Against the Wind - National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Chapter 3
A Long and Winding Road
The day shift had ended at Washington Center, a squat, oblong building
clad in red brick and white corrugated metal siding on the outskirts
of Leesburg, Virginia. Many of the controllers trudging across
the parking lot were exhausted. Washington Center handles traffic over eight
states, including the congested New York-D.C. corridor.
Since 1981, the number of flights had increased
20 percent to an average of 6,000 a day, yet
the ranks of radar controllers had rebounded to only
about half their pre-strike levels. On this afternoon in
the fall of 1983, twelve to fifteen controllers chose not
to go directly home. Alerted by word of mouth to a
special meeting, they gathered around a large conference
table in a training room on the second floor of
the facility. Many of them, including a well-liked man
named Rick Jones, were veterans who had stayed on
the job in 1981.
Jones stood up and began talking about a new
program the FAA planned to implement at all of its
centers called Structured Staffing. The agency intended
to limit the number of full-performance level
radar controllers. New-hires could not move up until
there was a vacancy. It appeared no relief was in sight
for FPLs weary of six-day weeks that resulted from
short staffing.
“My head, my stomach, my
whole body is spinning around,”
one controller said at the time. “I
can’t keep up with the workload.
You either need more people to do
the work or you need less work—
it’s a simple equation.” 1
Another aspect of Structured
Staffing, which the FAA put
into effect soon after the Washington
Center meeting, gave priority
for on-the-job training to developmentals with college
credits, regardless of previous air traffic control
Paul Williams
Birthplace: Frustrated by short-staffing,
air traffic controllers at Washington Center
formed a facility-based organization
called NATCA during the fall of 1983.