Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

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Against the Wind
contract, which had been adopted the previous May.
The training also included mock negotiating sessions,
an invaluable component for new union reps,
many of whom had little relevant experience other
than haggling over the price of a car or house.
Classes were also held at MEBA’s training
facilities in Easton, Maryland, until the mid-1990s,
Japphire
Fac rep training: NATCA conducts up to eight weeklong sessions a year to teach its rank and file about labor-management
relations and leadership skills. The union also offers several advanced courses and has begun Web-based training.
1989
30
June
Retired Navy Adm. James B. Busey IV takes over as FAA administrator
from T. Allan McArtor, who resigned 4½ months earlier. Busey won the
Navy Cross for combat missions in Vietnam. During his 37-year military
when NATCA assumed responsibility. Staff members
from headquarters initially taught the course, which
was expanded to include sections on local finances,
organizing, safety and technology, National Transportation
Safety Board issues, and such. A year later,
the regions began teaching the class with help from
the national office.
Meanwhile, Labor Relations Director Bob
Taylor and David Sandbach, a recent addition to
his staff, worked with Cary R. Singletary, a Florida
attorney who specialized in mediation, to develop
basic and advanced arbitration courses. To help convey
concepts of arbitration advocacy, they wrote and
produced a 40-minute video that is still used today.
Several years later, they inaugurated an advanced
facility rep course that included another video on
negotiations.
In late 1997, labor relations training was transferred
back to headquarters. Controllers James “Ajax”
Kidd, Chris Sutherland, and Rodney Turner—with
help from other activists and Heather Timme at headquarters—developed
a basic facility rep curriculum
using material they’d been teaching in the Eastern
and Southern regions for years. Shortly after they
launched the new national course in the spring of
1998, which was more comprehensive and consistent
than various classes conducted by the regions, the
Labor Relations Department took the reins and has
been teaching it ever since.
career, he also served as vice chief of naval operations, commander-inchief
of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, and commander-in-chief of Allied
Forces in Southern Europe.