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by wat100009 hours ago |
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upvoteby callmeal9 hours ago|
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"Government"? Let's call it what it is. ITYM "Republicans".
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upvoteby tatersolid8 hours ago|
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The shortage of ATC staff dates back to the Clinton Administration. It’s just hard to attract people into a 5+ year training program for a very stressful job where you might get bounced near the end with no payout and no transferrable job skills.
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upvoteby achr28 hours ago|
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No the shortage goes back to Regan when their justified strike was busted. It ended the PATCO “union” and was a negative turning point for labour unions in general.
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upvoteby lesuorac8 hours ago|
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I think you mean Reagan. He removed the union for the ATC not Clinton.

Honestly, you can generally just blame Reagan for about anything. A presidency about weaking labor, strengthening Iran, and ballooning the deficit is uh never going to leave good traces.

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upvoteby nradov7 hours ago|
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Reagan did the right thing in that case. Government employees should never have collective bargaining rights. Public employee unions are contrary to the interests of taxpayers.
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upvoteby kube-system4 hours ago|
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Over the course of the past year, I think we've seen more evidence that the federal workforce's collective bargaining rights aren't strong enough. Workers' employment contracts are being ignored, employees are being threatened, constructively terminated, all in an attempt to enact RIFs without following the law.

Things are happening to the federal workforce right now that aren't even legal in the private sector.

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upvoteby nradov3 hours ago|
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If contracts are violated then the impacted parties can seek redress through the courts. Government employee unions aren't needed for that.
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upvoteby throwway1203853 hours ago|
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You have to have your contract violated for a significant amount before you can notionally afford to hire a lawyer to fight it out. Below 5 figures it doesn't make much financial sense to do that for most people, so they just eat it instead. It's how a lot of "theft of wages" and other mistreatment happens so often. Lawyers don't take those cases for free, and court isn't free either. And you're not going to instantly appear at the top of the docket for something small like that especially if the government buries you in procedure. They can do that for years.

But sure, yeah you can seek redress through the courts.

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upvoteby kube-system1 hours ago|
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The result of some of the issues at hand might not even be damages, but simply to realign policies with what the law requires.... which may no longer be relevant for someone who lost a job a year ago and has since moved on out of necessity.

And this admin doesn't simply stop an initiative when courts block them, they find a new "creative interpretation" to do the same thing, and carry on for however long it takes the next trial to happen.

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upvoteby kube-system3 hours ago|
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Suing the federal government solo is an insurmountable task for most people -- even more so while they're being constructively terminated. Employee unions have been suing on their workers behalf over the past year, but the executive branch can drag out federal trials for a lot longer than people can stay without a job.
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upvoteby superxpro123 hours ago|
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Centralization of all power in the government is also contrary to the interests of the taxpayers.

Every time i see an anti-union article, its usually about unions that do good union things...

But noone ever complains about the police union. It's always the public goods people like ATC or teachers.

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upvoteby InitialLastName2 hours ago|
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People complain about police unions all the time, it's just their complainants don't overlap much with the people who complain about private sector unions.
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upvoteby callmeal5 hours ago|
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Does your comment also include the police union(s)?
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upvoteby cake_robot4 hours ago|
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Yes absolutely. They're a perfect example of the unique issues w/ collective bargaining for public services.
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upvoteby nradov5 hours ago|
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Yes, absolutely. No government employees should ever have collective bargaining rights. If they want better wages and working conditions then they can advocate for those through the political process, the same as any other citizen.
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upvoteby rounce2 hours ago|
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In your suggestion any other citizen has collective bargaining at their disposal, do they not?
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upvoteby wat100003 hours ago|
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Collective bargaining rights shouldn’t even be a separate thing. They’re just a natural consequence of the fact that free speech is protected and slavery is illegal. The idea of an illegal strike is bizarre.
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upvoteby RC_ITR2 hours ago|
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This is a discussion with nearly unanimous agreement that poor ATC working conditions are causing Americans to die in preventable aviation accidents.

Maybe this is the one evidence-driven case where you can be open minded about the value of a public employee union?

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upvoteby nradov1 hours ago|
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Nope. Public employee unions bring zero value and this incident is not evidence to support such unions. Relying on unions to act as ersatz safety regulators would be stupid, just completely the wrong approach. Decisions about things like ATC procedures, staffing levels, and training standards should be the responsibility of apolitical career bureaucrats.
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upvoteby fatbird3 hours ago|
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Public employee unions are contrary to the interests of taxpayers

This is not obvious on its face, but also, paying taxes is not my only concern wrt the civil society in which I live.

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upvoteby xboxnolifes2 hours ago|
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Not just attract, it also has very high standards. And many people fail out.
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upvoteby rwyinuse3 hours ago|
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Somehow Europe manages to do that well enough.
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upvoteby MaxfordAndSons5 hours ago|
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ATC/GTC seems like a really strong candidate for partial automation with recent advances in AI. Obviously we'd still want some expert humans in the loop for exceptional situations, but I have to imagine there's a way to significantly reduce the cognitive burden/stress for these folks.
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upvoteby nradov5 hours ago|
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Recent advances in AI aren't useful for routine operations in safety critical domains such as aviation because we don't know how to verify and test them. An LLM is effectively an unpredictable black box with unknown failure modes. There is opportunity for greater automation but probably based on classical deterministic programming.
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upvoteby matthewkayin3 hours ago|
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In addition to this, LLMs are also simply too slow right now to deliver the results ATC would need.

Ridiculous to see people acting like LLMs are a silver bullet for every problem without putting any thought into what that would actually look like.

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upvoteby k4rli1 hours ago|
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This goes much deeper than just A vs B. As long as you Americans keep thinking this way, it will all remain the same sadly.
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upvoteby jasonlotito8 hours ago|
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Yes. Reagan was a Republican.
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upvoteby wat100007 hours ago|
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No, I mean government. This has been a problem for a long time and there hasn't been any serious effort to improve the situation by anyone.
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upvoteby callmeal5 hours ago|
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Yup, it's been a problem ever since Regan (a Republican) fired over 11,000 ATC employees. And by "anyone" ITYM "republicans" again, because Democrats have been trying for years.

See this article from 2017: https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2017/06/house-democrats-in...

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upvoteby wat100003 hours ago|
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How many years since Reagan have Democrats held both chambers of Congress and the White House? It’s a few. And yet we’re still here.
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upvoteby pjmorris3 hours ago|
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That's because all the Democrats are Republicans.

"”The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican,” - Barack Obama [0]

[0] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/137156-obama-says-hed-be-...

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upvoteby j_w2 hours ago|
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This is not a statement of Republicans and Democrats being the same, but a statement of Republicans going off the deep end in during and after Reagan.

Obama was a very moderate Democrat for his time. If you go back in time a moderate Democrat and Republican were similar because the "center" was more reasonable. Now the "center" is just people that are ashamed that they vote Republican.

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upvoteby wat100002 hours ago|
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If we accept that, then "government" and "Republicans" would be pretty much synonymous, so my original point stands. (Not that I accept it, but even if I did.)
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upvoteby exabrial3 hours ago|
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Another option: they shouldn't be government employees at all. It would be much better for them to work for the actual airports themselves and be certified by the government or a private testing organization instead.
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upvoteby slg3 hours ago|
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LaGuardia, like many (most?) airports, is run by the government. This is a distinction without a difference, at least in this case.
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upvoteby throwway1203853 hours ago|
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Which government? State, Federal, City, or a Port Commission? There is in fact a significant distinction between the responsibilities and capabilities of each of these levels of government and you can't lump them all together. My home airport is operated by a port commission, which is government, but the port commission's task is to operate the ports.
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upvoteby slg3 hours ago|
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>There is in fact a significant distinction between the responsibilities and capabilities of each of these levels of government and you can't lump them all together.

But all private businesses have the same responsibilities and capabilities and therefore can be lumped together as one entity? The asymmetry in how you're critiquing the way this is discussed ends up revealing your bias.

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upvoteby exabrial2 hours ago|
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LaGuardia is not ran by a local government, not the Federal Government.
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upvoteby slg1 hours ago|
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I genuinely have no idea what point you’re trying to make here. Do state governments not count as governments?
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upvoteby wat100003 hours ago|
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There’s a lot of ATC that isn’t specific to a single airport. And lots of airports are owned by a government anyway.
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