Anotherthing:
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Maybe you think it is arrogant, but ATCO competency in later years is a real issue, and the company should look after ATCOs when some of them fail to keep up with traffic when they near retirement - the contracts are written to allow work to retirement, NATS is a safety orientated industry. ATCOs should not be penalised if, when they have a few years to retire they can no longer keep up with traffic which was (and will again) grow(ing) by huge amounts each year. It's not the same as working in an office, If someone in an office can't keep up with the latest version of Word or Excel, then...
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Of course you need to look after people, but why should it be considered automatic that an ATCO falling into the situation you describe should continue to be paid a full ATCO salary once they are no longer doing the ATCO job? By all means have options for people to continue to work for NATS once they are no longer operational, but that may be at a salary level commensurate with their new responsibilities, not their previous ones.
You can't have it both ways:
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We are a business, lets run things like a business... that means making sure we do not duplicate or triplicate effort, we do not employ people who have little to really do to fill their days. It does not mean we cannot look after the staff that we keep - it just means that we do not keep the staff we do not need!
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