Banding....
Fair in principle, but unfair in practice...
Although there is a definite reason to pay some ATCO's more at certain units than others, the banding system is very flawed. The scoring of a unit doesnt really reflect sometimes what that unit does, it would be a bit like scoring an airport on pax numbers against aircraft movements. higher pax numbers doesnt always mean higher movements. Issues in sense of the service, complexity of the airspace etc that some of these units provide isnt always fully taken into account. There are some bandings that are based on history rather than true workload, approach atco's that are now providing the service from TC, whichin fact are now only radar rated other than when they were tower and approach rated are now bands higher for doing the same job or as i just said in fact less.
But the biggest issue is that although when banding came out it may have been ok, following pay rise after pay rise as resulted in the gap becoming more between the units. When it was introduced a difference between Bands could have been 5k it is in some cases now over 20k. A percentage of more is more...The bandings need re addressing, they need to see that if we continue along the vain of just giving percentage pay rises with no actually changes to the band levels then this gap is going to become enormous.
You have a situation now where a Watch manager/deputy earns less money than a Joe bloggs controller, with less ratings, working at a unit that is almost comparitvely as busy/complex as the unit they are at.
in fact any of the NSL approach/tower units other than manchester, all the watch managers and deputies earn less than a luton/stansted/thames approach only controller.
Not the best selling point is it when we try to encourage people to do more than just be an ATCO, not really a career development pusher.
Im for banding but please make it fair, we dont just need a percentage pay rise this year we need the whole scales looking at, need to address the fairness off the bandings, and look at better renumiration for those that are in Watch/deputy Management posts.