Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

July 1989 to tide the union over. While
they understood the financial need, the
lack of consultation was a sore spot. Even
so, the clashes amounted to little more
than an inevitable byproduct of a young
association finding its sea legs.
“None of us had either the experience
or the wherewithal to get the job
done,” Bell says. “We all came from a
controller background and were well
versed in moving airplanes, not an infant
organization in the birth-pangs of its
evolution.”
Power struggles and politics were
not Bell’s only problems. Just as the Las
Vegas convention began in April 1990,
Karin Bell informed her husband she
wanted a divorce.
“It kicked the legs right out from under him,”
Spickler recalls.
So much so that Bell did not feel up to chairing
the proceedings. As soon as the opening session ended,
he turned to a friend from New York TRACON,
whom he perceived to be “a gifted negotiator and a
gifted communicator”—Barry Krasner. Speaking privately
in Krasner’s room, Bell asked him to run the
convention, sidestepping his second-in-command.
Despite Krasner’s position as Eastern regional
representative and his work on the contract team, he
Apr. May
4
The FAA finishes transferring more than 600,000 square miles
of oceanic airspace from Miami and Boston centers to New
York Center.
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NATCA archives
1990 convention: President Bell passed over Ray Spickler and asked Barry Krasner
to conduct most of the proceedings. Dan Brandt, right, served as parliamentarian.
was “scared to death” of the podium. But he warmed
to the task nicely during the first two days before
handing the gavel to Spickler, who’d approached Bell
and insisted that the executive vice president should
rightfully conduct the proceedings.
Krasner’s skill came from a mixture of street
smarts he learned while growing up in Flushing,
New York—“you take out the biggest guy first”—and
a keen familiarity with Robert’s Rules of Order. He
first read the book when New York TRACON formed
a constitution and continued to review it before every
Chapter 5: The Art of the Deal
Aviation safety inspectors vote to organize as a bargaining unit
of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists. On May 10,
PASS is certified for the 1,913 FAA workers.
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