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Air Traffic Controller Union
President Protests FAA A-76
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Union President Files Protest on FAA
Solicitation Washington, DC -- Walter W. Pike, the President of the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) today announced that he has filed a "Contest" on behalf of a majority of the directly affected FAA employees, against the terms of an FAA Circular A-76 solicitation for a public-private competition for Automated Flight Services for the National Airspace System. "Not only has the process been conducted improperly by the FAA, it also unfairly favors commercial service providers over the in-house, or Most Efficient Organization (MEO) bid," said Pike. "The Screening Information Request (SIR) does not take into account many of the important services that are currently being provided by our air traffic controllers, nor does it adequately ensure aviation safety and security." "The FAA did not follow OMB guidance that these A-76 outsourcing studies be pre-planned 12-18 months in advance. In its haste to get this SIR on the street, the FAA has produced a flawed document with numerous deficiencies and oversights, some of which can potentially jeopardize aviation safety and security", Pike said. Concern has been expressed repeatedly that the MEO bid is not receiving the same consideration as commercial bidders. The FAA has further confused the issue by portraying the MEO bid as a joint labor/management venture between the FAA and NAATS. "Actually, the MEO is the FAA in-house bid on which we have had the minimum participation required by the Circular. The FAA makes all the decisions, and we are very much junior members," Pike explained. OMB has acknowledged that this A-76 competition is the most complex ever conducted under A76 guidelines. Congressional concern continues to build regarding whether this group of controllers is a proper target for outsourcing and whether the SIR ever should have been issued, "The FAA has unbudgeted liabilities of more than $225M during the next two fiscal years of this process," Pike said. "The expense of this competition is unnecessary since NAATS made a modernization proposal to the FAA last summer that would capture $600M in saving over a seven year period." A copy of the Contest is available
on the NAATS WebPage
For information on NAATS or to contact our Officers by email, visit https://www.naats.org The National Association of Air Traffic Specialists (NAATS) is a labor union with national exclusive recognition as the bargaining agent for all GS-2152 series Air Traffic Control Specialists employed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the Flight Service option. NAATS was certified as the national exclusive bargaining representative in February 1972.
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