Remarks on HR 658 FAA Conference Report

February 6, 2012

Extension of Remarks

Rep. Jan Schakowsky

H.R. 658 — FAA Conference Report

Mr. Chairman:

I am pleased that H.R. 658, the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act, will fully fund the FAA through FY2015, particularly because it will include the NextGen Air Traffic Control Modernization Program. That program is important to my constituents who live near, work in, and travel through O'Hare Airport. The program will ensure that air traffic congestion is lessened, noise and pollution mitigation efforts are continued, and air traffic control is improved according to best practices.

However, it is unconscionable that anti-labor provisions regarding the National Mediation Board were allowed to find their way into this bill. Organized labor has protected the rights and livelihood of American workers for decades. H.R. 658 changes the rules for holding elections, making it harder even to give workers the opportunity to have union representation. The bill makes it easier to strip union rights in the case of mergers between airlines or railways. It also allows election results to be challenged in person by employers, opening up union elections to voter intimidation. Those and other provisions will only undermine the ability of American laborers to be represented in their places of employment. They do not belong in the bill, and they will hurt rather than help workers and our national transportation system as a whole.

I agree that the FAA, and the NextGen program should be fully funded. I voted against H.R. 658 because it injected anti-labor provisions into a reauthorization that should have been devoid of partisan political stunts.