FAA, Controllers at Odds over Compensation

To hear both sides in a scrap over a new contract for the nation's air traffic controllers, you might believe the sky soon could be falling.

But the contract -- negotiated since last summer and stalled since April because neither side will budge on another $500 million in concessions over five years -- does shed light on a serious issue.

When President Reagan fired 10,438 striking controllers in 1981, leaving just a third of the force on duty, the Federal Aviation Administration went on a hiring binge, adding 8,700 within two years and more than 17,000 by 1991.

But now that hiring bubble is about to pop.

Three of four of the 15,000 controllers guiding aircraft at 600 commercial airports and 3,300 small airports will be eligible to retire within 10 years, a 2005 agency report said.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a union, estimates that one in four would be able to retire by the end of next year.

"It's really becoming a dangerous thing," association spokesman Doug Church said.

Workers can retire after turning 50 or serving 25 years. Most must retire at age 56 and all must go at 61.

After urging by the U.S. General Accounting Office and the Transportation Department's inspector general, the FAA came up with a plan to hire 12,500 controllers in the next decade to cover retirement and other losses.

The plan also relies on better management and more efficient operations to cut 1,700 positions, despite projections about air traffic growing 2.3 percent a year, and on compressing training that now takes three to five years into two to three years.

In addition, the FAA doesn't expect controllers who can retire to do so right away.

That's where the new contract comes in.

Union officials, who are willing to give up $1.4 billion in cuts over five years while the governments wants to shave $1.9 billion, say pay freezes and less pay incentives will make retirement look rosier for more controllers.

"Why stick around and work a few extra years if they're not going to increase their retirement annuity?" Church said.

FAA officials are not scared.

If all controllers eligible to retire took a walk in the next three years, they'd leave behind more than $700 million in wages and pensions, agency spokesman Geoff Basye said.

"Those retirement threats, they just don't add up," he said.

FAA officials say controllers, as important as they are, are overpaid. Cash compensation averages $128,000 a year, and when benefits are added, the total is 42 percent more than other agency employees get.

And extra cash will be needed to update air traffic operations, invest in safer technologies such as satellite-based tracking and hire another wave of controllers, agency officials said.

"The union wants us to mortgage the future of the national airspace system," Administrator Marion Blakey said recently.

The agency says its contract offer would protect veteran pay and benefits and keep 80 percent of premium pay for current workers, while union officials say that, overall, most workers would see a pay cut.

Either way, new hires wouldn't make as much.

A controller starts at $38,385 a year and can earn $93,808 to $131,330 when fully qualified, says Bruce McMeans, union president in San Antonio.

The union is willing to reduce starting pay to $37,323 and set experienced pay at $90,994 to $118,282.

The FAA wants to bring starting pay down to $31,700 and set experienced pay at $62,750 to $85,600.

Controllers already work a stressful job without enough people and with outdated equipment, says Mike Boyd of the Boyd Group, an aviation consulting firm.

"It is a job that will literally eat your health," he said.

Toss in a few more indignities such as working longer without breaks, mandatory overtime, no leaves allowed during summers, and a new dress code banning such things as blue jeans and flip-flops, and morale could be headed down the drain, McMeans said.

Of 46 controllers in San Antonio, six can retire now, and 19 will be able to do so by the end of next year. Two intend to retire this year.

It takes 18 months to train a controller coming from another airport, and there's just one in training now.

"Fewer controllers watching more aircraft ... not a recipe for safety," McMeans said.

But the FAA will take the chance.

Agency officials declared an impasse two months ago and invoked a federal law that says they can implement their latest and best offer if Congress doesn't act in 60 days. The deadline was Monday.

A majority of Congress wanted negotiations to continue and, if needed, have the matter settled with binding arbitration. But Republican leadership disagreed and wouldn't let a vote take place to amend the law.

An attempt was made Wednesday to get around the block with a suspension bill. But the necessary two-thirds approval was nine votes shy, failing 271 to 148.

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