FAA

Senate Dems Greenlight Key Anti-Union Bill

Brian Beutler | February 6, 2012, 6:05PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

With the help of Senate Democrats, Congress took its final step Monday toward enactment of long-term FAA reauthorization legislation, despite an aggressive last-minute effort by organized labor to kill the package.

The final vote was 75-20, with -- not nearly enough Democratic opposition to prevent a supermajority from passing it and sending it off to President Obama for a signature.

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FAA

Are Senate Dems About To Cave On GOP Union-Busting?

Brian Beutler | February 6, 2012, 5:20AM

Image from Pushkin/ Shutterstock

Senate Democrats and organized labor have reached a make or break moment over House-passed legislation that will make it harder for transportation workers to unionize.

One labor official said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) had "sold out" workers, by striking a deal with Republicans on a long-term reauthorization of Federal Aviation Administration programs -- and they have a brief window in which to set things right.

The issue goes back months.

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FAA

Labor Targets Vulnerable House Republicans Over Union-Busting Bill

Brian Beutler | January 17, 2012, 12:33PM

Rep. Sean Duffy (R, WI)

All the big conflicts on Capitol Hill seem to get resolved just before their deadline. Except one. Federal Aviation Administration programs are again set to expire in just a couple weeks, and as has been the case for a year, House Republicans won't agree to a long term reauthorization unless it includes a provision that rigs the votes if airline and rail workers want to unionize.

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FAA

Dems Pick Apart Key GOP Argument Against Passing Senate Payroll Tax Cut Bill

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 6:16PM

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

One argument House Republican leaders -- including Speaker John Boehner -- are making about their refusal to adopt the Senate's payroll tax cut compromise is a throwback to old times. They note that "regular order" in Congress is for the House and Senate each to pass legislation and to then convene a conference committee where members from each chamber meet to iron out the differences between the bills.

That's "regular order" in a traditional sense, but it's not even close to how this Congress has operated in practice. Case in point: both the House and Senate have passed legislation to reauthorize federal aviation programs on a semi-permanent basis. One key area of disagreement between the parties is a provision in the House bill that would make it much more difficult for rail and airline workers to unionize -- just the sort of provision that could be the focal point of negotiations in a conference committee.

But House Republicans won't let that happen, and have pushed a series of temporary reauthorizations instead.

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FAA

Just In Time For The Holidays: FAA Fight Heats Up In Wake Of Super Committee Fail

Brian Beutler | November 22, 2011, 3:50PM

Completely distinct from the Super Committee-related mess Congress has to clean up, the House and Senate are also supposed to pass long-term legislation to reauthorize FAA programs. But a dispute over worker rights has held up the bill for months and even led to a partial FAA shutdown earlier this year. Rinse, repeat.

Republicans want to make it more difficult for transportation workers to unionize by requiring officials to count abstentions as votes against forming a union. This provision underlies the stalemate between the House and Senate on a so-called permanent reauthorization.

The current, temporary reauthorization is scheduled to lapse at the end of the year, and now labor is pressing the GOP to strip the anti-union measure and move ahead with the long-term plan, as opposed to passing another stopgap, or triggering another shutdown.

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FAA

Mica's Punts On Anti-Union FAA Issue, Unions Celebrate

Susan Crabtree | September 9, 2011, 4:22PM

Unions were breathing a sigh of relief Friday morning after House Republicans punted a contentious anti-union issue preventing funding for the Federal Aviation Administration to the end of December, providing back pay to agency workers and giving opponents more time to organize and fight GOP-backed anti-labor provisions.

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FAA

Powerful Union Escalates Campaign Against GOP Push To Weaken Unions On Threat Of FAA Shutdown

Brian Beutler | August 30, 2011, 6:15AM

A powerful union will escalate a fight with Republicans over the party's push to make it harder for rail and airline workers to unionize.

This week, the Communications Workers of America will launch direct mail and robocall campaigns against the GOP's top transportation policy maker, and about two dozen other GOP members of the House of Representatives, according to officials.

The campaign stems from a months-long fight over legislation to permanently reauthorize Federal Aviation Administration programs. House Republicans want to use that bill to fiddle with mediation rules, so that airline workers who abstain from voting on whether to form a union would be tallied as having voted "no."

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FAA

Reid: Dems, GOP Have Deal To End FAA Shutdown

Brian Beutler | August 4, 2011, 3:48PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Senate Majority Leader Reid says he and House Republicans have reached a deal on FAA funding that will end a partial shutdown, which threatened to drag through the month of August.

"I am pleased to announce that we have been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate to put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work," Reid noted in a Thursday statement. "This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain. But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that."

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FAA

White House Pushes For FAA Solution By Week's End

Susan Crabtree | August 4, 2011, 2:21PM

President Obama phoned Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) Wednesday to urge him to pass a bill extending funding for the Federal Aviation Administration and hopes House Republicans and Democrats can resolve their differences and get tens of thousands of FAA and construction workers back on the job by the end of the week.

White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed Obama's call to Boehner and said the President wants a resolution to the impasse by the end of the week even though the two sides have yet to make any progress resolving their differences.

"Obama called Boehner yesterday, and said this is one thing we can do for job creation pretty instantly," Carney told reporters Thursday. "It's not resolved, and it needs to be resolved, and we're hopeful that it will by the end of the week."

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FAA

Reid Letter To Boehner Urges Swift FAA Fix Despite Congressional Recess

Susan Crabtree | August 3, 2011, 6:20PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has fired off a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) offering an urgent compromise on Congress' latest impasse: the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The move comes just hours after President Barack Obama slammed the imbroglio for creating a "lose-lose-lose situation" and urged Congress to resolve the matter before the end of the week.

Complicating matters is the fact that many lawmakers are about to leave DC, or have left already, as this year's Congressional recess has now begun.

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Federal Aviation Administration

Reid Could Accept GOP Terms On FAA Shutdown

Eric Kleefeld | August 2, 2011, 3:44PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

Please see update to this story here.

With the debt-ceiling crisis now averted (for now), Congress still hasn't settled a lesser, but still quite important, problem: A partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, which has furloughed thousands of employees and hit the pause button on construction projects.

But fear not, Democrats could be on the verge of resolving the situation in a similar manner as they did the debt ceiling: By accepting Republican conditions.

The issue here is that the Republican-led House, which previously passed an FAA funding bill, is about to go on break again, and thus won't respond to counter-offers from the Democratic Senate. Now, Fox News reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is signaling a willingness to accept the House version of the reauthorization, which includes the elimination of millions in subsidies for rural airline services.

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