All,

Hopefully everyone is surviving the shutdown ok. I know it officially got real for everyone after seeing those paystubs last week. Let me know if I can help with anything. Here’s the rundown.

Shutdown News

As you may have heard, this is now the longest shutdown in history. It really doesn’t seem to have any end in sight either. Some are saying that it will likely go at least through the State of the Union address which is scheduled for January 29th. So if you haven’t already started making financial arrangements to make it through to the end of this thing, I would recommend doing so. Info on Sky One’s Crisis Co-Pilot can be found by clicking HERE.

The house has passed two bills to fund us so far. HR 21 and HR 267. These bills moved on to the Senate where Mitch McConnell is refusing to bring any bill to the floor that the President won’t sign. The President is still looking for money for a border wall. So the bills to reopen and fund at least the DOT are in existence and have passed the house. Mitch McConnell is preventing them from getting to the Senate floor.

You may have heard that NATCA is suing the United States Government regarding our pay. The suit claims the government is in violation of the Fifth Amendment because it “unlawfully deprived NATCA members of their earned wages without due process.” We are requesting a hearing on this motion for a temporary restraining order against the government. If this restraining order or injunction is granted, it is possible that payments could be made to us through Treasury. However, last I checked, Treasury was shut down as well so I am not sure how that would work. Either way, just know that NATCA is fighting this on every front imaginable in every way possible.

Alex’s email touched on all the congressional lobbying that has taken place and the message getting across to congress through our activists so I won’t go too far into detail on that. I will say that I was watching C-Span the other day (as one does) and literally every person that I heard speak mentioned air traffic controllers not being paid. That is a direct result of hard working activists (made possible through your PAC contributions) getting out there and doing their thing on our behalf. One uplifting thing through all of this is seeing the hard working folks that we have on our side getting out there and doing their thing.

I want to reiterate our position on media requests. FORWARD THEM TO ME or and member of the eboard. Elected officials have protections regarding statements in the media. The general FAA employee does not. This has been a problem in other places across the country but not here yet so let’s keep it that way. When this is all said and done I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if some folks in other agencies are let go because of unsanctioned statements to the media. We were recently briefed on this by the agency as well. No excuse. Just don’t do it. Forward it up the chain.

Shift Changes for Non-Bid Leave

I wanna touch on this one more time to make sure I am being clear about it before we reach a consensus on how to handle it. Here is my blurb from Wednesday:

When our schedule is built we move people to cover for bid leave. Do you all think the same courtesy should be extended to non-bid leave? This of course would be leave requested prior to posting. Anything else would fall under spot leave requests.

My general stance is that we should do whatever we can do, in every situation, to approve as much leave as possible. This would mean moving people to cover for non bid leave.

One caveat is that I would like to keep these moves to what is considered normal. Third swings are normal. Fourth swings are not. Filling in for someone’s mid on your last day is normal. Double mids are not.

It really comes down to a question of what we see as more important. Do you want a better shot at leave or a better shot at not having a third swing or second day, etc?

Hitting reply to this email we go directly to me. Please let me know ASAP how you feel about this issue so I can make a decision that will best reflect what you all want.

I want to add to this, this is something that could happen to you any day of the year. Holidays and all. You could get put into a third swing on Halloween, 4th of July, any of those days to help cover for non bid leave (requested prior to posting).

So far the responses have been overwhelmingly in favor of making reasonable/normal moves to help accommodate more leave. Which was surprising to me. Only 3 people have said they do not want people to be moved to cover for non bid leave. About 15 have said that we should be moving people to cover for it.

Solidarity Event

On Monday, February 18th from 5-8pm we will be having a Solidarity Event at the Dave and Busters at the Auburn Supermall. It’ll be fun! Bring the family!

Sign up here:

http://www.natca-zse.com/eventsignup

That’s it for now. Let me know if you have any issues or questions.

In Solidarity,

Drew