Fenella
Sorry to add to this, but I feel that if the vote is no, the ultimate result will be that NSL employees lose their jobs.
Why would people who worked at an airport that NATS suddenly lost it's contract for lose their jobs?
Will the airport close for 2 years or so while people are recruited and trained?? Of course not.
The employees may well find future Ts and Cs changed, but you cant just draft in some ATCOs from Poland and start doing the job... who would train them?
The fact of the matter is, NATS has long term loss making contracts at several airports - the reason they have negotiated those contracts in that manner is known only to the management people.
To put it another way - why should I lose out on my pension because NATS chooses to lose money on its contracts?
The fact of the matter is, I believe that NATS will only ever be 'A World Leader In ATM'
if it continues to have controllers/ATSAs/ATCEs at Area and Airfield units... it would be a sad day if we started shedding too many contracts.
However a 'yes' vote makes the sale of NSL even more realistic as it reduces the pension liability to any future buyer.
I suggest anyone who has any doubts about the possibiility of the sale of NSL or part of it, need to look at Mr Barrons previous employment history.
He specialises in taking large companies, splitting them into smaller entities, then selling off the bits he does not want. He then closes the pension scheme of the parts of the company he holds on to.
He has a proven track record of this, he is very good at it. Maybe looking at it purely as business, you have to agree that what he is doing makes sense... (but not in a way that would maintain our standing as a good ANSP).
Oh, and once he has done the hatchet job, he leaves the company, negotiates a golden 'hello' in the form of a lump sum (to cover loss of pension contributions), then transfers his pension into the new company (before changes to his old pension take hold).