Are you listening, Congress?
If you are of a certain age, you are likely to remember the huge union-busting efforts of President Ronald Reagan after air traffic controllers
went on strike in 1981:
Just days after members of the Professional Air Traffic Controls Organization (PATCO) went on strike, President Ronald Reagan declared the strike illegal under the Taft-Hartley act. Reagan ordered the 13,000 striking air traffic controllers to return to work within 48 hours. On August 5, 1981 Reagan fired over 11,000 workers who refused to return to work. PATCO, who supported Reagan in the 1980 election, was decertified as a union and the fired workers were banned from holding federal jobs ever again. It took the FAA close to ten years to return staffing to its normal level.
In recent years, the massive wave of new air traffic controllers that were hired back then began to retire en masse. This has created an
enormous staffing shortage at our nation's air traffic facilities:
Official Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data shows the agency will miss its air traffic controller hiring goal for fiscal year 2015. This will be the fifth consecutive fiscal year in which the FAA has not hired enough air traffic controllers to keep up with the pace of workforce attrition. As of August 22, 2015, the FAA had only hired 1,178 of a planned 1,772 air traffic controllers, putting the agency 34 percent behind its goal.
Of the 10,859 certified controllers, 30 percent are eligible to retire at any time. There are only 1,844 controllers currently in training to replace them. Training controllers takes two to four years, depending on the facility at which the new hires are placed. Once placed at a facility, an average 25 percent of trainees do not complete the training and certify.
At inadequately staffed facilities, the FAA requires controllers to work six-day weeks through the use of overtime. Some of the facilities that serve the busiest and most complex airspaces are understaffed. These include Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities (TRACONs) in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and New York. At these five facilities, the number of fully certified controllers is below the level deemed adequate by FAA standards, and controllers are forced to work six-day weeks.
Emphasis added. Does this sound safe to you? Do we really need our highly professional, but severely overworked air traffic controllers on their headsets—working forced overtime week after week, month after month? The National Air Traffic Controllers Association says
it is safe ... for now:
“I want to be clear: The safety of the air traffic control system is not at risk,” said NATCA President Paul Rinaldi. “But maintaining safety is coming at the cost of efficiency and modernization. We have far too few controllers in our towers and radars rooms. If left unaddressed, the situation could result in delays similar to those the country experienced in April 2013, when air traffic controllers were furloughed due to the mandatory budget cuts. Bureaucratic inertia is slowing the hiring process, and at the worst possible time. The number of fully certified air traffic controllers is at the lowest level in 27 years.”
Even NASA has been warning the
FAA about the dangers of overworking controllers:
NASA warned the FAA four years ago that chronic controller fatigue was undermining safety and urged the agency to eliminate six-day work weeks as soon as possible. The FAA had asked NASA to study controller scheduling and its impact on fatigue.
Jim Marinitti, the union’s southern regional vice president, said controllers at the Atlanta approach control facility, one of the nation’s busiest air traffic facilities, have been routinely working mandatory six-day weeks since 2006.
The continual six-day work weeks “definitely raise the safety risk,” said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and aviation safety expert.
This staffing shortage has been in the making for a long time. From the
LA Times in 2004:
With three-quarters of the nation's air traffic controllers expected to retire over the next decade, the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday announced plans to hire 12,500 replacements to become the next generation of workers charged with safeguarding the skies.
As part of the plan, the agency expects to shrink the time it takes to train controllers from the present three to five years to only two to three. It will also offer some current controllers an opportunity to continue working past the mandatory retirement age of 56.
The union that represents all 15,000 FAA air traffic controllers harshly criticized the government's blueprint as inadequate.
Eleven years later, with staffing shortages still looming large, it is safe to say the union was absolutely right. The staffing shortages were also exasperated under President George W. Bush, whose FAA made many unpopular staffing decisions that ultimately moved longtime controllers to opt for retirement and
repelled new (highly qualified) prospective controllers:
Previously, controllers were guaranteed rest breaks after every two hours of their eye-straining high-anxiety work of following aircraft paths across radar screens. But no more. And they can now be forced to work overtime, however fatigued or stressed they may be. Nor are controllers any longer guaranteed two consecutive weeks of vacation.
Newly-hired controllers will be paid 30 percent less than those now on the job, creating a two-tier system that's bound to cause friction among the controllers and give the FAA a great incentive to force veteran controllers out in favor of cheaper newcomers. And whether they be long-time or recently-hired employees, the FAA is aiming to increase their workloads by an average of 10 percent each over the next few years.
That's not all, either. The agency imposed a dress code on controllers. No jeans, no T-shirts, no sneakers or sandals. The FAA said it wanted to make certain that controllers' attire would not "erode public confidence" in them, although most work in windowless rooms, unseen by the public.
Not surprisingly, the controllers' morale appears to be near rock-bottom. Recent FAA surveys indicate that two-thirds of them are unhappy with how the agency is managed. What's more, they've filed more than 280.000 formal grievances charging the FAA with violating their union rights.
Good job, Bushie!
And yet, Congress is still dragging their feet. Unless they act, the cycle will continue:
“They operated that system on nothing more than a political agenda and we’re still paying the price now,” Gregory McGuirk, an associate professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a former air traffic controller, told us. “What it did was set up a cycle with one signature."
The “cycle” – a direct result stemming from Reagan’s dismissal decision – will occur every 25 years when the majority of air traffic controllers reach the mandatory retirement age of 56. The cycle will continue happening because two current FAA hiring requirements are that controllers have to “be no older than age 30” and retire by the age of 56.