FAA History Lesson -- May 23

From the FAA Historical Chronology, 1926-1996...

”May 23, 1981: At its annual convention, in New Orleans, PATCO set a Jun 21 deadline for reaching agreement on a new contract with FAA. PATCO President Robert Poli said if agreement was not reached by that date the union would poll its members for a strike vote. Newspapers quoted Poli as vowing that the "the skies will be silent" if FAA's negotiators did not "come to their senses." (See Apr 28, 1981, and Jun 18, 1981.)”

NATCA has their convention this year -- in September. It is shaping up to be an historic event.

You may not know it -- I’m not sure most controllers realize it -- but this is a perilous time. The conditions that controllers are suffering right now cannot continue. Something will change. And very different groups of very clever people have very different ideas on how to make change.

Pat Forrey is the current president of NATCA and he is under tremendous pressure. Controllers want the conditions of their workplace improved. Controllers are not patient people. Either Pat will deliver or they will find someone else who can. Or the situation will spiral out of control. Pat is not stupid. He knows this. The question is, “Do you ?”

This post is supposed to be another history lesson. I write them in hope that I can pass along some knowledge that will make us all smarter if not wiser. If you haven’t read The Pressures of PATCO let me encourage you to do so. Read it with a critical eye. Do you remember what I wrote about yesterday -- ERAM ? It a nutshell, it’s technology. Do you remember that I’m retired ? You’ve got to ask yourself on occasion, “Why do I still care ?” The answer to that is complicated but it’s obvious that it isn’t the money. A lot of people -- a lot of controllers --think it’s the money. It isn’t.

From The Pressures of PATCO

” Finally, advancing technology played a key role in both the cause and the resolution of the strike. Controllers, for the most part, paid little attention to the implications of automation on their occupation, although PATCO occasionally faulted the FAA's emphasis on equipment instead of people. Most controllers believed in the centrality and necessity of human skill and judgment to the system. Indeed, they welcomed almost any equipment or programs that might assist them in their work. At the same time, though, an overwhelming number of individual ATC complaints singled out stress as a primary motive for striking. Greater air traffic volume and increased demands on ATC capabilities made possible by new technology, coupled with faulty equipment and autocratic management that limited workplace autonomy, were the obvious causes of such stress. Yet neither PATCO nor the controllers made this connection explicit or strongly challenged management privilege to decide the nature and purpose of computers in air towers.

Meanwhile, FAA officials clearly saw automation as a means of eliminating dependence on skilled controllers. As an editorial in “Aviation Week and Space Technology” commented, "few federal bureaucrats have the chance to fire 70% of their departments and replace the victims with lower-salaried recruits--or with computers and black boxes." In 1982 J. Lynn Helms (head of the FAA) announced a twenty year program costing between $15 and $20 billion to replace the system's aging computers and further move towards automating air control.“

Let me quote myself a couple of times so I can make sure I’ve made the point.

“Instead of using technology to assist controllers, they keep trying to make it replace controllers.”

“They’re trying to turn controllers into ‘mouse-clicking monkeys.’ “

But it’s so much easier to focus on the money. It’s easier to explain, easier to understand and easier to assign blame. It’s easier to emotionalize. “Greedy bastards !” “Slave wages.”

From The Pressures of PATCO

” A critical component contributing to and ensuring the acceptance of this view was PATCO's own demands and rhetoric. Poli's emphasis on economic benefits served to subsume the basic struggle over power in the workplace; mask the links among stress, autocratic management, and workplace control; and undermine the moral position of the strikers in the eyes of the country. By basing a strike on an action critique of specific FAA techniques rather than an ideological and theoretical critique of managerial control and its relationship to stress, PATCO earned few supporters and the basic issue of manager-labor power remained unaddressed.“

(Emphasis added)

As I said, these are perilous times. Somebody needs to get the flick. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be Bush, Peters or Sturgell. Do you ?

And there’s one more thing (isn’t there always ?) that you might want to plug into the equation.

From the FAA Historical Chronology, 1926-1996...

”Jan 7, 1980: John F. Leyden resigned as president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO) after a bitter struggle for control of the organization with Robert E. Poli, a regional vice president. Both Poli and Leyden had submitted their resignations to the PATCO board, but the board accepted only Leyden's resignation. Leyden resigned effective Feb 1, and Poli became interim president on that day. Poli subsequently was elected to a three-year term on Apr 24. (See May 4, 1979, and Apr 15, 1980.)“

Perilous indeed.

Don Brown
May 23, 2008