Flight attendants speak out in favor of FAA reauthorization bill

Flight attendants at Los Angeles International Airport chose Labor Day to speak out in favor of legislation to reauthorize and fund the Federal Aviation Administration - or FAA. The legislation is stalled in Congress.

Flight attendants work for airlines – not the FAA – but the partisan dispute in Washington over the agency’s re-authorization centers on the efforts of transportation workers, like flight attendants, to join unions.

Republicans want a provision to reverse new rules by the National Mediation Board that make it easier for workers to organize. Flight attendant Dante Harris describes it as "a union-busting provision that says that anytime you vote in a union election if you don’t vote, it’s a no vote. "

"That’s the most undemocratic, most un-American thing that we could ever fathom," said Harris, the President of the LAX chapter.

The divide between Republicans and Democrats over the labor provision contributed to a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this summer. Democratic Congresswomen Grace Napolitano and Janice Hahn, whose district includes the airport, joined the flight attendants.

"While Republicans promised Americans they would create jobs, they had just put 75,000 Americans out of work," Hahn said of the shutdown.

Lawmakers finally agreed on a short-term funding extension, which is set to expire next week on September 16. The long-term re-authorization is one of several items awaiting Congress as it returns from recess.