Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

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Against the Wind
Labor-management training: The FAA
and union members initially attended classes
that evolved into an ongoing program
known as Quality Through Partnership.
1991
to live near his extended family. But he grew disenchanted
with management and returned to Kansas
City Center about eighteen months later.
Michael McNally, who later served as executive
vice president and president, believes NATCA’s
first two top officers were “doomed to go down. The
first ones out of the box always are. The expectations
are too high. They’re green. They’re brand new. It’s
just coming at them too fast. Everybody wanted the
world. In two-and-a-half years, you can’t deliver that.
We were barely a union. We didn’t even have an office
staff. Steve built the office staff. He hired the
talent. He got us an office. He started this and got
everything going.”
The Age of Collaboration
Even before Bell became president, he and
others in NATCA advocated collaboration with the
agency, eschewing traditional, contentious labor-management
relations in favor of a partnership philosophy
that was permeating many organizations at the time.
Despite the FAA’s steadfastly intolerant reputation, a
notable segment in the agency hoped to avoid a repeat
of 1981 and embraced cooperation, too.
With backing from T. Allan McArtor, who’d
taken over as FAA administrator from Donald Engen,
those attitudes dovetailed in March 1988 with
a training course called “Labor and Management:
Dec. Dec.
FAA Administrator James B. Busey IV leaves office after serving
since June 30, 1989.
4
16
Partners in Problem Solving.” The curriculum was
designed to jointly teach facility managers and union
representatives about their rights and responsibilities
as well as techniques in communicating and resolving
differences.
During the three-day classes, controllers and
managers switched roles to better understand problems
and perspectives from the other side. Controllers
learned what it was like to defend policies they
did not personally support, while managers found
reasons to file grievances. About 1,000 managers
and facility reps attended the course throughout the
spring and summer.
The one-time sessions paved the way for a
more formal, ongoing program whose path began
at New York Center. Like some others, local President
Michael McNally worried about a PATCO II. “I
didn’t want to be involved in a union if it was going
to be radical,” he says.
He, too, saw the need to “stop butting heads”
and encourage more harmonious relationships.
McNally approached the facility’s deputy manager,
Jim Buckles, and the two developed a collaborative,
committee-oriented program called Success Through
Partnership.
Initially, both sides were resistant. “Management
hated it,” McNally recalls. “To them, it was a
raid on their authority. They thought it was all going
downhill. Letting the monkeys run the zoo.” Union
Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner leaves office after
serving since February 6, 1989.