21 Days

Forgive me for being a little slow on the uptake. I’ve been focused on safety-related matters instead of legislative matters. I’ve failed to fully appreciate last Thursday’s announcement that Senators Lautenberg and Inhofe are cosponsoring S3416, The Federal Aviation Administration Employee Retention Act .

The political junkies out there are probably now saying, “Inhofe ???”. Yep. And it gets even better. In Pat Forrey’s (President of NATCA) weekly update, Senator Inhofe is quoted as saying;

”...[a]s a pilot I am well acquainted with the exceptional work done by the employees of the FAA and I know first hand that our aviation system is only is as good as these employees. They deserve the right to bargain in good faith on their employment contracts. This bill will give them that opportunity. “

For those unfamiliar with Senator Inhofe, you can read his Wikipedia entry. In short, he is one of the most conservative Senators out there. Senator Lautenberg has a long (and welcomed) history of helping out controllers. Being a Democrat, helping a labor union isn’t politically unusual. But Senator Inhofe ? That is about as unusual as it gets.

It must be a common interest. Could it be safety ? If two Senators as far apart as Lautenberg and Inhofe can agree on something then you should be able to support it too. You can read more about the bill at FederalTimes.com.

So, what’s the catch ? If you look at the Congressional calendar, you’ll see there are only 21 working days scheduled for the rest of this Congress. That presents a very small amount of time to get anything done. I wouldn’t wait for anybody to get the automatic-letter-writing web sites up. If I was interested in helping out, I’d write my Senator today and ask them to sign on as a cosponsor of S3416 -- The Federal Aviation Administration Employee Retention Act.

Don Brown
August 9, 2008