This Week in NATCA/Labor History
Thursday, September 09, 2010


THIS WEEK IN NATCA/ATC HISTORY:


September 10, 1987: The Senate Aviation Subcommittee begins the first of at least four hearings on an ill-fated bill that would remove the FAA from the Transportation Department. Discussion also focuses on another bill that would turn the FAA into a government-owned corporation.

September 12-14, 1988: The new NATCA Executive Board meets for the first time since the election in its offices on the eighth floor of MEBA headquarters at 444 N. Capitol St., Washington, D.C.

September 9-11, 1996: Sixth NATCA biennial convention:

Held at the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers.

-- A coalition of small facilities wins its bid to institute a national seniority policy. The FAA subsequently contests the change, however, the FLRA rules that the union had a right to establish the policy and did so legally.

-- MEBA President Alex Shandrowsky urges NATCA to stay with the union that helped the controllers organize, however, delegates vote to allow NATCA to consider affiliation with another union.

-- Delegates vote to allow NATCA to expand representation to other employee groups. They also approve an honorary lifetime membership—the union’s fifth—for Richard Swauger, a former PATCO controller now working at NATCA headquarters.

-- Barry Krasner announces he will not run for re-election as president in another year. In a poignant speech to the delegates, he says it is time to “dust off my headset” and warns his wife, Sallie: “Get your clothes out of my closet because I’m coming home.”

 

THIS WEEK IN LABOR HISTORY:


1935: President Franklin Roosevelt's Wealth Tax Act increases taxes on rich citizens and big business, lowers taxes for small businesses.

1996: OSHA publishes scaffold safety standard, designed to protect 2.3 million construction workers and prevent 50 deaths and 4,500 injuries.