The Airline Division has sponsored several hundred meetings with Members of Congress and the Senate over the last nine months, resulting in part in the following initiatives. These meetings have been attended by Airline Division pilots, mechanics and ramp workers from all over the country. The Airline Division is continuing and will continue to sponsor, set up and co-ordinate this intensive legislative activity until all of the legislation listed below is enacted into law.

1. The House has passed the FAA Reauthorization bill with language which requires that the FAA implement a singe world-wide regulatory standard for all repair stations which means that all foriegn repair stations will have to meet the same standard as US repair stations---same certification for mechanics, same background checks, same drug and alcohol testing. The point is that the so called cost advantage will be eliminated re foreign repair stations. This will provide a disincentive for firms and investors to put monies in the foreign repair stations and encourage domestic US airlines to bring the work back home.
    
2. The House Transportation and infrastructure Committee has passed the Costello safety bill which our pilots believe is the best safety bill introduced into the Congress in the last 40 years. It would require that all pilots---first officers and captains have an ATP licenses before they enter the cockpit. This is intended to improve the professionalism of all commercial air pilots and thereby raise their salaries and benefit levels. We expect floor action in the House on this bill sometime in November.
    
3. The House FAA Reauthorization bill also includes language putting all Fedex employees who do not touch airplanes---truck drivers, mechanics etc---under the National Labor Relations Act. Changing their status will help them to organize and thereby improve their wages and working conditions.
    
4. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has passed its version of the FAA Reauthorization bill which also includes language intended to curtail the growth of foreign repair stations.
    
5. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is working on a so-called "managers amendment" designed to strengthen further various pro-labor/safety provisions before the bill is passed on the Senate floor.
    
6. Various hearings in both the Senate and House have been held to push the FAA to come out with better safety and fatigue regulations to improve air safety.