My Thoughts on the pay offer.
In essence, its good, regardless of pay band - we ALL get the uplift in pay spine.
Bad points
OJTi hourly pay - so we gonna sit there all day and make the trainee work his/her b*lls/t*ts off to get more money?? The hourly rate is (I have been informed by a union rep) for doing training over and above the 3hrs 20 per day we need to average to get paid at the moment.
Trainees will suffer as a result - they need time to sit back and consolidate. Try to remember how tiring it was for you as a trainee!!!
Lower pay for new entrants - now theres an idea - lets reduce it so much that the calibre of applicant is reduced (I've heard as low as 10-11K). OK, they may not pass the aptitude tests, but how long will the company accept lower numbers of entrants before 'massaging' the scores needed to join??
They've already bug***ed up the training by going too far at the college. We will end up with people with such a lack of aviation knowledge (I do not mean we need more spotters), that it will be dangerous. How does that tie in with becoming
an industry leader
???
AAVA why a 6 year tie in?? We will not have any bargaining power to bring management to the table in 3 years time. (Allegedly it's because we will be up to strength ATCO wise in 6 years - yeah, right).
BUPA Why should an ATCO 1 get this straight away for whole family, yet we have to wait for 3 years and it's only for the individual?? They would have been better leaving it as an ATCO 1 perk (like car allowance) instead of insulting us.
Other points
3 days clawback - who gives a stuff if it's operational or not?? It is 3 days we are supposed to be working, full stop. I would rather be busy controlling than stuck listening to some Bull***t TRM lecture, being told what is basically common sense.
Underpinning - Why is the second years January rise not underpinned??
Finally - with regards to the student ATCO pay - here's a radical though on how to save money instead of screwing them over; 2 suggestions.
1. - If a trainee fails to validate at a unit because they are not good enough, then do not back pay them for non productive years when they eventually do validate somewhere.
Start the clock running for them when they start at the new unit to train.
Why should someone who failed get thousands of pounds back pay and an automatic 2 or 3 pay spine jump, just because they have finally made it?? No one gets bonuses for validating quickly and being of use to the company.
2. - Why have an ATCO 1 LAS or GS?? The majority of the time they sit and do diddly squat. Instead, when someone has been valid for, say 5 years (or another figure), they could be trained up and then rostered once every couple of cycles to do it.
They could get paid a monthly or annual bonus for being on the roster (a pay spine??), and just as in instructing, you do not
have to do it. You would then end up with a more proactive LAS/GS who has his or her finger on the pulse.
All said, I seriously doubt we qualified ATCOs will get a better deal, the only thing we can probably do is try to improve the lot of others i.e. new entrants. If we accept the deal we are selling them down the river, if we do not accept the deal, we will go into protracted talks for little or no benefit to us.
How long do you think it will take to sort out the mess if we vote 'No'? They have had a couple of years since the last pay round and they still have not got this one done in time for the January pay packet, even if we vote yes!