Fun with the FAAMA

The Federal Aviation Administration Manager's Association (FAAMA), despite it's fancy title and acronym is nothing more than a club for the old-boys network that is running the FAA. It's kind of like a self-appointed Gestapo unit if you were to liken FAA Management to the SS. FAAMA has done nothing except goose-step along in-line in it's opposition to the charges of the National Air Traffic Controller's Association (NATCA) with regards to bad-faith negotiating and imposed work rules.

Steve Baker, FAAMA President, backs this up in his Summer 2007 report:

Contract Update

There continues to be a buzz about the 2006 contract with the air traffic controller’s union. Our position has not changed. The process was followed to the letter. Just because the outcome was not what the union wants does not mean they are entitled to a “an do-over”. If the parties do not like the process, then work in a constructive manner to change the process for future negotiations. Already a year into the current contract, we have four years to get a process that works for labor and the agency. Let’s work to get it right.

Nice guy, you can just hear the sincerity dripping out of your monitor when you read that last sentence. Anyway, that's just to set the stage for where the parties are in this disagreement. Mr. Baker is naturally going to do what he has to to protect his and his organization's best interest. I can't begrudge anyone from doing that. In the same Summer Report he outlines their agenda with respect to the futre of the FAA:

Legislative

We have secured language in the FAA Re-Authorization bill on the House side (HR 2881) that will require a full and complete assessment of supervisory staffing needs for Air Traffic. Hopefully, the study will finally expose the negative impact that staffing to a baseless ratio (8 to 1) has on our product. It is not about the ratio, it is about the function and the need for proper oversight in our facilities. We will continue to work towards proper oversight in our facilities, whether they be air traffic, tech ops, human relations, airports, etc.

"Staffing to a baseless ratio?" You mean like the way the FAA has cut controller staffing based upon post 9/11 traffic? Clearly an example of, "do as I say, not as I do." You know, if you just took the word supervisory out of the above, the quote could be attributed to any NATCA Representative, especially if oversight was replaced with staffing. "The need for proper oversight in our facilities?" As it is presented there one would think that performance was lax just because there aren't enough guards in the towers. Chest thumping at it's finest. The National Airspace System (NAS) did just fine over the last 10 years by using Controllers, as in Controller-in-Charge, to provide necessary "oversight" when a Supervisor wasn't around.

Mr. Baker has done a good job in getting those supervisory ranks filled over the past two years in his effort just to get down to that "baseless ratio." He's hoping that whatever study gets done, most likely with tainted data, will justify even more oversight from more people that are only too happy to run away from having to work airplanes everyday for a living.

More highly paid baby-sitters over-seeing an already disenfranchised workforce. Go read the Employee Attitude Survey results for 2006 at www.faa.gov. More iron boots on the necks of the people that try to make the NAS work day after day and night after night. More letters of reprimand and false accusations of illegal slow-downs and work stoppages.

And the two worst years for on-time flights in the history of aviation. Coincidence? That's for you to decide but the fun with FAAMA is just starting.