Radarspod
Oh, and as for the comments sitting around drinking coffee, a number of us often work hard through a longer day than contractual hours to deliver the tools that the ATC units need to do their jobs better
That's all very commendable, but all the more reason for us, collectively, to tell management to try a little bit harder than just making the employees give up so much.
Your extra hours are akin to ATCOs doing extra sectors above minumum requirement. None of us gets paid for doing the extra hours/sectors etc, but it helps the company out immensly. A lot of goodwill has to do with the fact that NATS is a decent company to work for... continual erosion of Ts&Cs will make that less true and may mean people are less willing to work for nothing.
As for
Another fact - it's a NATS employee pensions scheme, not an NATS ATCO pension scheme........we're all in this together so stop complaining about "CTC" (i.e. Non-unit) employees adding to the pension burden
I think you picked up the wrong vibe from
3miles' post. They were stating that there are people who are not fulfilling gainful employment that need to be binned as they are draining the pension fund unnecessarily.
Similarly there are some ATCOs who have been taken out of the OPs room through ineptitude and given 'support' jobs that could be culled to save some money.
As for the figures from NERL about increasing ATCO numbers - unfortunately they are not increasing at a fast enough rate, we are still short of capable ATCOs.
Also - do those figures double count or how do they work?? I.e. an ATCO working in OPs for instance on a 2 year placement - do they count as an office worker or as an ATCO????