In the run up to the vote it was often said that the issue was not the money but the principle behind the banding.
It seems that for the majority the money WAS the issue and how the final sum was arrived at was not so important.
27% is a significant minority and should not be ignored. However, if many of those who voted "No" leave Prospect as they have threatened to do, the need to address their issues reduces in significance with each resignation. No one has done badly out of this deal and the majority find it acceptable. The only way to influence future deals is to be involved in Prospect.
All that said, have we reached a point where the current structure of the ATCOs branch does not effectively allow proper representation? Specifically, should we be considering splitting the Area ATCOs and Aerodrome ATCOs into seperate branches within Prospect? Or do we need some form of sub-Branch that can deal with Airport issues seperately and on which Area units have no say? If we did have a seperate Airports ATCOs branch would non-NATS units want to be involved?
Seven months to conference and twenty one months to the next pay deal!!
Last edited by Arkady; 8th Mar 2004 at 23:15.