I just released this statement following the announcement today by the Obama Administration that it will appoint a team of mediators to immediately address the contract dispute between the Federal Aviation Administration and NATCA.

“With this bold step, President Obama is fulfilling his commitment to the safety and modernization of the air traffic control system and to the dedicated men and women safety professionals who run the system each day. President Obama is showing the leadership that will guide a positive way forward in which aviation safety professionals will be included as valued stakeholders. As the president made clear, a resolution to the dispute is critical to stabilizing the controller workforce, restoring a collaborative working relationship between controllers and the FAA and successfully installing the Next Generation Air Transportation System needed to spur economic development and increase the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of air travel.

“I would like to thank Secretary LaHood for his leadership and commitment to resolving this issue.”

As James Hoffa notes, there are likely to be a lot more jobs thanks to the stimulus package. And as Jeff Rosen notes, those who might work on transportation infrastructure projects are more likely to be unionized than the population at large. President Obama’s February 6th Executive Order on Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) is likely to encourage Federal and State agencies to use PLAs on large Federal and Federally assisted projects. The PLAs that the Executive Order approved do not require contractors to use unionized labor, but unions clearly benefit from PLAs. The Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project (the "Big Dig") in Boston was implemented with a PLA. But Executive Orders issued by George W. Bush early in his first Administration subsequently barred their use on federally funded projects. My colleague, Edward Kussy, former Deputy Chief Counsel with the Federal Highway Administration, has written more about the history of PLAs and the implications of the recent Executive Order. His thoughts are available here.

Labor and Transportation Policy

As it has in the past, our sector will face a challenge in convincing the public and policymakers that infrastructure investments in transportation are both worth paying for and that they make important contributions to national wealth and productivity. Organized labor has been a crucial supporter and ally in this effort, often turning out many of its members at the local level to urge passage of authorizing legislation, budgets, and the appropriations that help fund the investments. In return, they seek to participate in the jobs created and the other benefits that accrue from these investments. Labor's involvement has been consistent whether the White House and Congress are in Democratic hands or Republican hands.

That formula has always been a reasonable proposition and I suspect as the surface and aviation authorizations are debated, as climate change is considered, and as we attempt to figure out how to pay for the infrastructure investments we need, labor will remain a key part of the coalitions that are put together to pass these important bills (as will businesses, providers, shippers and environmentalists) and meet the needs of our industry.

The answer to Lisa's question is that labor's participation in the political process is likely to help address the most important issues facing the transportation industry. By representing many of the workers that operate and maintain the aircraft, trains, transit vehicles, highways, pipelines, barges, ships and other infrastructure, unions provide a point of focus that helps policymakers understand the interests of workers in our industry. I fully expect that they will weigh in on the specific issues identified by the bloggers before me, as I suspect that the other interests -- sometimes with different opinions -- will as well.

That pluralism is a vital part of representative democracy.

Steve Van Beek

How wise of Lisa to frame the question in terms of “pro-union” rather than “pro-labor”! Unions can indeed be helpful to their members, but not always to other workers.

For example, Terry O’Sullivan wrote about

“those who want to undermine Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in order to increase corporate profits”.

There are some who would like to undermine Davis-Bacon, not to “increase corporate profits” but to provide employment to non-unionized workers and, in the process, to allow them to “create” jobs for others. Allow me to explain.

Unionized transit services in the US tend to be large organizations using large vehicles running at large intervals and incurring large financial losses. But many travelers prefer to travel in small vehicles, such as taxis and minibuses, which offer frequent service. Such services (as provided by, for example, Jeepneys in Manila, Dolmush in Istanbul, Sherut in Israel, Por Puesto in Caracas) are provided in many countries, often by associations of taxicab and minibus owners. But they are illegal in the US as a result of regulations supported by Mr. O’Sullivan and other powerful union leaders.

Some Jitney services still operate in the US, and at a profit, e.g. in Atlantic City (legally) and in New York City (illegally). They not only give productive employment to those who provide them, they also enable other workers to obtain and hold jobs. Prof. Robert Cervero wrote about these services in his Praeger book “Paratransit in America”.

It is unfair to single out Mr. O’Sullivan for criticism. His job is to protect the interests of his members, and he seems to do it well. So this may be a suitable point to respond to Mr. Hoffa, who wrote that he favors “good jobs at good wages”. This is obviously true, so long as the workers do not come from Mexico. Mr. Hoffa appears to have used his considerable influence to cancel a pilot project that allowed Mexican drivers with good safety records to drive on US roads. Mexico retaliated by imposing tariffs on selected US exports.

Is a trade war with a NAFTA partner really likely to help those whom Mr. Hoffa represents?

In sum, my answer to the question is that, to the extent that they are likely to discourage non-unionized transit services, and non-US road users, pro-union policies are likely to be bad for the transportation sector, bad for non-unionized workers, bad for employment, bad for imports and exports and bad for taxpayers.

To some others they may be beneficial.

The best labor policy is a job, and the president’s stimulus package will create plenty of them.

The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is expected to result in millions more jobs. In the next 18 months, it will create150,000 new transportation jobs. Many of those jobs will involve rebuilding our transportation infrastructure, including building high-speed rail, repairing roads and bridges, paving runways and buying new buses.

These will be good jobs at good wages – and that’s what unions want.

Importantly, the economic stimulus package includes a $13 billion commitment to high-speed rail over the next five years. That is more money than has ever been spent in the history of high-speed rail in this country. It will spur the development of supertrains in the Northeast, the Midwest, the South and the West.

High-speed rail is a practical and convenient way to travel along corridors of 600 miles or less – from the Bay area to San Diego, for example, or from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Train riders along the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston know that it’s a practical and convenient way to travel from one city center to another.

The labor policy issues that arise in transportation are not necessarily identical to those in other industries or to national union leaders’ overall priorities.

First, transportation is a relatively highly-unionized sector of the economy. Overall, only 8 percent of the private workforce belongs to unions. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm. But in the private sector, transportation and utilities have the highest rate of union membership, around 22 percent. Well-known unions are perhaps even more important participants in the auto industry, trucking, cargo ports, railroads, and road construction, among others. In addition, in the public sector, there are large unions representing government workers with operational roles in air traffic control and in transit, for example.

Second, in two of the transportation industries—rail and aviation—there is a different law governing labor-management relations than in most of the private sector. The Railway Labor Act applies instead of the National Labor Relations Act. Application of the RLA has resulted in a number of Presidential Emergency Boards during the last decade, in both rail and aviation, seeking to avert work stoppages and to produce agreed-upon resolutions.

Several of the changes in the direction of labor policy under the new Administration and Congress involving transportation have already been previewed in legislation and executive actions. For example:

President Obama rescinded Executive Order 13202, which had required government neutrality with regard to the use of project labor agreements on federally-funded projects, and issued Executive Order 13502 to authorize government agencies to require the use of project labor agreements. In a similar vein, a whole series of legislative proposals last year sought to expand the coverage of Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” requirements, as in the rail safety and Amtrak bill, the farm bill, the “green schools” bill, the Boxer-Warner climate change bill, and a provision of the defense bill dealing with military construction in Guam. A few were enacted, while others were not. This year the $787 billion “stimulus” spending bill contained provisions expanding Davis-Bacon coverage, and it would be no surprise to see further expansions proposed in upcoming legislation.

In the other major spending bill so far this year, the $410 billion “omnibus” appropriations bill signed by President Obama, a provision favored by unions terminated cross-border trucking with Mexico.

In the FAA reauthorization bill, there has been a proposal to remove certain FedEx employees from the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act, and apply the National Labor Relations Act instead.

With regard to government unions in transportation, there have already been controversial proposals to allow federal air traffic controllers not only to bargain with the government over their pay but to pursue binding arbitration in the event of an impasse, and there are proposals to unionize airport baggage screeners, also.

On the regulatory side, Congress last October required DOT to issue new “hours of service” regulations for passenger rail. Last month, one union wrote to DOT to seek changes in the hours of service regulation for truck drivers. And the FAA has a rulemaking pending on flight crewmember duty limits.

These are obviously not trivial issues. Transportation accounts for more than 11 million workers and roughly ten percent of the overall U.S. economy. bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics
/html/table_03_02a.html Many of the proposed policy changes would entail significant costs that need to be evaluated.

Finally, the state of the overall economy should be taken into account as well. Even during the years 2002-2007, when the economy was strong and growing, some transportation industries did well and others faced difficult challenges. For example, cargo transportation by rail, by maritime shipping, and by air carriers generally achieved good economic results, while many passenger airlines faced difficult conditions and experienced substantial losses. With today’s economy in recession, it is reasonable to ask with regard to any proposed policies whether they will help or hinder economic recovery, and to avoid the latter.

President Obama views transportation investments not just as something that needs to be done, but as a way to create jobs that leave behind real assets for future generations, build communities and help get our economy back on track. That is a good thing for America and for our transportation system.

The President also understands we need to make sure that jobs building America are good jobs. He supports job training to help construction workers turn jobs into careers and to make sure America has the highest skilled workers building our country. President Obama has increased OSHA funding to keep America’s workers safe on the job and take away the advantage that unscrupulous contractors might gain by putting workers at risk. He signed an Executive Order reversing the Bush Administration’s ban on the use of Project Labor Agreements which will promote the on time and under budget completion of transportation projects while ensuring good pay, benefits and training opportunities for workers. Under the Obama administration, working people will no longer have to fight to keep paychecks from being driven down by those who want to undermine Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in order to increase corporate profits.

President Obama’s view that building America’s roads, bridges and mass-transit can be used to create good jobs for working people makes it more likely that his administration will commit the resources we need to get the job done – to build America, so America works.