Published 16 Sep, 2011
TWU utilized its political activists on Sept. 15 to reach out to Sen. Coburn (R-Ok) and demanded his release on the bill to avert another Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shutdown.
Sen. Coburn did drop his threat allowing the Senate to approve the bill to reauthorize FAA saving nearly 80,000 people’s job.
Coburn faced intense scrutiny from both the public and his counterparts for his selfish act vowing to use “all procedural tools at his disposal to force a vote” yesterday for wanting changes for the highways portion of the bill.
President Obama will sign the bill today, which will keep the FAA operating until January 2012.
Politicians have been unable to agree on a long-term FAA bill, so the reauthorization has been extended with temporary fixes 22 times. Republicans in the House continue to refuse to appoint conferees to the FAA Reauthorization Conference Committee. Instead, they are adamant on rejecting the rights of airline and rail workers to form a union like all other workers, through a majority vote. In 2010 the National Mediation Board (NMB) reversed an old practice in which workers who did not vote were counted as no votes. The Republicans insist on placing this issue in the legislation although it clearly has nothing to do with funding or safety issue
The last FAA shutdown, earlier this summer, resulted in thousands of workers being furloughed and the federal government losing $200 million per week.