Because the air site visitors management disaster drags on, placing lives in peril and snarling logistics at key journey hubs, a brand new villain has emerged: the controllers union.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy got here up with a wise, quick repair to the instant staffing disaster (which brings severe security issues in addition to delayed/canceled flight chaos): Preserve senior controllers working a bit longer.
He’d supply money bonuses to controllers beneath the obligatory retirement age of 56 to maintain them on the job, and perhaps work out waivers so some might serve previous 56 till turning 61.
(He has different, longer-term plans as properly, together with shifting quick to deal with the aging-equipment mess left behind by his Biden-era predecessor, Pete Buttigieg.)
Further pay for essential work, on a very voluntary foundation with an eye fixed to ending a horrible and worsening downside: Who might have an issue with that?
Why, the Nationwide Air Visitors Controllers Affiliation: The union hates the thought, and has voted to punish any controller who indicators a waiver with a seniority cap (i.e., you cease accruing seniority the day you are taking Duffy’s supply).
The union’s rationale: “Every waiver places early retirement in danger by displaying the Company [the FAA] and Congress that obligatory retirement is pointless.”
That’s, a coverage that performs a vital position in driving controller shortages would possibly be “pointless,” and NATCA doesn’t need that truth uncovered: It might slightly the disaster proceed.
And the union has the chutzpah to state this publicly.
Seems like President Ronald Reagan didn’t go far sufficient after smashing PATCO, the unique controllers union: He ought to’ve salted the earth slightly than let NATCA kind.
By way of NATCA, todays controllers are performing neither in the most effective pursuits of the taxpayers who cowl their salaries nor the air vacationers for whose security they’re accountable.
Duffy and the president have to hit again twice as onerous, earlier than this disaster spirals absolutely uncontrolled.
