Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO
Today, Mike Perrone, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS), the union that represents 11,000 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), issued the following statement applauding final passage of a long-term FAA reauthorization bill, the first five-year reauthorization since 1982.
Late Friday night, congressional conferees reached agreement on an FAA reauthorization bill that will provide stable funding for the agency through 2023. The full text of the FAA bill, 600+ pages, was released at 3 a.m. Saturday. The House and Senate will vote as soon as this week and passage is expected.
Most importantly for PASS members, the bipartisan agreement does not include any attempt to privatize the air traffic control system, something the union has been fighting for years. “The Senate never included privatization in its legislation this year,” said National President Mike Perrone. “When the House dropped its plans to include privatization in February, we were confident that our efforts to defeat this misguided proposal made a significant impact.”
On a sunlit Tuesday morning 17 years ago, the men and women of PASS, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO, were on the job as usual, working for the American public. What transpired that morning changed our nation and the aviation industry forever. In the days, weeks and months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the 11,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Defense (DoD) employees represented by PASS went above and beyond their usual selfless dedication to their work.
Today, members of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO (PASS) reelected Mike Perrone to another three-year term as their national president. Perrone was first elected to that position in 2012 and won reelection in 2015. Since none of the five candidates for national vice president won 50 percent of the votes cast, a run-off election will be held for the top two vote-getting candidates, Carlos Aguirre and Raymond Morgan, in accordance with the PASS Constitution.
In a victory for federal employees and their unions, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia handed down a decision late Friday night striking down many of the provisions contained in the three anti-federal employee executive orders (EOs) issued in May.
In her 122-page ruling, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sided with the unions by enjoining some of the most egregious of the sections of the EOs, including setting timelines to complete bargaining, establishing strict limitations on official time, forcing unions to pay for union space and severely restricting the grievance process.
In a letter sent yesterday to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), PASS joined a coalition of 32 other aviation and aerospace organizations calling on swift passage of long-term reauthorization of the FAA in the Senate.