ATC IssuesA place where pilots may enter the 'lions den' that is Air Traffic Control in complete safety and find out the answers to all those obscure topics which you always wanted to know the answer to but were afraid to ask.
As for starting a new union, what is the point?? The membership returned a YES vote for the Pensions con & also a YES vote for the pay rise con, so how would a new union make things better
We need a representation of operational staff only. If the office folk are "happy just to have a job" then good for them. That way we won't have our ballots "hi-jacked". Although a big chunk of our operational brothers and sisters (management sycophants) could also steer the union ship towards the jagged rocks of NATS management.
Autothrottle, it's not just Barron -it's the rest of his ilk as well that are helping themselves.
I find it incredible that these bastardinos can just change their targets from unrealistic to realistic ones when it suits them. In fact Overheard at the watercooler, that since it appears to be impossible to hit the heathrow staffing figures due to the haemoraghing of staff to the middle east and the lack of validations, management are planning to drop the OR by 5, and in doing so hitting thair targets and collecting nice little bonuses. Instead of pissing about with targets, they should address the real issue of staff retention, in fact as Fly Bhoy put it earlier, current events mean that more people will just pack it in and get on the phone to Serco Middle East or any other aerodrome or ANSP
You can't blame the union(s) when you either vote YES or in so many cases can't be arsed to vote at all
I DO blame the unions ..they were the ones who recommended "YES" unfortunately there were those who REALLY believed that because the union recommended it then that MUSTbe the way to go and didn't really listen to any of the arguments against. Like....wait til financial report/RPI is out.!!!
I can't believe that some people didn't query the timing of the pay ballot (Same with the Pension) A 7 year old could have worked that one out..mind you going by some of the comments on these threads there are some children about.
This is exactly the point! The unions have been completely out managed by these experienced commercially minded hatchet men. Either the unions need to harden their stance (stable door - horse %^*%$£ off) or we need a new union, not unions. The only way to deal with these fat cats is to expose them to grief, like industrial action. Even the threat of it will have the airlines quaking, they are on a knife edge as it is, if we all take a Monday or Friday off they will too realise why the Heathrow CTB cash should have come to NATS. For its staff and pensions. How much would the airline group lose if ATC stopped for 24 hours?
Strange how many posts are mysteriously vanishing from this thread. Could it be 'Censorship' by any chance? Never really thought I was living in a police state until today!
The unions have been completely out managed by these experienced commercially minded hatchet men.
At the risk of being very unpopular can I point out that we won't know that with any certainty until the annual report for 2009/2010 is published in 12 months time.
There are three possible scenarios:
First the retained profit from 2008/2009 plus income from this new financial year is insufficient for NATS to pay its bills and fund its revised investment programme. That won't be good for many of us but in that case the union probably got us a better deal than we had any right to expect.
Second the retained profit plus income is pretty close to the money needed to pay the bills and fund the revised investment programme. In that case the deal was just about right.
Third the retained profit plus income is more than enough to pay the bills and fund the revised investment programme and NATS reports another big profit in June 2010. In that case the deal was lousy and we've all been screwed.
I don't see how anybody can say which is most likely at the moment.
Digging through the financial report and found that PB paid his wife's company £133k this year and £75k last year. The work was sponsered by one of his Alstom mates.
So next time you are looking to split the sector but there is not enough staff.......just imagine........if only we could afford a few more ATCOs.
This is not surprising at all, this is just another fat cat with his nose in someone Else's trough. He will leave in April 2010, the yessites will wish him a fond farewell and we will get another greedy to$$er to 'manage' the company. He will do more of the same and PB will be off into *anking or PolItics. Being so greedy being a Tory MP may suit?
Is it totally legal for him to use his own wifes company
You get the impression that if it is declared, then it is viewed as OK. Would have thought that it was a distinct conflict of interests meself. Wonder what I could get the trouble-and-strife to do for the company for an extra hundred grand income?
You get the impression that if it is declared, then it is viewed as OK. Would have thought that it was a distinct conflict of interests meself. Wonder what I could get the trouble-and-strife to do for the company for an extra hundred grand income?
Its called having a brass neck
The get out clause is "Any potential conflicts of interest were put aside, and I exercised probity throughout when conducting business for and on behalf of NATS"
We need a representation of operational staff only. If the office folk are "happy just to have a job" then good for them. That way we won't have our ballots "hi-jacked". Although a big chunk of our operational brothers and sisters (management sycophants) could also steer the union ship towards the jagged rocks of NATS management.
99.99% of the "office folk" aren't in Prospect. Had Prospect ATCOs returned a No vote, then the whole deal would have fallen. Prospect Operational ATCOs voted by a majority... YES.
So a new union would achieve **** all. Some new leadership of the existing ones might help though... The divisive attitude only assists management in shafting us all even harder in future.
how many staff are actually not members of either Union? Not that many, I would have thought. I cant believe that had they all been members, that it would have made much of a difference to the outcome anyway.
Location: The Peoples Alcoholic Republic of Jockistan
Posts: 851
Quote:
Strange how many posts are mysteriously vanishing from this thread. Could it be 'Censorship' by any chance? Never really thought I was living in a police state until today!
Oh the angst and gnashing of gums .... this is a privately owned bulletin board. Folks who use it play by the rules and accept them when they sign up.
The posts which were deleted were cryptic crossword clues alluding to what Mr Barron might be called ... insulting and rude names without exception. Whilst most of us don't like him and see him for exactly what he is, we're not stooping to the gutter and allowing a free for all where obscenities and name calling are seen as acceptable posts. Most of us are professional when doing our jobs, so why drop those standards just because you're hiding behind an anonymous name and have the opportunity to call Barron names which I guarantee you wouldn't use to his face if he was sitting opposite you in the canteen ?
If you don't like that position of our police state, it's simple. Go elsewhere.
__________________
10 West
UK ATC'er Old enough to know better, young enough to carry on regardless.
I had a post deleted, and it was a cryptic clue. But it certainly wasn't alluding to what Mr barron might be called. It was a clue in answer to an earlier query regarding the whereabouts of cryptic name calling posts.
The coffee break clue was 'they protect the integrity of this forum" and the cryptic clue was "Big Brother was certainly not a punk rocker" - the answer MODerator (clever eh?).
I thought it had been binned because it was too challenging . Never complained though because as 10W states, it is their trainset, and the post was pretty irrelevant.
Wonder how long this one will last...
To bring it back on track, I wish that in future the union did not make a recommendation either way for voting. The way they have recently been cosying up to management it is pretty obvious that they want us to vote yes to everything. Why not just put the proposal on the table and say "vote yes or no whatever you, as an intelligent individual feels is right".
I know for a fact that some people voted yes merely because they felt that they had to to support their union who was calling for a yes vote. Not exactly playing on an even field IMHO.
If you accept that the union negotiates in good faith and have access to all of the information and figures required, then they will take that negotiation as far as they believe is possible.
The recommendation will only ever be one that they believe can be achieved by such negotiation, or they will not be doing their job. They are hardly likely to say "take 2%" when they think they could have got 4. They will always push as far as they can.
There will have been information presented that none of us on here are party to and neither should we be.
And is there really anyone on here that thinks they have a right to 4.7% when the industry is in the mess it is quite clearly in?
I suspect that we would all have settled for 2% if Barron and the exec had done the same and this thread would have died a death.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy but am realistic.
..wait til financial report/RPI is out.!!! 
inglievable.
. Never complained though because as 10W states, it is their trainset, and the post was pretty irrelevant.
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