So, it’s been a few weeks since I have written, and I was mostly focused on getting some housekeeping items done prior to my start campaigning. Again, a long way to go, elections are not even until June. It’s amazing to watch some of these videos, where members in leadership roles are lining up giving allegiance to a candidate, months before a nomination has even been accepted. These are supposed to be our leaders looking out for OUR best interest, so not sure how they can place a bet on a horse when they don’t even know all the horses in the race. Their minds are made up evidently. Isn’t that really what our Union has become over the past decade?
A whole lot of people, who seem to be off the boards, kissing the ring and telling us who we should vote for. Let’s break that chain, it’s time for change!
While I watch my building once again having numerous people go over 2 hours and a few stuck around 3 hours on position, working high levels of traffic, and not being compensated properly for it I stand astonished. I am getting emails from people who don't maintain currency, who are more concerned about me telling them they are not an air traffic controller than they are with their “brothers” staffing plight. (De-Identified PDF of Email below).
These people, and our leadership, are clearly removed. They prove that their priorities are out of line and our leadership does not understand what the workforce is going through. Over the past few weeks that has become clearer than ever to me.
I implore any of you that want to make a difference to jump in and challenge the “establishment,” to get us back to the basics. Nominations close April 1st, still plenty of time. If you need help with the process, reach out to me Mike@redmond4evp.com and I will guide you through it.
Don’t let “them” try to dictate to us what we need when they don’t feel that pain everyday like us. They can’t relate. Don’t let “them” tell you that you don’t have the experience, or the ability. We had people that didn’t have that experience build this union in the 80’s as well, and we did just fine. Don’t let “them” use scare tactics to discourage you from running for an office.
That’s exactly what we need, we need a reset with all new people for our Union to once again thrive and survive.
I say thrive and survive, because while eligible members and bargaining units have grown our dues paying members are shrinking according to our LM-2’s. We represent more eligible people through the addition of bargaining Units such as some in Region X, organizing Flight Service in Alaska, Federal Contract Towers, etc. than we did 20 years ago, but our dues paying members are about the same.
Don’t let the general LM-2 information fool you either, when it shows members on the main page, that’s all members (Associate, Retired, Corporate), that sits around 3,000 or so and inflates our membership number to look stronger on paper, however that isn’t much of our source of income. If you dig further and look at voting eligible members, those are our dues paying members, who we represent and bargain for and that is where you find how sick we are. To give you an example here is what 2022 membership status looked like on the LM-2:
The 2023 LM-2 should be out sometime in the next few weeks, and it will be interesting to see how much more we shrunk.
NATCA Active Dues Paying Members
*Data derived from LM-2’s
(Chart Updated with 2023 Number)
This is alarming to me! I’ve taken this step of running for EVP because I am dissatisfied with our leadership, and the direction our Union is heading. I avidly disagree with people getting out of the Union, as the FAA isn’t going to do anything for any of us. We must force them on everything, this Agency has never willingly done anything for its workforce and not having a Union would be far worse. So again, I encourage all of you to get involved, help us change our leadership, run for a position if you are not happy, the more the merrier. Force the change!
As for my campaign, I have a family vacation next week. It will be the first full weekend my wife and I can spend together since even though we are on the NO list, she has been scheduled OT every week since the start of the year except one, and as luck had it, I had OT that weekend. Sadly, such seems to be the normal life of Air Traffic Controllers working the boards.
Once I get back, I start campaigning with my first trip up to ZNY on my last day of vacation and then back to work. Once I am done with my vacation, I intend to start putting out some plans and directions of what I want to do to move our Union back to where it should be. The vision.