February 15, 2011
Harkin Opposes Anti-Worker Amendments to FAA Reauthorization
WASHINGTON—Last night, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) spoke on the floor of the Senate to oppose an amendment that would undermine flight crews’ job safety, along with an amendment that would prohibit collective bargaining by Transportation Security Administration employees.
“The last thing we need to do is take a step backward and make working people even more vulnerable than they are today. But that’s exactly what the Wicker amendment and the Paul amendment would do for two groups of very dedicated people – flight crews and transportation security officers – who work every day to keep us safe when we travel,” Harkin said.
The full text of Harkin’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, is below:
“Mr. President, I rise today to discuss several amendments that would undermine basic rights and protections for American workers. In these difficult economic times, working families are struggling enough – wages are stagnant, job security is hard to find, and more and more companies facing financial pressures are deciding to cut corners on fundamentals like worker safety. Now more than ever, workers need the basic protections that our laws provide. The last thing we need to do is take a step backward and make working people even more vulnerable than they are today. But that’s exactly what the Wicker amendment and the Paul amendment would do for two groups of very dedicated people – flight crews and transportation security officers – who work every day to keep us safe when we travel.
First I’d like to say a few words about the Paul amendment, which would undermine valuable safety and health protections for flight crews. I don’t think it would come as a surprise to any of us to hear that working on an airplane can be a dangerous job. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, flight attendants – as well as other employees in the air transportation industry – suffer occupational injuries and illnesses at rates far higher than workers in nearly every other sector of private industry. This industry raises unique safety challenges, and we need to make special efforts to keep these workers safe on the job.
The FAA regulates all workplace safety issues on airplanes. However, at Congress’ urging, FAA has entered into a memorandum of understanding with OSHA that is supposed to facilitate consultation and coordination between the two agencies about safety issues. This is entirely appropriate, since OSHA has a lot of expertise in these areas.
But that coordination hasn’t been effective in recent years. While a 2000 OSHA/FAA report identified areas where flight crew safety could be improved, after that report coordination essentially stopped, and the FAA has failed to take additional action to review and implement the recommended workplace safety standards.
The bill that we are considering today would restore and improve the level of coordination between the FAA and OSHA so that they can complete the valuable work outlined in that memorandum of understanding. And it would require the two agencies to put their heads together again and consider whether any OSHA standards should properly be applied to people employed on aircrafts.
Mr. President, I want to be very clear on this point: The bill does not supplant the FAA’s authority to regulate workplace safety for the airlines. OSHA will not be conducting investigations or issuing fines for FAA-covered employees. That remains the sole purview of the FAA. All the bill says is that the two agencies should continue to talk and coordinate. This seems eminently sensible.
It simply defies explanation to preclude this kind of coordination, and it could put workers’ lives and workers’ safety at risk. For example, flight crews are currently exposed to a variety of dangerous chemicals, including jet fuel vapors, compressed oxygen, commercial cleaning agents, and de-icing chemicals. Yet, there is no current rule requiring that employees be informed of hazardous materials in their workspace.
OSHA has a safety standard about hazard communication requiring that workers be informed of such hazardous materials—usually by including warning labels on dangerous chemicals. This simple, easy to comply with standard saves workers’ lives. The 2000 report found that the FAA could implement OSHA standard on hazard communication without any implications for flight safety.
But what has happened? Nothing. Despite finding that the OSHA standard could improve safety for airline employees and that it would not impact aviation safety, the cooperative effort stalled in its tracks. This bill will resuscitate that cooperation.
This is just one of a number of important reforms – such as changing injury reporting procedures, improving sanitation standards, developing procedures for dealing with blood borne pathogens, and protecting whistleblowers who report unsafe conditions – that would improve workplace safety without compromising flight safety. Hard working flight attendants and other flight crew workers deserve our best efforts to make these reforms a reality.
Let me reiterate one point: the pending legislation does not change FAA’s role. It attempts to foster cooperation between government agencies, and it encourages FAA to take advantage of OSHA’s technical expertise to improve employee safety in the aviation industry while simultaneously keeping airline safety as the No. 1 priority. By contrast, the ill-conceived amendment now before the Senate would undermine a common-sense practice – collaboration between agencies – and would make people less safe on the job. I encourage my colleagues to protect the dignity and safety of our workers by opposing this amendment.
I am equally concerned about the impact that Senators Wicker and Collins’ amendment would have on the hardworking people who keep our airports and planes safe. I’ve spoken about this amendment before, but recent changes in both the policy of the Federal Aviation Administration and the amendment that my Republican colleagues have proposed makes the issue worth revisiting.
In legislation creating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Congress gave TSA the right to determine whether Transportation Security Officers have the right to collectively bargain. Last week, TSA made an administrative determination that it is appropriate to grant limited collective bargaining rights to TSO’s. TSA found that collective bargaining could improve security by addressing the agency’s chronic low morale and employee engagement. However, certain subjects remain off limits for bargaining, including pay, deployment, training, and any TSA emergency response measures.
In response to this new agency policy, Senators Wicker and Collins have introduced a modified version of their amendment that would take these collective bargaining rights away from workers, instead granting TSOs only limited whistleblower protections, discipline appeals procedures, and the right to form a union, but not engage in collective bargaining.
While I appreciate the modification to grant at least these limited protections to workers, these limited rights do not get to the heart of the problem that the agency was trying to address in granting collective bargaining rights to workers, nor would such limited rights be sufficient to ensure that these workers are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
As I mentioned when I previously addressed this issue on the Senate floor, a recent “Best Places to Work” survey ranked TSA 220 out of 224 federal employers. The agency’s turnover and injury rates are among the highest for any federal agency. Low morale and high turnover at a frontline security agency are a recipe for disaster. TSA determined that collective bargaining will address those problems and improve the Agency’s ability to fulfill its mission.
The TSA’s decision is well-reasoned and sound. It states that “a one size fits all model of labor relations that undermines initiative and flexibility would not serve TSA or its workforce well.” That is exactly what this Amendment would do. It locks into place one model of labor relations—the most adversarial model that is most harmful to employee morale.
While my colleagues who support this amendment cite concerns about disruptions to security procedures, the agency believes – and I agree – that those concerns are misguided. First and foremost, I question the assumption underlying this concern – that men and women who take a job protecting our nation would cast that important duty aside if they were granted basic labor protections. That’s an insult to every man and woman in uniform who works under a collective bargaining agreement across this country. To suggest that unionized security personnel are somehow less effective, less dedicated, less willing to put their lives on the line in an emergency is just plain scandalous. Most federal security employees -- including Border Patrol personnel, Immigration and Custom Officials, Capitol Police officers and Federal Protective Service Officers – have collective bargaining rights. Why should TSO’s be any different?
Second, even if these concerns had some validity, the limitations on subjects of bargaining provided in the agency’s decision – especially the exclusion of deployment, training, and emergency response measures from bargaining – will prevent any possible disruptions to security procedures.
I firmly believe that collective bargaining is the best way to bring dignity, consistency, and fairness to a workplace. It will make our TSO workforce safer and more stable, enhancing the security of our skies. Restoring these essential rights is long overdue, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the Wicker-Collins amendment.
Finally, while I think it is critically important that the bill we are considering must not be a vehicle for rolling back worker protections, I regret that it will not be a vehicle to correct an outrageous attack on workers’ rights that was enacted on this very same legislation in 1996.
In a rider to the 1996 FAA reauthorization bill, Congress made it harder for employees of an express carrier to organize a union in order to unfairly advantage one company: FedEx Express. The bill carved out employees of an “express carrier” delivery company, which meant FedEX, from coverage under the under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and placed them under the Railway Labor Act (RLA). As a result, it became a lot more difficult for Fed EX employees to choose a union.
What is the difference? Under the NLRA, workers can act locally in seeking to organize and bargain collectively. Under the RLA, workers must organize nationally, an enormous challenge in today's labor environment, especially for workers who – unlike flight attendants or pilots—do not necessarily work in mobile industries. So, under current law, if package sorters in Des Moines want to organize a union, they have to go to New York and Georgia and Texas to try to get every warehouse worker in the country to join them, which is obviously extremely difficult.
This quirk in the law is not only illogical, it’s the worst kind of political favoritism. The special rule for FedEX means that workers with substantively identical jobs who work for different companies have different rights under the law. That’s unfair. Congress should ensure that companies compete on a level playing field. We shouldn’t be picking favorites – especially not by silencing the voices of employees of one company.
In past Congresses I have introduced legislation that would eliminate this special treatment and ensure that employees who have nothing to do with air transport have all the rights they are entitled to under the NLRA. There are tens of thousands of truck drivers and warehouse employees who have nothing to do with airline travel and the rules of the game are rigged against them.
I had hoped that this bill would provide an opportunity to right past wrongs, but I know it is important to complete our work on the FAA’s reauthorization in short order. This bill will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and make crucial investments in our nation’s infrastructure.
Nonetheless, this bill has not been our first opportunity to debate the importance of fair treatment for express carrier workers, and it will not be the last. This is an issue of fundamental fairness for workers, and I expect that this body will continue to revisit this issue in this and every Congress until it is resolved.”