Hootin and a roarin'
I kinda knew what he was on about but the banding system has not been a past of negotiations for a while i.e. there has not been a vote whereby we could refuse to agree a pay settlement until the bandig system was adressed etc etc.
The banding system is not fair, but there are some quieter units than otheres, and whne you look at the airport side, you will probably find that this is where the greatest disparity lies i.e. form the busiest, most complex airport to the quietest least complex.
However, although I work in area, I know that it's not that simple. I reckon there are a few airfields out there that are fair bit more complex than Heathrow, but they are obviously not as busy. Trying to find a way of measuriong x (being the resultant the combination of business and complexity) is very difficult. The banding was an attempt to do this, however, I agree that it should be revamped and the'model' tewaked to get more accurate results.
The fact that we used to have ATCO 3/2/1 on the same scale is possibly not enough of a difference in wages to keep people happy - and quite rightly so - would a guy working at Farnborough (very busy LARS, steady arrivals/deps) be happy to be on the same wage as a tower only controller at Luton?
Would you, as an Aberdeen controller with mixed runways etc be happy to be on the same wage as a London City Twr controller? There are differences in what we do, even within the same disciplines, these differences have to be recognised, though they should be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are as fais as possible.
As far as the college instructing is concerned - I agree totally. Instructing there should be done by people who still control - if possible they should retain a validation and do th ehours required at a parent unit each month, or if from far away parent units, they could drop the validation, but on the understanding that they will have to re-validate when their college stint is over.
There are a lot of ancillary jobs at the college which could be filled by people who do not need a license - however it is my personal belief that the guys who are doing the runs, should be at the college for a maximum of 5 years. Most Ground School subjects could easily be done by non ATCOs at a hell of a lot less cost.