I bet the employees of NSL are all comforted by that statement.
I'd be very surprised if most of them did not already consider a separation from the rest of NATS more rather than less likely.
Furthermore, I bet all the staff at CTC etc who support NSL must be comforted by that statement... do you think if we sold off NSL we would keep anywhere near as many support jobs?
Two points to make. First you'll find very few jobs in CTC supporting NSL. For some time they've been going their own way. There is a lot of work done in CTC which is sold through NSL because that's how NATS has been bidding for external work. That work will go on as long as the expertise in CTC is valued and it seems to be at the moment. Second you'll find that most people in CTC are very aware of how vulnerable their jobs are. Many of them are actually contractors and those that aren't have spent the last seven years subject to the normal commercial pressures of working for a commercial company, pressures which most controllers within NERL are completely protected from and have no idea about. The Airline Group came through the door in 2001 with a business plan which cut support staff by 30% in Control Period 1 and a further 30% in Control Period 2. The fact that we still have most of the engineering jobs they thought they would cut has a lot to do with how important that expertise is to the business but we had to prove that and have to keep proving that every year.
If the company can't afford to pay you it doesn't matter how important your job is. The current threats to CTC jobs are the current downturn, pension payments that NATS can't afford and possible industrial action. Longer term the threat is RPI-X because that -X equates to much greater than -X for support departments because NATS is actually increasing ATC costs by recruiting staff.
the trend of your posts seems to indicate that you have a vested interest (beyond being a pension fund member) in gaining NATS a yes vote.
I hope that I've been pretty consistent with my posts. I have two vested interests in a Yes vote. First as a member of a support department in NATS I want the company to be financially stable for as long as possible because that protects my job. Second as a member of the pension fund with a sizeable stake built up I want the pension scheme protected for as long as possible and hopefully long enough to benefit from it.
you don't actually pose any solutions yourself. I want YOU to tell ME why I should vote yes
I don't need to pose any solution. NATS and NTUS have proposed a solution. I think that is probably the best solution we will get so I'm not going to propose another. I'm not going to tell anyone how to vote because it's your decision not mine. I will correct you if I think you are wrong because I think it would be wrong for anybody else to make a decison based on incorrect posts.