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1st Quarter National Legislative Committee Meeting
and
2nd Annual All Legislative Committee Meeting
Doubletree
Hotel
New
Orleans, LA
February 22-26, 2000
February, 22 2000
The National Legislative Committee met to prepare for the upcoming conference. Members where briefed on the program and the agenda was finalized. Assignments for teaching the various training modules were made. (Several calls were made during the agenda planning meetings to the Republican National Committee to invite them, none of the calls were returned).
February 23, 2000
The first day of the 2nd annual all legislative committee conference began. Congressman Jefferson, LA-2-D, a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, spoke to the participants. The Congressman spoke passionately about air traffic control and his opposition to the expansion of the contract tower program. He committed to NATCA his support of our efforts to stop the expansion of contracting.
Tom Nagel, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, briefed the attendees on the fall elections. Tom highlighted key races where NATCA members could assist in electing labor friendly candidates.
Selwyn Carter, AFL-CIO Political Department, provided information on the AFL-CIO political direction and the upcoming Congressional and Presidential election.
Alan Clendenin presented the NLC PAC Power Point presentation followed by a question and answer session.
Each regional committee met in break out session to discuss legislative issues and internal concerns. The committees reconvened, and a spokesperson for each region provided the group with a summary of their breakout discussions.
February 24, 2000
The second day of the conference focused on the threat of the expansion of the contract tower program to include all remaining VFR towers and oceanic sectors. NLC members provided participants with a comprehensive briefing on the history and status of this threat.
Mike McNally, via teleconference, provided the group with his perspective of contracting and NATCA’s direction.
Christine Corcoran and Richard Ulmes provided an online demonstration of our new grassroots legislative program on the legislative page of www.natca.org. The program provides easy access to legislative information, research tools, and a simplified means for writing letters to Members and Senators.
Sherrod Shim, NATCA Communication Director, provided media training to assist participants in handling media contacts. Sherrod emphasized focusing on three key messages and instructed participants on how to bridge discussions back to the messages that you want to communicate. She briefed participants on the value of writing letters to the editor of their local paper and discussed the merit of tying media events to Congressional correspondence.
Alan Clendenin ended the conference with a summary of the current plan of action for fighting contracting out.
National Office: Mike McNally will put together three teams to assist NATCA in the fight. One team will be an oversight team. This team will coordinate the efforts of two subordinate teams. The other two teams will be an Anti-Contracting team and a Privatization team. The Anti-Contracting team will be focused on our fight to stop the further contracting of ATC services. The Privatization team will primarily be focused on researching the various privatization schemes and the potential impact on NATCA members.
In the coming months the communications department will utilize paid media in the Washington DC. Members of Congress and their staff are the targeted audiences for this effort. Timing of a paid media event will be coordinated with the Legislative Affairs Department and the newly appointed teams to maximize its effectiveness.
The Legislative Affairs Department will continue building our support on the Hill. Once Ken Mead, DOT Inspector General, submits his study to Congress, NATCA will coordinate with Senator Harry Reid’s office to request a GAO study challenging the hostile items in Ken Mead’s report. The Department will continue to update the http://www.natca.org/natca/legisupdatespublic/ web site providing members and the public with templates that can be used to communicate with members of Congress.
National Legislative Committee: The Committee will continue to focus its attention on the fight against the expansion of the contracting out program. The NLC will provide the regional legislative committee teams with the information and background to assist them in motivating NATCA members into action. The NLC will continue to promote grassroots activism thru letter writing campaigns, facility visits, media campaigns and building coalitions of user groups. The NLC will continue to promote one of NATCA’s most important tools for electing an air traffic controller friendly Congress, the NATCA PAC. Alan Clendenin will continue to push the Vice President to obtain an anti contracting position statement.
Regional Legislative Committees: Regional Legislative Committees will continue to coordinate their regional efforts to fight contracting. Their efforts will include encouraging facilities within their region to meeting with their members of Congress to discuss the contracting threat. Regional team members are responsible for maintaining an open line of communication with their facilities to assist NATCA in the rapid distribution of information and call for action plans. Regional Legislative Committee members were tasked with briefing their respective facilities on the information that they received in New Orleans.
Facilities: Every facility should immediately; make an appointment with their local Congressional offices, invite Congressman and/or their staff to visit their facilities to demonstrate the important job we do, meet with FBO’s and airport user groups to gain their support, write letters to their members of Congress (letters available on line at www.natca.org), draft preliminary letters and news stories that may be used in the local media when the national campaign begins, brainstorm ways to assist NATCA in it’s fight against contracting.
When notified by NATCA, facilities will be asked to write letters to the local newspaper in the form of letters to the editor and they will be asked to pitch stories to their local media outlets to gain as much free press as possible. Information for talking points is available from your regional legislative committee member and on the NATCA national legislative web page at: http://www.natca.org/natca/legisupdatespublic/default.html
All members in attendance were asked to take ownership in the fight to save our careers from the further outsourcing of air traffic controller jobs. Alan stressed that every NATCA member must join in this fight and asked that all members assist us in soliciting support from friends, relatives, user groups, airport operators, local government officials, church members, and other labor groups.
February 25, 2000
Meeting called to order by Alan Clendenin
Members Present: Alan
Clendenin, Richard Ulmes, Randy Weiland, Bernie Campau, Steve Fletcher,Dustin
Miller, Andy Lewis, David Caldwell, John Fitzgerald, and Christine Corcoran.
Members Absent: Dave Benedetto
NLC Web Site
Alan is seeking a volunteer to maintain the NLC Web Site. After discussion of responsibilities including format and content, Bernie Campau volunteered to maintain the site.
NLC
Minutes
Discussion of content and proper format was discussed. Rich Ulmes volunteered to do the minutes for this meeting.
VFR Tower
List-serve
Rich Ulmes discussed creating an e-mail list serve for the medium and high-density VFR towers targeted for contracting out. The purpose of the list-serve is for the participating towers to share information and ideas on fighting contracting out of their towers. After discussion several members of the NLC felt they should check with their respective Regional VP’s about the idea.
VFR Towers
Targeted by Congress for Contracting Out
It was decided that the term “Level Two and Three VFR Towers” did not properly reflect the towers targeted by congress. The Committee will recommend that the targeted towers should be referred to as “Medium and High-Density VFR Towers”. The rational behind this is that when congress targeted the Level One VFR towers they referred to them as “Low Density VFR Towers”. This should assist NATCA in highlighting the difference between the two types of facilities.
NATCA In Washington 2000
A committee was developed to plan for NIW 2000. The committee will consist of the following: Randy Weiland (committee lead), John Fitzgerald, Dustin Miller and Christine Corcoran (Legislative Dept. Representative). The committee will meet monthly beginning in May 2000 in Washington DC. The final meeting should be held around the third week of August 2000.
Campaign Volunteer Workshops
The following NLC members will develop and coordinate two, possibly three Campaign Volunteer Workshops for the year 2000. Dave Caldwell (committee lead), Andy Lewis and Randy Weiland will serve on the committee. They will determine the places and dates of the meetings. Areas discussed as potential sites included San Diego and Miami.
Coordinating Room Lists for NLC Functions
Responsibility for creating and maintaining room lists for NLC functions will be rotated among the NLC members with the following exceptions, NATCA in Washington events will continue to be coordinated by the National Office and the NLC Quarterly meetings by the NLC Chairman.
Year
2000 Quarterly Meetings
The fourth quarter meeting will be held in FLL/MIA area. Alan will coordinate with hotels to secure space.
Fund
Raiser Updates
The NLC has not received any updates on fund raisers held during the year 2000. Christine will check into the reason and make necessary corrections.
Contract
Tower Program Briefing Guide
The Briefing guides that were distributed to the conference participants were very well received. The NLC Discussed the logistics of providing the briefing guides to the targeted Medium and High-density VFR Towers. The primary obstacle would be the cost of production. The NLC budgeted for and paid for the limited run distributed in New Orleans. Additional funds would have to be found for a wider distribution. Alan will check with Mike McNally and report back to the committee on funding.
2000
Governmental Elections
The NLC discussed the merits of a 2000 voter guide. Some of the issues surrounding the 1998 guide were discussed including the lack of supporting documentation and the lack of NATCA member participation.
The Committee discussed the importance of educating our members on the candidate’s support of labor and our membership. The 2000 guide will be more comprehensive potentially covering every contested House and Senate race. To assist members in finding races within their area, the voter guide will be arranged by region.
NATCA members are asked to submit information about candidates that are supportive of NATCA members and facilities to the NATCA Legislative Affairs Department. Information on local support by a Congressional office will be taken into account when NATCA makes the final determination on organizational support. While this is not the only factor that the national office will utilize in determining our support, facility input is extremely important and will be weighted accordingly.
We will target the mailing date of the 2000 guides so that delivery to members will occur 2 weeks prior to the election. Christine will gather information for the guide and present it to the NLC at the second quarter meeting in Anchorage.
Facility
Rep Training
Christine expressed concern over the lack of content in the Facility Representative training course curriculum.
John Fitzgerald will develop a new legislative Power Point training program for Facility Representative training classes. Dave Benedetto, Rich Ulmes, Steve Fletcher, Dustin Miller, and Bernie Campau will be available to teach the session. Assignments to teach the class will be rotated amongst all NLC members. Alan will coordinate this plan with Dave Benedetto and Greg Llafett, NATCA Training Director to facilitate implementation.
PAC
Raffle
Dave Caldwell briefed on efforts to acquire gifts for the PAC Raffle. He will mail a list of recent acquisitions to the NLC. Alan stressed the importance of reminding Facilities to sell tickets. Dave also asked that the NLC press their regions for gifts to help the raffle.
PAC
Drive
The NLC discussed the various activities that they are doing to promote the PAC drive within their regions. Dustin Miller noted the success of several Central Region facilities in gaining support for the NATCA PAC.
Alan stressed the importance of increasing the PAC during an election year. He also added how important it is too help congressional friends that are sympathetic to NATCA’s position on the piecemeal contracting out of air traffic facilities.
February 26, 2000
Meeting called to order by Alan Clendenin
Members Present: Alan Clendenin, Richard Ulmes, Randy Weiland, Bernie Campau, Steve Fletcher,
Dustin Miller, Andy Lewis, David Caldwell, John Fitzgerald, and Christine Corcoran.
Members Absent: Dave Benedetto
Voter
Registration
During the Second Annual All Legislative Committee Conference in New Orleans this week, Selwyn Carter of the AFL-CIO brought to our attention how few NATCA members are registered to vote. He stated a high of 66% in Ohio to a low of 27% in several states.
NLC members will develop and spearhead voter registration drives in their respective regions. Again it was stressed how important it is for NATCA members to go and support NATCA friendly congressman.
NATCA
in Washington 2000 Goals
The Committee discussed last years NATCA in Washington event, and the concern expressed by some participants in the lack of a more specific ATC issue to lobby. The Committee agreed that the following issues were potential issues for NIW 2000.
1. The piecemeal contracting out of Air Traffic Facilities and total privatization.
2. Air-21 (Aviation Trust Fund)
3. Retirement: 2% annuity for CSRS and the TSP for FERS
The Retirement issue is two parts. FERS is included in legislation already introduced by Representative Morella MD-8-R. The CSRS issue would require legislation written specifically for NATCA. Christine will explore both of these issues for further discussion.
Meeting
Adjourned
|
|
Alan Clendenin Chairman National
Legislative Committee |
