FAA Shutdown Looms as House GOP's Anti-Union Demands Persist

With next week's deadline looming to pass an FAA funding bill or risk having the agency shut down again over Republicans' anti-union demands, AFA-CWA flight attendants gathered with pilots and air traffic controllers Wednesday to pressure Congress to act before midnight Sept. 16.

"We cannot allow political brinkmanship to again trump the safety of the flying public or the jobs of hard-working Americans," AFA-CWA President Veda Shook said.

The news conference at Washington's National Airport joins a long list of leafleting events and other actions around the country to help people understand the manufactured crisis at the Federal Aviation Administration and urge them to contact their members of Congress.

In July, U.S. House Republicans refused to pass the agency's funding reauthorization bill unless airline workers were stripped of their newly won right to fair and democratic union representation elections.

For two weeks, 4,000 FAA employees and more than 70,000 private-sector airport construction workers were furloughed. Expansion and safety projects at airports around the country came to a halt, and the country lost $400 million due to uncollected airline ticket taxes. Ultimately, Congress approved temporary funds — the 21st funding extension since the agency's last long-term budget was passed in 2007.

Capt. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, condemned the temporary extensions, saying one or two delays might be defensible, but 21 are unacceptable.

"It's time for everyone who works within the United States aviation system to be very vocal and ensure that Congress can hear us loud and clear — we cannot continue to function with this Band-Aid type approach to funding," Moak said. "These delay tactics just cover up the symptoms and do nothing to mitigate the problems."

The campaign to now tie FAA funding to workers' rights has been engineered by Delta Airlines and led in Congress by House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.).

They are demanding that the National Mediation Board reverse the 2010 rule change that simply ensures that only votes cast in union representation elections are counted — the standard in all U.S. elections. Previously, airline workers who didn't cast ballots were counted as "no" votes. 

AFA-CWA President Veda Shook                                                                                                                               Vice President Sara Nelson