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Mica: Union protesting lack of long-term FAA bill 'being used' by Democrats
The Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said a union protesting his district office over the absence of a long-term funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is "being used as pawns and doped tools" by Democrats.
Members of the union that represents flight attendants, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), reportedly held a demonstration outside Mica's Florida office to call for Congress to pass a longer bill for the FAA than the measure it approved this month, which provides money for the agency only until September. About 4,000 FAA workers were furloughed for nearly two weeks earlier this month when Congress could not agree on passing the short-term measure, which was originally intended to buy time for a longer law that is being bogged down by labor provisions.
"They're being used as pawns and doped tools in a larger national debate," Mica said in an interview with Florida radio station WMFE that is scheduled to air Tuesday morning. "I feel kind of pity for them by the way they've been abused by the leadership in Washington."
"I will use every means possible to get a long-term, four-year reauthorization," Mica told the radio station. "After four and a half years of Democrat delay, we will find a way to make one of most important transportation agencies function and also compete in the global international aviation market."
The AFA-CWA was harshly critical of Mica and other Republican leaders during the FAA shutdown.
Like Democrats in the Senate, the union argued during the impasse that the disagreement between the chambers was really about a House effort to undo a change to union rules intended to make it easier for airline and railroad employees to vote to collectively bargain.
"Anti-union ideologues, led by Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), are attacking working families by demanding inclusion of a provision that has nothing to do with the daily operation of U.S. air travel," the union said this month in its newsletter. "Boehner, Cantor and Mica are disregarding the democratic principle that majority rules — demanding instead that votes not cast be counted as 'no' votes. Not one member of Congress would be in office today if they were held to the same standard in their elections."
The shutdown of the FAA was projected to have cost the federal government $30 million per day in lost sales taxes on airline ticket purchases.
In addition to the FAA workers who were furloughed, about 70,000 construction employees were estimated to have been put out of work by the shutdown because over 200 airport construction projects were stalled.
The bill that was eventually passed to end the shutdown only funds the FAA through Sept. 16.
