Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

help the public understand this hidden world and that
Capitol Hill had the power to resolve their issues.
A year after the asbestos discovery, the controllers
relied on the media again
to call attention to a less serious,
yet annoying, problem:
lack of chairs.
Ironically, the FAA
had recently replaced its
old chairs. But the new
ones, which were not as
durable, frequently broke.
Atlanta Center was thirtyone
short of the number required
for a normal day shift.
At Chicago Center, Poole snared a supervisor’s
chair to sit in front of a radarscope, which
prompted a heated argument with his boss. Other
controllers perched on boxes and atop wastebaskets
that were turned upside down.
Alerted by Poole, USA Today ran a story. In
response, furniture manufacturers offered to donate
several hundred chairs and a local radio station conducted
a “chair-a-thon.” 1
CNN broadcast live from Chicago Center several
years later on Thanksgiving Day and the weekly
news magazines began printing stories about equipment
breakdowns. The growing coverage “pushed
the union into the realm of a player,” Scholl says.
16
Sep.
The FAA awards a contract to Raytheon Company to develop and build
the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System for approach control
facilities. STARS consists of color radar monitors, similar to the DSR
Beyond these disparate efforts, the concept of
formalized lobbying crystallized in 1992 when two
visionary controllers, Dee Green and Debbie Cunningham,
recognized that the union’s ultimate boss
was Congress—not the FAA. At the San Antonio
convention, they spoke passionately about the
need for grass-roots involvement in legislative
affairs. Thus was born a far-reaching structure
of facility legislative representatives, state coordinators,
and a National Legislative Committee
with an elected representative from
each region. Green and Cunningham, respectively,
served as the first two chairwomen of the
committee.
“It wasn’t sufficient to have one or two people
in Washington lobbying our cause,” says Alan Clendenin,
who was chairman from 1997 to 2000.
Indeed, the well-organized legion of activists
responded immediately and overwhelmingly
when Krasner issued his “let McCain feel the pain”
directive during the Chapter 71 battle. The union’s
Chapter 6: Spreading its Wings
displays used in en route centers, as well as replacement computers and
updated software. The new equipment will replace the aging Automated
Radar Terminal System, which had been installed starting in 1965.
175
Lobby Week: The union launched an
annual, weeklong program in 1993 to
raise legislative awareness and provide an
opportunity for members to meet their
congressional representatives.