Having made the appointment yesterday i am now recovering from it-still not feeling the best but there you go. If for arguements sake i was not fit for duty by the time my next duty day comes around, how much chaos would this cause? Who knows, as the staff might or might not be there to fill to gap.
As already posted "only 60% of staff in Dublin do overtime, so does that mean the other 40% of staff have been conducting "industrial action" for the last god knows how long? "
Well yes by the IAA logic the 40% of staff who haven't agreed to do OPTIONAL overtime and call-ins have indeed been engaging in wildcat industrial action. Anyone see a fault in that logic ?
While i am not privvy to up-to-date figures i do know that in the month of November just gone there were a total of 92 call-ins in shannon. This with a total controller workforce of approx 140. I'm not very bright (hence i'm an ATCO
) but that seems to me that the roster is propped up by overtime and call-ins to a huge degree.
92 call-ins in one month out of a total staff of 140-ish.
Throw into that a few pregnancies, maternity leave, the vey odd sickness and about 30 to 40 atcos on project work and i think the staffing picture (for one station) starts becoming much clearer. I am sure that the Dub and Crk people have their own figures which are just as interesting.
The one thing i have noticed is that people are coming into work visibly sick. When this is commented upon, they say that they are worried about leaving their colleagues short and having to cope. So don't for one second doubt the commitment and dedication the atcos of this company have to actually working and doing the job even in adverse conditions.
On a related matter, about 2 to 3 years ago IAA staff were bombared with literature on how the IAA had the best family friendly policies and work life balance policies. It sounded great. Where are they now?
This has already been stated but people have a life outside of the job.They do want to spend SOME time with their families . Also having finished the normal working week they are sick of the place so dont feel like working extra OPTIONAL days. It is not unknown for leave to be denied a full year after having applied for it. To all non-IAA atcos who read this ,imagine informing your employer today that you need the 10th of Feb 2009 off. Imagine how you would feel when the 10th of Feb 2009
actually comes around and the leave has been denied due a staff shortage. Imagine how you would feel when the leave you require is for your wedding,a close family members funeral,the birth of your child,your birthday or any other momentus personal occasion and you can't get leave.
Family friendly and work life balance policies as well as protecting and advancing their members working conditions are the publicly stated aims and policies of Impact. So why have they been so tardy in representing and protecting their members?
Well i still think there is serious outside pressure being applied to Impact with the intention of heading off any strike action or at least delaying it for as long as possible. Obviously a strike that would ground all air traffic in Ireland and delay or cancel thousands of flights around europe and the USA would become a huge political and media event. In fact this would become one of the biggest political issues that Ireland would have seen in a long time.
However i would say to Impact that there has been a valid ballot and an unequivecal (sic) result so issue the industrial action notice to the IAA. I am no expert on the technical IR rules but i think a week or maybe two weeks notice must be served of the action. So serve the notice and then meet the IAA face to face. The industrial action notice would most definitely focus the minds across the table and hopefully prompt them that now might the time to engage in meaningfull talks.
Just because we serve action notice does NOT mean that we have to advocate an all out stoppage as our first option. I have said numerous times here that the nuclear option should be our last and final option despite the obvious mood for giving the company the kick up the arse that they need to wake them up. I have also previously said that an official ban on call-ins and overtime and a work to rule policy should be the first options if we need to. Obviously in the absence of any progress then the need arises. Working to rule would really highlight the staff deficiencies. Every two hours demand your breaks,demand that your sector is split when you hit the agreed maximums and watch management try and conjure staff out of thin air especially with no overtime or call-ins (which again are totally optional)
To Impact i also say that if you don't support your members and back them up and protect them, then Impact WILL be shown the door. I imagine as this now is so high profile they cannot deny their own membership.
To sum up-we need to play this smart and play it cool. We can acheive so much by doing so little as the situation that is there at managements behest will do it for us !
Yours as ever
OCK1F