NATIONAL UNION PRESIDENT DESERVES PRAISE

High on a very short list of things that bother me about unions is the hypocrisy of their national leaders. They demand that agency executives accept certain work protections for their employees and stand accountable for doing the right thing.  But all too often union leaders refuse to live under the same rules and standards. So, we have to call for a round of applause for the President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) for…

allowing any member to file a grievance against the national president (NP) or any other officer just like they might file a grievance against their manager or agency. Most other federal sector unions do not have internal grievance procedures; in fact, most others put a series of bureaucratic hurdles in the path of any member who even wants to file formal disciplinary charges against a national officer. If I was representing an agency in bargaining, I would demand that the union explain why the agency should agree to a strong grievance procedure when the union president will not make themselves similarly accountable to the folks who pay their salaries.  There is no good answer for that.

You can read through the details of the NATCA internal grievance procedure yourself by linking to their constitution and turning to Article XIII. It opens by establishing that,

“Should any active member have any grievance or complaint concerning the actions of the Association, its officers or any fellow member, excluding a protest concerning the conduct of an election (which shall be decided in accordance with Article VII) or impeachment (which shall be decided in accordance with Article XII), they shall raise that grievance under the provision of this Article…. After spelling out some procedural requirements for the grievance similar, it then obligates the accused to either resolve the grievance within 30 days or move it to the National Executive Board.  The Board must “ consider the grievance and any reply as soon as possible, but no later than fourteen (14) days after: receipt of the accused member’s reply or the expiration of the thirty (30) day response period, whichever occurs first.”

If the Board does not resolve it, the grievance moves forward for an informal internal hearing and then to something NATCA calls the “Trial Committee.” While NATCA’s process does not call for the use of neutral professional arbitrators, it does permit a single member to shine a very bright light on any actions of the national leaders that are questionable. NATCA represents about 20,000 feds and its LM-2 report showws that 18,748 of them are members. Its deep devotion to running an open, democratic, accountable union plays a large role in getting itto that record-setting level.

If unions are about achieving dignity for people, then there is no good reason why union leaders should not be willing to reasonably limit their power over members.  They do not need the authority of a dictator with the power to steamroll over members or staff.