LEDERHOSEN
nice post. I love the paralelism with platoon!
I am not saying that this situation is not creating a lot of problems to a lot of people. I am not saying that spanish ATC have not enjoyed very very very good terms and conditions in their job. I am not saying that spanish ATC has a high standard.
But the ones to dropped the atomic bomb on the spanish ATC have been the government ones, and not because they want the ATC to be better, and with reasonable terms and conditions. They did it because they want to go to total war. They expect to win it, and to use it for other purposes. Before the "bomb" the ATCOs made quite reasonable proposals with very substansial changes on their salaries. But the government wants blood and war.
Royal decrees are not the way to do things. They can do the same with anyone else tomorrow. Actually, they did something similar with IBE pilots years ago. They were forbidden by law to go on strike to a period of 4 years, and had to accept a set of conditions arbitrarily decided by a "referee". Of course, there was work to rule and similar things, but their rights were effectively eliminated. Elimination of rights is a fascist way of solving problems. That's what I think.
The ATCos are defending themselves, but they have little to do. They are doomed whatever they do, no matter how much they resist. The problem is that some ATCOs are under a great deal of pressure and that is no good.
Soon the ATC will see the same nonsense and inefficient situation as pilots face nowadays, and we will even see pay to control ATCOs. That is sad.
The spanish having their salaries and conditions reduced to a reasonable level, that's good. 1,000 people wasting a lot of money to get a ATCo license when only 100 will be required is absolutely inefficient and useless.
The previous situation was not fair, but the situation to come will not be fair, either, and the only benefited from the change will the same as always, the big fishes, not the ordinary people.
The government selling the spanish airports for peanuts to their friends... That's a robbery, and this is what will happen, the ATCos being used as a very handy excuse.