Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

198
1999
Against the Wind
10
the MEBA loan until October 1995, it was no longer
spending in the red. But its annual income of about $7
million was stretched to the limit. Arbitrations were
piling up, asbestos issues loomed, negotiating the
1993 contract would cost
about $1 million, and the
union was outgrowing its
cramped space at MEBA
headquarters.
NATCA publicized
the need for raising dues
before the convention.
But nearly half of the
controllers back home
sent their delegates to
San Antonio with firm
instructions to oppose
any increase. “We were
against it for the same
reason we’re against taxes.
It wasn’t clear enough
what we were going to do
with the money,” says Bill Otto, facility rep at St. Louis
Tower and TRACON at the time. The issue became
the talk of the convention in hotel bars and elevators,
at Dick’s Last Resort along San Antonio’s famed River
Walk, everywhere.
Aside from membership sentiment, there
were several procedural obstacles. At the Las Vegas
May July
convention in 1990, when delegates first rejected an
increase, they approved Karl Grundmann’s constitutional
amendment requiring a vote of the entire
membership to change the dues structure. And
standing convention
rules stipulated that all
adopted decisions took
effect at the close of the
“
convention. Both had to
be changed before the
delegates could even consider
raising dues.
President Krasner
always believed in an increase
to enable NATCA
“to grow as a union.”
— Former President Barry Krasner He wanted to raise dues
once and never change
them again—up or down.
Deftly applying Robert’s
Rules of Order and taking
care to explain each step
of the process to the delegates, Krasner first tackled
the issue of modifying the standing convention rules
so that amendments and resolutions would take effect
immediately. This required a two-thirds majority.
At virtually every convention, controllers seize
on an issue they believe demands a roll-call vote,
known as a division of the house. In San Antonio,
I can’t think of a prouder
moment than to have a
building named after you
while you’re still alive. That
was pretty darn cool.
Nearly 300 participants attend “NATCA in Washington.” The union signs a purchase agreement with the American Society
for Microbiology to buy its office building at 1325 Massachu-
21
setts Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., for $8.1 million.