Agreement on aviation bill reached
February 3, 2012, 11:14 am
After four years of standoffs by congressional leaders, lawmakers recently came to an agreement on a four-year, $63.6 billion U.S. aviation bill to maintain current funding levels to help aid the development of new air traffic technology.
The aviation bill outlines the Federal Aviation Administration's policy, sets its annual budget, and contains numerous smaller provisions regarding the regulation and promotion of the U.S. aviation industry. The bill can now go to the Senate for approval. One major aspect of the aviation bill that divided Democrats and Republicans were union-organizing rules, which caused a cease in talks and left the bill to expire in 2007, Bloomberg reported.
When the bill expired, airport construction projects were shut down and the FAA had to lay off about 4,000 employees to stay afloat. The government lost about $468 million in airline ticket and aviation fuel taxes from the standoff as well, the source reported.
With regard to the labor disputes, House Republicans wanted to new aviation bill to overturn a 2010 U.S. National Mediation Board action and require unions to capture more than 50 percent of the votes to win representation.
In a compromise, Democrats agreed to drop the provision in exchange for increased audits of the board and changes favoring the industry in any run off elections. The legislation does, however, cut subsidies for service to rural airports which could endanger many pilot and aviation jobs, the news source reported.
In response to the compromise, more than a dozen aviation unions are criticizing Senate Democrats for overturning the 2010 action. The Service Employees International Union and AFL-CIO affiliates wrote a letter to Congress saying the new aviation bill could jeopardize unions' ability to organize and gain fair representation, and they are demanding the Democrats fight harder for a clean reauthorization of the bill, the Washington Post reported.
Union officials said raising the threshold of worker interest from 35 percent to 50 percent would make it difficult for leaders to organize, and unionized and nonunionized airlines are merging business operations all over the country. The compromise could also open the door for a rewriting of a long-standing labor law, which could further harm unions, the newspaper reported.
"Rewarding the House Republican Leadership's desire to rewrite decades of long-standing labor law in a flash by inserting an unrelated and controversial labor provision in a much-needed aviation safety and security bill without notice, hearing or debate sets an extremely dangerous precedent," union leaders wrote in their letter to Congress.
With regulations to the aviation industry still undetermined, pilots can take comfort in pilot insurance, knowing they and their loved ones are protected from the unexpected.
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