Privitization new in the US

[Scott Voigt]

From today's Wall Street Journal. Total readers: 1,800,607

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POLITICS AND POLICY

Traffic Controllers Are Back

Union Is Heading Toward Showdown
At FAA Over Privatization Proposal

By STEPHEN POWER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- It's the return of the Air-Traffic Controllers.

Two decades after President Reagan fired most the nation's air-traffic controllers, a reincarnation of their powerful and combative union is roiling another conservative administration: The group is sailing toward a labor-management showdown at the Federal Aviation Administration, with implications for travelers and airlines.

The current flashpoint is privatization: The government wants the flexibility to open some air-traffic control jobs to competition. But the conflict also covers more-basic issues -- such as how much controllers should be paid and how the agency that employs them should control costs at a time when the industry it regulates is making painful cutbacks.

To help manage soaring costs at the FAA, the administration says it wants to keep the option of opening at least a small percentage of air-traffic control jobs -- 6% -- to competition. The controllers' union sees that as a road map to full privatization that would compromise safety along with their job security.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association isn't talking about a strike like the one that hampered air travel in 1981. But what is remarkable about the confrontation is that the union won't need such extreme steps to fend off the administration.


Since rising from the ashes of the old Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, the new union has amassed enough influence to peel away many of the administration's Republican allies in Congress and challenge its agenda for change. If successful, it would mark another defeat for the Bush administration's efforts to open as many as 850,000 federal jobs to private-sector competition.

"It suggests [Natca has] learned something from history," says Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist. Patco "overplayed its hand," he says, "by going to extremes and being too militant. ... A new union, to be more successful, would have to be much more savvy."

Organized in 1987, Natca has few links to Patco, which collapsed after Mr. Reagan fired most of the union's members -- a serious blow to organized labor.

Controlling the controllers is a priority for the Bush administration as it looks for ways to aid the airlines. Since 1996, the FAA's budget has risen roughly 70%, to $14 billion, with more than half the increase attributable to rising operational costs such as salaries, according to the Transportation Department's inspector general. Meanwhile, FAA salaries also have risen sharply. The average salary for most controllers exceeds $106,000, excluding premium pay and overtime -- a 47% jump from the 1998 average annual base salary.

One way the administration wants to cut costs is by renegotiating various labor agreements that have added to the FAA's expenses. But persuading Natca to reopen such deals -- the subject of private talks between the two sides -- won't be easy, judging from union rhetoric. And as the privatization fight shows, Natca isn't easily thwarted.

One Natca strength is its grass-roots organization, powered by more than 12,000 dues-paying controllers. Shortly before a key Senate vote in June, Natca exhorted its members to urge a handful of Republicans -- including Mike DeWine and George Voinovich of Ohio and Illinois's Peter Fitzgerald -- to support a Democratic measure that would prohibit privatization of any controller jobs. All three lawmakers voted to attach the measure to a bill authorizing various FAA programs.

The union also has increased its campaign contributions. Between 1992 and 2002, its donations rose to $1.1 million from $99,000, an 11-fold increase, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Natca officials also aren't shy about taking the offensive. After Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead reported in February that the FAA's operational costs had risen 65% since 1996, Natca's president, John Carr, blunted the message by pointing out in a press release that Mr. Mead's budget had risen at an identical rate during nearly the same period.

"Its real easy to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks when the parade is passing by, but when somebody throws a rock back at you, it's not so easy," Mr. Carr says. As for helping the FAA find ways to save money, Mr. Carr says the union is cooperative, but that "the bottom line ... is that these were signed agreements ... We're happy to live by our word. It's unfortunate that others aren't."

He also says talk of FAA costs distracts from a bigger problem: Almost 70% of the current controllers will be eligible to retire by 2011, with about half expected to leave, according to federal auditors.

To prepare, the FAA should be hiring 1,000 to 1,500 controllers a year, Mr. Carr says, well above the 300 more controllers the Bush administration's proposed 2004 budget calls for. Adding controllers also would expand Natca's rolls, but Mr. Carr frames the issue differently, saying understaffing is already a problem.

Privatization would help the administration sidestep most of these hurdles, but that fight is proving to be intense. Under White House pressure, congressional leaders recently amended the FAA bill to ban privatization of air-traffic control for only four years and to allow it at more than five dozen towers that don't use radar to direct planes. Although the bill would protect 94% of FAA controllers from privatization until 2007, Mr. Carr says he doesn't trust the Bush administration to stop at small facilities.

Administration officials say they have no plans to privatize the towers that help direct traffic with radar. But they say lawmakers shouldn't prohibit that option.

The administration also wants the flexibility to let companies bid for jobs currently held by 2,300 FAA workers who brief pilots on weather conditions and flight restrictions, among other duties. Again, the administration says its goal is controlling costs. But such a step would be forbidden under a law enacted with Natca support. With lawmakers on summer recess, a vote on the current bill won't happen until at least September.

[av8boy]

Scott,

I'm glad you posted this. I'm kind of wondering why there's not been any comment on it to date. Perhaps some of our privatized brethren would care to kick in an observation or two?

Dave:confused:

[I. M. Esperto]

This Bush crowd is killing us. The ATC is just one of many issues that are being confronted by the "neocons". A pox on them. Privatizartion is being carried too far.

Congress is set to close "unprofitable" US post offices and hike postage
rates due to the "budget crunch" caused by the Billions spent on this war
for big oil in Iraq.. The Post Office was never expected to turn a "profit,"
any more than the US Navy is. The Post Office was intended by the Founders
to help bust any news monopoly by mailing the people's own correspondence,
gazettes, bulletins, newspapers and brochures for free or at greatly reduced
rates. The Post Office remains necessary, even in an Internet age. But ours
is becoming too expensive to use.

Next in line for elimination thanks to the Iraq war agenda of Bush is our
national passenger rail system, AMTRAK. Yes, I know it's flawed, but with
the further reduction of bare-bones Amtrak funding, large portions of the
American plains, with their vast distances, will be without passenger train
service. Combine this with all the failing airlines today, and I see a bleak
picture of our transportation system, a vital part of living. Similarly, our
Merchant Marine was sacrificed to the corporations with "Flag of Convience"
ships, mostly from Liberia. Honest!

Bush's legion of flag-waving, taxpaying true-believers are the among the
most egregious suckers in American history. They wave their flags before
Emperor Bush while their train system and mail system is decimated and their
medical care is increasingly unaffordable. American workers who gave their
whole lives to one company's factory, are finding their pension looted,
along with their health care, and they are spending their last years in
poverty.

Workers for large corporations, blue collar and white collar, are seeing
their jobs farmed out to India and China. One of my nephews who was in top
management of a computer company in CA, was sent to China to oversee the
reconstruction of his old factory there. He now lives and works in
Switzerland, where he is probably better off.

Productive people with a 30 or 40-year record of hard work are dying in
poverty because Bush's corporate raiders can no longer "afford" to maintain
the pension and health benefits promised. But there is always money to
maintain the Israeli welfare state, and the health and well-being of the
immigrants from Latin America and East Asia lured into the cheap labor
colony known as the United States.

The docility of Americans in the face of rank treason and tyranny guarantees
more of the same. Frederick Douglass said, "The limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Sorry if I got carried away.

[bluskis]

Anyone done a cost benefit analysis on government?

Would it be better privatised?

I think ours would.

[ayrprox]

Best of luck you guys, hope you do better than we did in the UK, In my considered opinion we have never been more stressed, less appreciated and more thoroughly p:mad: ed off since our government decided to privatise. fight your corner you have my moral support what little help that may be

[SM4 Pirate]

In Australia we have been corporatized, for what that's worth; which means we're an independantly run company owned by the government, but we have to jump when the government says jump, airspace reform etc.

Our bosses tell us we are separate; our budget starts with a $40Mpa return to our shareholders (i.e. the government). If we need to have budget cuts, due to unforeseen circumstances; i.e 11/9, Bali, SARS, 2nd biggest customer going bust etc. we never seem to dip into the return to the shareholder. Result; low expenditure on training (almost nil); increased pressure on shift replacements (or lack their of - reduced O/T); doing much more with much less resources. Then three years later there is an increased amount of incidents and breakdowns of separation.

Just now I understand that there is a forum to discover why we've had an increase in BOSs, gee wonder what would be the underlying cause? Budget driven safety! Keep up the fight USA, stop privatisation of ATC, because we always do what you do...

Bottle of Rum

[av8boy]

There we go... :D

[Scott Voigt]

I didn't want to inundate everyone with all the press coverage over here. We have been doing a media blitz in the areas where they are looking to contract out towers. We are fighting as hard as we can over here. We do have some support from Congress, but folks are afraid to take on Bush... There are also a lot of corporate concerns that feel that this would be a good thing. One of them who is lobbying hard is one that supports the contract towers ( They make money off the contracts. ) so we are trying to shed some light on operating practices over here with some of those companies...

regards

Scott

[Iron City]

NATCA would have a lot more credability if they weren't so dismissive of the views of other "guilds" in the agency and industry. Just because NATCA rolled the last administrator for a honking great pay raise (some of it deserved) which trashed the agency budget (with the assistance of Congress and OMB and the bankrupt budget process in the FAA) then laughed at everyone else who didn't get to the trough first doesn't mean NATCA isn't right about wholesale contracting out.

[Scott Voigt]

Iron City;

Well the only way that we have seen the contractors make money at these sites is to cut back on staff. We have many times when the sites are not staffed due to only one person available and they are out warming up food or taking care of the call of nature. Not exactly the best way of running an operation. Also, deals not reported due to the probablility of being fired by your employer for doing so...

regards

Scott

[1261]

The press reports say "contracting out of some towers" from which I'd infer that they're only talking about airport ATC??

In the UK airport ATC has always been privately provided (someone'll now tell me that it's only since 1970; certainly long before I joined the industry). NATS itself provides ATC under contract at airports. Is someone suggesting that they're less safe than our enroute operation (only recently PPPed)?

And by the way, it was the Jones Act that made the US Merchant Marine uneconomical, not flags of convenience!

[Iron City]

The contracting out towers is as the press reports "only" towers. If I understand the controllers union correctly they do not like the contract tower program becaue it could be just the leading edge of a more extensive program of privatization and contracting out that could put more towers and possibly approach and center operations under contract. This is asserted to reduce safety because the way the contractor makes money on the job is by cutting cost, which is usually cutting staffing and benefits etc. Experience to date in US is on towers with lower activity (I believe VFR only and stand ready to be corrected) and I 'm not sure they are less s afe than towers staffed with Feds. The real problem is with more sophisticated facilaties and operations that when you get the whole contracting thing in the middle of an already complicated situation it is just something more to go wrong, and it will have plenty of opportunities to go wrong.

If the contracting out is done so stupidly that the only way the contractor makes money is by skimping on people and such then shame on whoever is doing the contracting. I know for a fact that the FAA can write service contracts that don't call for uncompensated overtime and slave wages for contractor employees. But employees won't get that rich on it either. Is that also a problem?

[1261]

I'm not saying that I agree with privatization, just that there is considerable precedent for it in the UK at airports. Heathrow ATC is commercially provided; the only reason NATS is there is to make money.

[Scott Voigt]

NATCA represents some of the folks at contract factilities. We don't speak ill of the controllers. What we do speak ill of is the staffing of one controller on duty to save money with no one there to back them up when it gets busy nor to relieve them for breaks and such... There is already a lot of documentation of where contract facilities have come up short due to the lack of staffing. We figure that it will be more of the same when they get to the higher level facilities as well as what Iron City said, we also feel that it is the camel's nose under the tent to contract out all of US ATC...

I could go on and on, but there is going to be some rather interesting reporting going on in the near future as to what the tax payers are really getting with contract towers... I don't think that they are going to be happy with what they find out about corporate ATC... Not that most American's have been happy with a lot of big corporate management to begin with of late...

regards

Scott

[EuroATC]

Correct me if I am wrong but one of the "hot" topics and big worries in the US is that most of your ATC staff retires around 2011. In the US, you are bringing in millions of people from foreign countries to work in jobs that you cannot find americans to do. It is obvious that you are not able to hire enough controllers for whatever reason and even if you start now, you will never catch up to the retirement curve.

So tell me why the US will not hire a foreign controller like just about every other country in the world will do? The security clearance reason is not valid.. it' s just an excuse. The cost of hiring a fully qualified controller is a fraction of the cost of training someone new off the street.

My point is that maybe the union is becoming the controllers worst enemy. Why does NATCA not try and convince the government to allow foreign controllers to work in the US? This is a quick and easy solution to solve some of your staffing problems.

[Iron City]

I bet because NATCA has seen lots of "quick and easy" solutions implemented that turned out to be neither.

[I. M. Esperto]

At the rate the USA is becoming Turld World, qualified foreign controllers may not want to come to the USA.

[lukewarmskywa*ker]

Surely Scott, the problem you relate is not one of the mechanism of provision of ATC (private/public), but more to do with the connection (or lack of it) between an ATC contract and the responsibilities that implies for safety regulation?

How can someone legally work on their own in this day and age?

Are there not limits to consecutive working hours/ staff numbers that are independently and nationally applied to all ATSUs?

I'm not naieve enough to believe that a contractor would willingly apply all the regulations, but presumably there is some kind of inspection system which ensures that budget is allocated to achieve a minimum level of emergency / back-up service?

Lukewarm

[Scott Voigt]

EuroATC;

We have no problem hiring enough people here to become controllers. We have thousands on the roles who want to become controllers. Many of them either contract controllers from college trained facilities or military or off the street with no experience. The problem that we have is the govt. is trying to save money by not hiring anyone. It has nothing to do with not having enough of a pool of talent. We have more than enough of that here.

As to the US bringing in people for jobs that they can't find for Americans. That is a myth. There are Thousands of people clamoring to get into the US to get good jobs as well as a better life style. We don't let anywhere near the amount come in that would like to. Kind of like trying to get to Austrailia or New Zealand <G>...

Now for the folks that are coming in illeaglly, we do have a boat load ( no pun inteneded) of them coming in. These are the folks who are taking the jobs that most Americans don't want. Those are for the most part getting either minimum wage or below, except of course those who have a skill in the building trades.

regards

Scott
(son of imigrants)

Hi Lukewarm;

From what we have seen of the contract facilities, they don't live up to most of the standards that the FAA operates under. About the only one that we see is that the people they hire have taken a CTO ( Control Tower Operaters) test and have passed it. The training that they have done is minimal at best and the staffing that they use at facilites is minimal at best. There are enough folks around for the traffic at the VERY slow places for 80% of the time. But when it does get busy, there is an emergency, the controller is left out to hang. I don't feel that the tax payers are getting their moneys worth.

Now some some of these same companies in other countries run things a little different. It's probably because there is more govt. oversight. Over here, there is very little govt. oversight of the contractor. It is mostly a paper trail oversight and not with actual ATC evaluations and such. No reporting system set up for employees of problems etc... Well, there is the NASA ASRS program, but even this program as good as it is, most of the controllers are afraid to use it... Report bad things, get found out, lose job.

Like I said before, this isn't conjecture on my part. We do represent some of these contract towers and we have heard first hand some of the things that go on. But usually we hear about it after the controller who worked at the contract facility has gotten hired by the FAA and they feel safe enough to talk about it.

regards

Scott

[lukewarmskywa*ker]

That doesn't sound good.
On the other hand, the reason there is so much governmental and independent oversight in Europe (other than the Europeans love multi-tiered bureaucracy) is of course two civil midairs and a few very nearlies.
Sadly, it seems you may have to wait for that in the US....

[EuroATC]

Thanks for the reply Scott, first off, it's unfortunate your govt doesn't want to spend the money to hire but when the time does come and the US is in dire need of controllers when your retirement boom hits.. then hiring a foreigner doesn't look so bad.. we are ready to work in a 1/10 the time it takes to train a kid off the street and the cost is much much less. I don't know how many would actually come.. I know there would be many Canadians (not me) that would cross the border. As for coming to the US for "a better lifestyle".. most that I know went to the US for lower taxes and weather.. depends what you mean by lifestylel.. a completely safe place to live with govt provided health care.. that is Canada :)

As for people coming to the US.. it's a not a myth Scott, it's a reality. If you are a nurse, doctor, dentist you can come to US no problem. In Nafta for example, there is a list of professions, if you can provide documentation proving that you have been trained in one of these jobs, the US will give you a VISA on the spot to work in the US. So if they included ATC in the NAFTA agreement then a Canadian from Toronto could show up in Buffalo and get the required paperwork to get a job in the US.. the only thing the govt has to do is give him/her a security clearance.

Regards,

[Scott Voigt]

Hi EuroATC;

As to the relaxed professions for getting into the US, that is true, we allow people with those skills in. However, they are not activly recruiting most except nurses. Can't find enough of those no matter what...

As to ATC. I don't see the govt. ever relaxing the citizenship rules due to the work that we do with the military and some of our knowledge base. But, then all the contracted out facilities if it comes to that I am sure will be more than willing to hire someone. Problem being, do you want to work for less money and work harder???

regards

Scott

[EuroATC]

Well Scott, no I don't want to work harder and for less money, even if the US opened the door I would not go.. you work too many days for not enough money. The point I am trying to make is that all these things I hear are but excuses. I worked in Toronto centre which is next to Cleveland, Boston, Minn centres. We had knowledge of your airbases , Niagara, Wheeler Sack. etc... Do you honestly think that your military secrets are really secrets? I can probably find GPS lat and longs for every military facilty in the US over the internet. The gov has to open it's eyes and face a reality at some point... It's ok for a foreign pilot to come work for a US airline, as long as he has a green card. But not ok for a Canadian, Brit...etc.. to work in a room full of American controllers... I know that it will probably never happen but think about it.. does it make sense?

Also, why would the gov let in all these people to come work if they are not actively recruiting.. Do you have a 0% jobless rate in the US?

[contact_tower]

Since we are on the subject (a bit anyway.. ;) )

Will the UK CAA ever recognize foreign Eurocontrol (or other relevant) controller licences and ratings? I know someone asked some time ago, but still no reply..... :suspect:

[Scott Voigt]

Hi EuroATC;

Everyone knows where the bases are. That isn't the point, shoot, we put them on road maps here. It is what the aircraft do and how they do it as well as where they go and when they go on certain missions that you are not privy too. It is why all enroute controllers here have to have a secret or better clearance.

I don't see it as an excuse, I see it as a reason given by the folks who hold security clearance issuance around here. They just don't want to do it.... By the way, they aren't the ones who do the hiring either...

As to the rest of us controllers. We don't care where a controller comes from. We just want them to be able to control traffic, check out in a reasonable amount of time... Now the hard part though, get the agency to start hiring... Considering that our administrator has just said that we are "OVER STAFFED." I don't think that we are going to see any major hiring in a long time. Of course I think her master plan is to contract out the 69 facilities that she has on her hit list and then use those controllers to move around to the places that they need them. Only problem with that is that they need them mainly at the places that have radar. Probably about half of these folks while having turned into great tower controllers washed out of radar to begin with and then quite a few more are later in age and homesteading not wanting to move. A lot of these people will just retire and go to work for the contractor... Not at all good to try to fix your staffing problem...

regards

Scott

[West Coast]

I rarely fly GA anymore, but when I do I know when I am at a non federal facility. The product given to me as the end user is not the same I have come to expect at FAA staffed towers. There are inherently governmental jobs, ATC is one of them.