Aviation impasse foreshadows battles over labor unions

Analysis

WASHINGTON -- A deal in Congress to end a two-week standoff over U.S. aviation funding presaged a larger and more acrimonious fight over labor unions, financing for air traffic modernization and other issues this fall.

The impasse over a proposal to cut $16 million in government subsidies to airlines that provide service to rural communities was less about aviation and spending, and more about escalating partisan rancor and overhang from the political wildfire on raising the multitrillion-dollar debt limit.

The previous multiyear congressional authorization for aviation programs expired in 2007, and lawmakers have struggled to negotiate a new one.

Overshadowing negotiations, which have yet to start, is the Federal Aviation Administration shutdown and its choppy political wake.

"If the Senate refuses to negotiate on the few remaining issues, they can be assured that every tool at our disposal will be utilized to ensure a long-term bill is signed into law," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

It was Mica's proposal on subsidy cuts that triggered the two-week impasse in Congress that held up legislation to fund full FAA operations through mid-September.

That standoff ended on Friday with the Senate's swallowing Mica's bill.

Underlying the subsidy fight was a contentious proposal in the long-term aviation bill by the Republican-led House to roll back a federal rule pushed by Obama administration appointees making it easier to organize labor unions at airlines.

"There is no agreement in Congress to make this change to workers' rights. Insisting it be included in the FAA bill will only cause more economic uncertainty," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.