Word: natca
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...traffic-control system. By the National Transportation Safety Board's reckoning, anti- quated tracking equipment freezes up, shuts down or fizzles out all too often. "There is not one day that goes by without our losing radar or radio communication with an aircraft," says Joseph Fruscella, president of NATCA's eastern region. "It compromises safety on a regular basis...
...than meet its demands for better pay, benefits and safety measures. The FAA fired all 11,000 striking controllers, then contracted with IBM to deliver a system of high-tech computers that would rule the skies. "Rather than incremental changes, they tried to reinvent the system," says Mike Connor, NATCA's director of safety and technology. "They were trying to computerize everything, but you can't computerize human reasoning or decision making." After investing $2 billion and watching the projected costs balloon from $8 billion to $37 billion, still with no functioning system in sight, the FAA pulled the plug...
...Chicago and San Francisco, each controller not only carries the work load of three but works mandatory six-day weeks as well. Union officials dryly note that even with the $3.7 million a year shelled out for overtime in the New York area, the FAA comes out ahead. Says NATCA's Connor: "You aren't paying medical insurance or retirement costs...
...insists that current staffing levels are sufficient. "It is much more efficient today than it was several years ago," says Monte Belger of the FAA's Air Traffic Services. NATCA's Krasner counters, "If you have a vision of an air-traffic-control system that 15 or 20 years from now will have fewer controllers, it doesn't really matter if you make these people work longer hours and burn them out. From an economic standpoint, it makes sense. From a human standpoint, it's crazy...
...unions in the control tower six years ago, after he fired 11,400 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. Now the nonunion replacements for the old PATCO members are 12,800 strong and have just formed -- you guessed it -- a union. This one is called NATCA (for National Air Traffic Controllers Association), and last week it won certification by a 2- to-1 vote...