I think it's important to differentiate between local and national levels when talking about the Union. The local reps seem to be banging their heads against a brick wall trying to get support from a higher level.
Ours has been asking for help for ages to deal with our emotional blackmailling and quite frankly bullying management and appears to get absolutely nothing back. In the mean time, agreements both local and national are ridden roughshod over at every given opportunity and the staff are squezzed tighter and tighter and the unit pushed ever closer to the dreaded but sadly predictable, howling nasty. Disputes seem to be a badge of honour for GMs nowadays.
On the subject of contracts, they're screwed up by some faceless wonder somewhere who just gets promoted and it's the staff at the airports staring down the barrel.
For example, take the case of a certain unit with a Delegated Function. The contract was bid for on a certain price and the airport company accepted this and started to pay. The unit then got a Delegated Function and charged NERL for the provision of said DF. Rather than this unit being a rarity in NSL and making a profit, an approximate 25% discount was given to the airport company on the conract price! The GM then uses this as an excuse to emotionally blackmail the staff to work over two hours at a time, push the limits of SRATCOH, not cover shortages, not cover all WP positions, break WP, not pay AAVAs, expect staff to add to the massive TOIL backlog, work for free and be grateful for it etc by threatening/using the scare tactic of "the unit is losing money, if you don't do it we'll all be out of jobs"!
Maybe NATS will lose the contract, most likely when NSL is broken up and sold off. However, it's likely to happen far quicker if two get welded together because the GM has read "The Railtrack guide to running a business" and we'll be losing far more than just our jobs!
Managements' cock up, the staff arses!!
