor Day weekend date in which the FAA imposed work rules and pay cuts on controllers, until September 30, 2007, 953 experienced and fully certified controllers retired. Nine-hundred and fifty-three. That?s 8.3 percent of the total workforce of fully certified controllers and is 40 percent more than the FAA projected. In just the 2007 fiscal year, which ran from October 1, 2006 to Sept. 30, 2007, 856 controllers retired. That?s 33 percent more than the FAA projection of 643.
Total attrition of controllers in fiscal year 2007 was 1,558. That includes the 856 retirements, 201 resignations, 136 that were fired or who died, and a staggering 365 who left their controller jobs to take an FAA supervisor position because it was the only way they will ever get a raise or fair treatment. This total attrition is 30 percent more than the FAA projected.
Here is perhaps the most compelling evidence that the lack of a contract is the reason for the surge in retirements: Of the 856 who retired in fiscal year 2007, only 16 of them were forced out by the mandatory retirement age of 56. That?s 16! Everyone else left because they are FED UP with the FAA?s draconian treatment. They walked out the door with several years of experience still left on the table that the agency desperately needs to keep the system running at peak efficiency and safety. This is because the FAA cares only about cutting salary costs, and overpowering, intimidating and demoralizing its workforce, while at the same time keeping their own supervisors fully staffed and flush with cash. Twenty-five percent of FAA management now makes what a member of Congress makes.
As many of you know, former FAA Administrator Marion Blakey was fond of saying that that the lack of a contract would not affect retirements. In April 2006, right after the FAA broke off talks with NATCA, Blakey said controllers, quote, ?would be acting against their own self-interest,? unquote, by retiring. She stated, quote, ?There is not going to be any mass run for the exits.?
What a tragic misstatement this turned out to be. Blakey was dead wrong. As stated before, the FAA has missed its retirement projection in the 415 days we?ve suffered without a contract by 40 percent. It got so bad for the FAA this past fiscal year that their human resources department had to furiously scramble to keep up with the retirement paperwork and they even tried to pull a fast one over Congress and the media by TWICE re-baselining their retirement projection more than halfway into the fiscal year when it became apparent its staffing plan would fail miserably. The FAA in March revised its projection to 700 retirements and raised it again to 800 a few months later. Yet, the FAA even ended up missing THIS number by seven percent.
In closing, I?d like to read a few lines from a resignation letter by Shesly Gonzalez, who left Miami Center as a trainee on Oct. 13. Shesly writes, ?There is a growing tension in Miami Center that can be felt upon entering the control room. The staffing crisis has reached a point that forces fully certified controllers to work 10-hour days, six days a week. The controllers are exhausted, causing morale to be low and making it a very negative atmosphere to work in, not to mention the adverse implications that this has on safety. This is also the opinion of seven other trainees that have resigned from the facility this year. Within the past year, the FAA has begun hiring ?off-the-street? employees. These are people without experience in the field of air traffic control, without CTI certification, and with no military experience. It is appalling to think that the FAA would rather hire ?off-the-street,? than retain an employee with all those qualifications, a passion for the work, an investment of eight years towards the work and a willingness to do the work at a lower salary than his senior counterparts. I am fully aware that my resignation is of little importance to Miami Center and the FAA, however, I am confident that when enough people become aware of the problem, something will eventually be done to correct it.?
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