You Can’t Make This Up!
True Tales From The First 45 Days Of Imposed Work Rules
The FAA’s imposed work rules have created a theater of the absurd in facilities from coast to coast. A sampling of some of the more egregious examples of FAA management decisions gone wildly out of control:
BOSTON CONSOLIDATED TRACON
A female controller was taken by ambulance to a hospital after falling down two flights of stairs as a result of being forced to wear dress shoes in direct contradiction to her doctor’s orders – delivered to BCT management – that she wear sneakers for medical purposes. BCT managers ignored the orders and imposed their dress code, prohibiting sneakers. As a result, she slipped and fell down the stairs. In a similar incident at New York Center, a female controller tripped, damaged her leg and broke her elbow after ZNY managers didn’t accept the validity of her medical certificate specifying her need to wear tennis shoes as a result of serious knee problems.
BOWMAN FIELD, LOUISVILLE (LOU)
Two U.S. military controllers were offered jobs. Both turned down the offers after discovering they'd have to take a $20,000 pay cut if they left the Department of Defense.
CALDWELL, N.J., ATCT
A supervisor, after consulting with the ATM, denied a sick leave request for a controller who was scheduled for the 2-10 shift, claiming “operational necessity.” The controller, incapacitated and unable to come to work and perform his duties, was charged AWOL by the supervisor. Knowing one person would be left in the tower from 8 p.m. until closing the facility at 11 p.m., the supe decided not to call in overtime. The lone controller was not only responsible for all operational positions for those three hours but all administrative duties and supervisory responsibilities as well.
DUPAGE, Ill., AND LINCOLN, NEB., ATCT
A severe weather system spawned tornadoes near both DuPage Tower and Lincoln Tower. With FAA management having removed radios from all towers under the imposed work rules, neither facility’s controllers knew of the impending danger nearby. At LNK, two controllers were on duty with no supervisors at a late hour in the day. Tornado sirens sounded, an event that, according to controllers’ own orders, mandates the use of weather radios, radios and televisions to monitor the weather. But there was nothing in the tower to use. At DuPage, a tornado came within two miles of the tower. But controllers had no way of seeing it because heavy rains reduced visibility to a quarter of a mile. The controllers eventually evacuated when one controller received a personal call alerting him of the situation. The next day, the controllers notified the supervisor and stated that the radio that was in the tower, which management took away, would have alerted the staff sooner. The supervisor replied, "You should have looked out the window."
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA, ATCT
A controller, after calling in sick, was ordered to report for duty to complete a series of administrative tasks related to his ID card, which managers had failed to complete months earlier when the controller notified them of the impending expiration date. The controller risked not only his safety but that of the general public by driving while physically impaired by his illness. He then exposed his fellow employees to a highly contagious illness.
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH., ATCT
During a particularly serious staffing shortfall on a busy shift, only two controllers were left to work a radar room handling 80-100 planes per hour. The TRACON CIC tried calling the supervisor for help; someone to rip strips, work data and answer the land lines. The controller said the supe told him they thought he was just “(messing) around with them.” So ended the plea for help after the controllers got up from their radar scope, went to a phone at the back of the TRACON and called the supe several times. The supe, on top of all this, neglected to get the controller whose shift ended off position for another 20 minutes.
INDIANAPOLIS CENTER
The pre-imposed work rules requirement for scheduling was to allow no later than an 11 a.m. shift start time on the third day of a controllers’ week, if the fifth day was a 10 p.m. mid shift. But ZID managers are now scheduling noon shifts and even 1 p.m., which results in a controller having shifts on their last three days of: Noon-8 p.m., 6 a.m.-2 p.m., and 10 p.m.-6 a.m. That’s 24 hours worked in a span of 42 hours.
NEW YORK-LAGUARDIA ATCT
Not long after starting a 4-12 shift, a controller informed his supervisor that he left his prescription eyeglasses in his car. The supervisor told the controller he was prohibited from leaving the building to go to the parking lot and retrieve his glasses, and instructed him to return to the tower cab – wearing the prescription sunglasses he had on – after his break. He was ordered to work local control and told he could perform CIC duties. He worked local control until the sun went down and then requested to be relieved from position after temporarily losing visual sight of a C206 which dropped off the radar on short final while two MD-80s were crossing the arrival runway. The supervisor then told the controller he was required to take leave to go get his glasses and return to work.
TAMPA ATCT
Just days after a controller was ordered by a supervisor to drop his pants to make sure they did not contain denim, another controller reported for an evening shift and put his dinner in the refrigerator. A supervisor entered the break room and performed a scheduled clean-out of that same refrigerator, which sat next to another refrigerator that was already full of controllers’ food as a result of prohibitions against leaving the facility to purchase meals. The controller’s dinner was thrown out. He went to the supervisor to plead his case. The supervisor then called the facility manager with the story and they decided the controller would not be allowed to walk outside the facility to get food. Controllers soon after retreated to a patio on break holding signs that read, “Controllers Need Food.”
