|
Campaign Unavailable We're sorry, this alert is no longer available. If you would like to learn more about ways you can take action, please visit National Air Traffic Controllers Association Grassroots Activism.The short explanation of this alert was: America's air traffic controllers are highly dedicated men and women with a single priority: safety in the skies. But serious FAA mismanagement is putting passenger safety at risk. Please learn about these critical issues and then take action! Call your Senator, toll free at 1-877-FLY-US-SAFE and use our email facility to contact your representatives in Washington. Make your voice heard and help safeguard the future of America's air traffic control system. The looming staffing crisis: Right now, a serious and dangerous staffing crisis is looming over the air traffic control system, meaning that fewer controllers are watching more and more planes. Air traffic is increasing to record levels, but already there are 1,000 fewer controllers than there were just two years ago. The FAA has failed to address the issue: in fiscal year 2004 only 13 air traffic controllers were hired. The FAA needs to address this problem and hire enough new controllers to ensure the continued safety of the aviation system. Modernization "on hold": With air traffic increasing to record levels, it's more important than ever for the FAA to keep modernizing the air traffic control system, ensuring that new technologies make our skies safer and keep efficiently moving aircrafts. In public the FAA Administrator Marion Blakey says she agrees. But the reality? The FAA's current record of modernization is the story of slowing, cutting or derailing critical programs, seriously impacting passenger safety and wasting taxpayer dollars. From cancellations to the rollout of Global Positioning Technology to delays in the implementation of vital surface radar at airports, the FAA has failed the critical test of modernization.
Attacking its own employees: The FAA is seriously damaging relations with its own employees. In fact, it seems the agency believes that it can operate without working with or supporting the men and women in America's air traffic control centers and towers. This summer, at the same time the agency said it lacked the funding to modernize its air traffic control technologies, the FAA Administrator and her deputies embarked on an expensive and carefully coordinated 22-city press tour and media blitz to malign controllers and their union. As the FAA engages in collective bargaining with air traffic controllers and other dedicated public servants who operate, maintain and support our air traffic control system, the agency must commit itself to a process that will result in a resolution that ensures the safety, efficiency and integrity of the aviation system. Furthermore, the FAA appears intent on using questionable interpretation of federal law that allows it to use Congress to unilaterally impose contract terms at its discretion. This is not true collective bargaining, and it is creating an environment of mistrust and hostility.
|
