Alfie,
NATS are posting a record profit this year.
Our Boss got or is getting (I believe it's every 3 years it happens so not sure if it is due this year or has just gone) a huge bonus which takes his gross pay to over a £1 million).
Lets just say 'for instance' his basic was £450k, and with bonus his gross pay comes to over £1 million, thats over £550k bonus over 3 years - almost a whopping 50% per year bonus.
ATCOs are not greedy, they just want recognition for the work they do.
The office workers should be shouting about the amount of extra work they put in to achieve unrealistic deadlines...
It's not about greed, it's about rewarding a diligent, loyal workforce (whatever your job title), with a decent rise - if our boss can get a tasty bonus whilst the company posts record profits, why should we not expect a decent pay rise?
Non Ops staff outnumber ATCOs by a big margin. The fact of the matter is, there is a shortage of ATCOs worldwide, not a shortage of office workers. I'm all for everyone sticking together - after all the 'unrealistic demands' of ATCOs have resulted in good pay rises for non ops staff in the past...
As an ATCO I could look at it this way - seperate the ATCOs and Ops staff from non Ops and have seperate negotiations.
The fact is ATCOs are in worldwide demand. So once the NATS Non Ops personnel (the majority of people in NATS) have accepted their meagre pay rise, it will leave a bigger pot of money for Operational staff to divvy up, giving us an even better pay rise.
However, I believe going our seperate ways would be a bad move and as an ATCO would not advocate it.