Truth Hurts

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Yes, it's late in the campaign. Yes, people slip up. When I'm 72, I hope I can criss-cross the country like McCain has. Maybe I'd drop the "C" bomb accidentally too. Having said that, I just can't stop laughing. Yes, I am 12.

Ok, so I went to the thesaurus to get the antonym to collaboration and cooperation. I changed the first word when I read an e-mail from my good friend and former NATCA Vice-President Tom Cavanaugh. Today I was reminded that we have a very long road back to collaboration and cooperation, including at Albany. There are a lot of things the manager at Albany Tower does not comprehend. Within the past two, we have called him out publicly for: Informing his staff in person of an employee infected with MRSA, then posting the same information in the "non-mandatory" or "C" binder, which is rarely read.   Twice scheduling controllers for nine consecutive shifts without a day off.   Telling an employee that she had to secure a shift swap or he would deny her jury duty, then accusing the employee of "playing games" when she wasn't needed for jury service one day. It would be laughable if it weren't so sad. Today, I found out that Albany was getting two new con...

I make no secret about how I became a union activist. A very large man and staunch union supporter convinced me that belonging to NATCA would be the right thing to do and a smart career move on my part. I believe it would also keep my health care costs down, but I cannot be sure of that. It really didn't take that much convincing and the story is more colorful that way. I have heard stories of people who signed their membership forms on pool tables and pinball machines in smoke-filled bar rooms. I signed up in the NATCA office at Syracuse Tower. 18 months later, I was the President of my local – two weeks before I became a full performance level controller. I became active in NATCA at a time when collaboration and cooperation were the new buzzwords. NATCA and FAA had just signed an agreement on a new project called Quality Through Partnership, also called QTP or QTiP. The idea was that the union and management would solve problems by consensus building rather than traditional negot...

40 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in while standing on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King had returned to Memphis to conduct a second march in support of the sanitation workers of AFSCME Local 1733 who were on strike. We must never forget the roots of the labor movement are deeply entwined with the civil rights movement. It's as much about human rights as it is labor and civil rights. Dr. King delivered many moving speeches in his short lifetime. One of the most famous titled "I Have Been to the Mountaintop" ( Part I and Part II) was delivered the day before. If you have never heard it - or even if you have - it is worth a listen. I was fortunate to study the sanitation workers strike last year in a labor studies class and I am embarrassed to admit, listened to Reverend King's speeches for the first time. His words ring every bit as true 40 years later. In class, we watched the documentary, "I Am a...

I thought I would use the following excerpt from a recent e-mail to re-launch my writing career. (Yeah, right!) I went through a period recently where I didn't feel much like writing or doing much of anything. I took some time to reflect finish my school work and decided now is the right time to once again start sharing some of my thoughts. The following is plagiarized from my own work. It comes from an e-mail sent to a select few people in NATCA and I wanted to share it with you all. I edited it down, because I believe in the message and did not want it to get lost in the issue that the e-mail was sent in response to. I am a union member, a union advocate and a union activist. I do what I do and what I have done for seventeen years without fanfare or award and without the expectation of any. I do so because I believe in what I do and I believe I can make a difference. For my service to this union, you (and the membership at large) owe me nothing, except the opportunity to continue...

I know it's difficult to have a following when you take a month hiatus oh – every two months. I think I said it before, I write about things I am passionate about and typically only write when the mood strikes me – as a bit of therapy to get me through the weeks. Unfortunately, the past few weeks have been more about me getting my head on straight for the stretch run to a diploma, while I redirected my efforts to running my union's local branch. Rachel Maddow of Air America and MSNBC fame unearthed this letter from Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Congressman DeFazio is a great friend to air traffic controllers and our union and is never one to shy away from speaking his mind. Thanks to Ms. Maddow for shedding some light on this. I want to thank the Congressman for once again standing up and saying what at least half of the country is thinking (perhaps more). Enjoy!

Online office applications are very useful educational tools, as they allow educators to share information with students without having the students purchase expensive software. It also keeps the instructor from having to upload documents in multiple formats and allows students and instructors alike the ability to retrieve and edit office files from any computer with internet access. Web based office applications also allow students to collaborate on a paper or project from their homes, libraries or a computer lab. This saves valuable classroom time for instruction while still giving students an opportunity to work together on a project. I recently created the embedded presentation, The History of NATCA, for my Union Administration class. I intend to utilize it for the basic representation class that I am designing. It can also be found at this link :

I am lending my blog space to my dear friend Kendall “Scott” Mann from Greensboro. Please take the time to e-mail him at kmann@natca.org or skyymann@triad.rr.com with your ideas for his project. Again, this is Scott's project. Please respond to Scott. I will return shortly with my own continued saga of life in this here FAA. "I finally got around to starting a book project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Why am I telling you this? Because I would like your help. The book is called “The Search for the Perfect Martini”. I’m sending this email to folks all over the world to find out just what constitutes a “Perfect Martini” to different people. The term “Perfect Martini” would be a metaphor for “What do you really want?” this is a tough question that most people never give a second thought to, but really should. Here is what I am asking for. I would like for you to write me back at kmann@NATCA.org or skyymann@triad.rr.com with as few or as many sentences as you want, des...

This is an absolutely amazing video! Over 1000 college students from Prairie View College in Texas wanted to vote during the early voting period in the primary, which ends on February 29th. Most colleges have a polling location on site. Prairie View does not. Instead of being deterred, these students conducted a march to the nearest polling location - over SEVEN MILES AWAY - where they waited for tweleve hours to vote. This is the power of the people. It gives me a renewed sense of home in this country and the upcoming generation.

Those of you who are intimately familiar with the FAA's game of the past several years realizes that this agency has become a broken record of accusations and empty rhetoric. Never have I seen an entire workforce publically devalued and demoralized as this FAA has done to the nation's air traffic controllers. Their game is simple: win the public relations war and they can ignore the controllers all together. Their latest tactic is to claim that the controllers union is trying to scare the American flying public into believing the FAA has created a mess even FEMA would shudder at. Apparently, the United States Congress has seen ample evidence from those pesky air traffic controllers to convince them that we are on the absolute wrong track. When we are staffing the air traffic control system to budget rather than needs, it is very obvious that something is awry. I've got news for you sunshine, any labor organization worth its salt doesn't cry wolf just because they got a ...

Benjamin Franklin once said, in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. Sure, the absence of my musings here could have been attributed to the former. Actually, it was mostly due to the latter, and I am happy to report that my taxes are done. There doesn't seem to be any certainty in the Democratic nomination process, although one candidate has built some incredible momentum. Tuesday's resounding victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii appeared to have given Senator Obama unstoppable momentum heading into the March 4th primaries in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. He has now won 10 contests in a row, winning Wisconsin by 17-points, his smallest margin of victory yet. I certainly would never count Senator Clinton out until one candidate reaches the magic number or until she says she's out, but it will be an uphill climb for her. The Clinton campaign has acknowledged that Texas and/or Ohio are must wins. The pundits believe that she must win big in both places to ...

Ever since I've been active in NATCA, the air traffic controllers union, there have been whispers that the outsourcing our jobs was inevitable. The Reason Foundation is a conservative think-tank that has been leading the charge to outsource the safety of the flying public to the lowest bidder. No one can argue the fact that this administration has run the FAA into the ground and it cannot continue to be managed in this fashion. Interestingly enough, the Reason Foundation's founder and transportation "specialist", Robert Poole was a Bush campaign adviser and present during the White House transition, a fact that cannot be lost as we seek out the means to pull the FAA out of the hole it's been digging. Privatization is certainly not the answer. Nor are any of the buzzwords, such as public-private partnership, managed competition, outsourcing or corporatization. On February 1, 2005, FAA awarded a 5-year fixed-price, incentive-fee contract (with 5 additional option ...

I wanted to share this website - Fund Race - where you can search by name, zip code, occupation and employer to see who has given what in the current Presidential election. In what is shaping up to be the most expensive Presidential campaign in history, each Democratic candidate has raised over $100 million during the primary season. The Obama campaign raised $32 million in January compared to $13.5 million for the Clinton campaign. Since the February 5th Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, Senator Obama has raised $7.5 million and has swept the primaries and caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, the Virgin Islands and Maine. Tomorrow is the Potomac Primaries, where voters in Maryland, DC and Virginia head to the polls. 237 total delegates are at stake. The candidates are in a near dead-heat, with Obama leading in delegates pledged through the primary process and Clinton leading in Superdelegates . I think the New York Times Election Guide has the easiest snapshot of the pri...

I have been thinking a lot this week about the word "unionism". Two separate and distinct events have left me pondering this and before I get into those, I wanted to share a thought that my Brother Tom Thompson from Indianapolis Center posted on our union's BBS: Not a Spectator Sport 'Unions are far more than a kind of employment insurance policy for working people. Plenty of union members and union officials have learned the hard way that when workers come to think of their union as a business that provides service rather than a group of people banding together to fight for common interests, the union quickly loses the clout and credibility needed to defend and advance the members' interests. When an employer looks and sees only a small handful of paid union staff or elected union leaders, and no one standing behind them, pretty soon the employer starts thinking that "the union" isn't really much to contend with. And the truth is, that's right....

I want to thank everyone for their kind words and for your support of my efforts here. Yesterday, 365 people hit the Yaz's blog, a record. Sure, I'm not in the stratosphere like The Main Bang or Get the Flick – perhaps someday. (Maybe if I keep shamelessly plugging their blogs, I can get a link and ride their coattails!) You need to bookmark Paul Williams' YouTube page , especially if you're into aviation. Paul has been an activist in NATCA since before I was hired and continues to do an awesome job collecting media clips – video and audio – concerning ATC. His collection includes news reports, interviews and Congressional hearings. Paul also gave me this gem: "Since October 2006 controllers have been retiring at a rate of 1 every 9 hours." Every time a shift ends, a controller hangs up his or her headset for good. Another great find I have to attribute to Paul – from the FAA's own 10-Year Strategy for the Air Traffic Control Workforce (June 2006) (page...

The toughest thing about writing is coming up with a catchy title every day I decide to write a new article. You have to read today's title with the whiny voice inflection of a teenage girl and picture how she stomps her foot when she says it. Make sure and use those exclamation points. It'll help you see the sarcastic wit I was trying for when I chose "math is hard!!" as the title. You see my friends, aside from being an air traffic controller, I am also a 39 year old college student. I had my one experience at college in the fall of 1986. It involved beer, vodka, companionship and - hmm – what are all these rooms with chairs for? Needless to say a 0.64 GPA was not going to get me into Harvard Law let alone Spencer Hill Institute of Technology . 20 years later, I enrolled at the National Labor College and I'm on the brink of graduating with a degree in Labor Studies, Labor Education and Union Administration. I have a few more hurdles to clear, one of which was p...

Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell was welcomed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. As is customary, Mr. Sturgell gave an opening statement. Then, he was beaten like a rented goalie. I really didn't want trouble with PETA, so I went with Keith Olbermann's variation on a theme from back in his Sportscenter days. To be fair, the Acting Administrator never had a chance to truncate the former part of his title. NATCA members, their Department of Government Affairs and the legislative committee had worked tirelessly to make sure that the Senate had all of the information prior to this hearing. Personally, I have been telling Senator Schumer's office for months that Mr. Bobby Sturgell is directly responsible for the dismantling of the aviation system in the United States. Sturgell touts the safest five-year period in aviation history. Let me tell you, it is the will and skill of the controllers and pilots that are keeping airplanes from swapping ...

Let me see if I can add anything to the spin and debate over what happened on Super Tuesday. Here's what I took away: Latino Factor: Latino voters make up 30% of the Democratic electorate in California. They favored Senator Clinton by a two to one margin. They favored Senator McCain by about the same margin. It's about the delegates: No one can spin the fact that the largest prizes, namely New York and California, went to Senators Clinton and McCain. Neither state is a "winner takes all" state for the Democrats, so Senator Obama will siphon some delegates there. On the Republican side, they are both winner takes all. Senator Clinton will leave Super Tuesday with about a 90 delegate lead over Senator Obama, roughly 800 to 710. Senator McCain holds more than a 2 to 1 margin over Governor Romney and more than 3 to 1 over Governor Huckabee. He is around half-way to the Republican nomination. Home states: Senator Clinton won New York by a 17 point margin     while ...

I just watched Maria Shriver's speech at the Barack Obama rally in Los Angeles. She referenced the quote that is the title of this blog and of course, being the geek that I am, I had to find the passage where it came from. "You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Do the children want what they see in you? Where is your water? Know your garden. Does your life grow corn? It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destinatio...