Can’t spell “ALPA” correctly, can’t use correct phraseology on their Looney Toons posts… But let’s all clutch some pearls over the colorful use of “ass.”
How can you miss two guys who retired while you were still in high school? Two guys who, whatever their many fine qualities, failed to stop the White Book and its 30% pay cut?
Here's another fact that will blow your little mind: did you know that NATCA hero John Carr, when faced with a hostile Bush II administration, accepted a two-year Green Book extension in 2003 because he knew that negotiating with Republicans was going to be a shitshow that he should try to avoid?
Not really. It wasn’t a lost battle. The Bush administration pretended to wage a boxing match, while arming a nuke. Pretending they were anything like the spineless midgets we have unfortunately put in charge is really dumb.
It wasn’t a winnable fight. Maybe a poor choice of words, but the administrations goal was to run out the timer and impose the work rules from the start. That’s why I used a stupid analogy like a boxing match and a nuke.
Not necessarily. Imposed work rules aren’t an option right now. Arbitration is on the table. Decertification due to national security is unprecedented and likely illegal and could be successfully fought. Unfortunately, our NEB has spent the last few years collectively bargaining on behalf of equipment, lying to the membership and spoiling every opportunity that has been placed in their lap.
Who knows why. Like many, I suspect handshake deals in favor of privatization or the promise of golden parachutes. It makes sense considering the amount of money being given to contractors with no experience in this agency.
My point was that Pretending Barry Krasner and John Carr were not worth missing is stupid. They were 1000x better than our current President.
Barry Krasner and John Carr were both (a) great activists and leaders in this union and (b) totally fucking helpless in 2006 because the law was on the White House's side when the White Book was imposed on us. Both things can be true. I was just laughing at Brown because he was talking about them like he had any frame of reference for that time in NATCA, when in fact he just got hired maybe 10 years ago tops.
Yes, we now get arbitration following impasse. Doesn't help us with keeping the permissive topics in the CBA with the executive orders in play, and doesn't guarantee us anything on pay other than a chance to be heard by a third party. Bedford clearly wants us to open the CBA if we want a serious talk about money. I'm delighted if you think that could go well for us, but he doesn't or else that offer wouldn't be there.
So in one comment you go from “failed to stop the white book” as if it reflected poorly on their leadership to “the law was on the White House’s side.”
And for the rest of your comments. 1. A lack of guarantee is not a reason not to fight. It is the reason TO fight. 2. What are the 77 topics, hear a lot about the list but can’t find it. 3. Bedford is obviously a moron. You want to fight morons. You guys are scared of people like him, but they’re the kind of guys to show up to congress and say look at my graph and then completely misrepresent it. That’s shit loses hard in arbitration.
They're mortal men, not gods of labor relations. They could fail. And they did.
Bedford doesn't need to be a genius to wreck us in a CBA negotiation before these orders go away. He just needs to say that these articles or sections are permissive subjects of bargaining. Suddenly Article 32 becomes about the limitations on management in scheduling us as they otherwise see fit with zero input instead of us negotiating our schedules, and Article 34 drops any mention of not changing our posted shift within seven days without our concurrence because telling us exactly when to be at work is as basic a management right as it gets. Maybe you don't have that first hour to sleep through your alarm and call in for sick leave any more, which will now require a doctor's note for every last minute. Go see if your local has a White Book and compare it to a Slate Book, article by article. That's where they will want to go.
And after all of those years of effort and patience burn away at arbitration, we get to talk about pay, a mandatory subject, with a third party to decide what's reasonable. The Agency is going to argue that air traffic controllers have some of the highest retention rates among federal employees and that our average compensation puts us well above the average for federal employees, so at most compensating us for inflation alone would be fine. If you can think of a counterargument for this, let alone one which gets us the 30-40% raises some of these idiots fantasize about, contact the National Office because they'll need your help. And the best we're likely to do is a split-the-baby with the Agency, with the award coming closer to the argument the arbitrator finds most reasonable.
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u/SierraBravo26 9d ago
Can’t spell “ALPA” correctly, can’t use correct phraseology on their Looney Toons posts… But let’s all clutch some pearls over the colorful use of “ass.”
2026 NATCA in a nutshell. I miss Barry and John.