UK - NATS Pay negotiations - latest rumours

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To: All Prospect ATCO Branch Members
ATCO Pay Offer
We have today concluded the final details of the proposed new pay
arrangement and associated agreements for ATCOs and are now able to
recommend it for acceptance.
The detail of the offer made by management is as follows:
RPI + 0.5% (backdated to Jan 1st2011) on pay and related
allowances. This equates to 5.2% based on August 2010 RPI figure
of 4.7%;RPI capped at a maximum 5% from Jan 1st2012 (August 2011 RPI
figure) on basic pay only;
For those in receipt of the Met contingency payment on April 1st
2011, 12 months lump sum buyout (12 months of the rate they
were being paid at the time).
In consideration of this payment, we have agreed the following:
A new ATCO Additional Voluntary Attendance agreement. This is
significantly different to the previous agreement, with new limits
set, no agreement end date in place and is far simpler to
implement;
A new deal on Met Observation and Residual tasks in NSL.
We are planning a series of briefings and will visit each unit at least twice
between now and the ballot opening. We would encourage as many of you
as possible to attend the briefings, as these are detailed agreements that
we should all fully understand before casting our vote. In particular with
regard to the Met agreement there appears to be many
misunderstandings and we would encourage a proper and full debate on
these issues.


In addition to the briefings we will be producing a comprehensive briefing
pack in the next few days. The ballot will run from May 27thuntil June 21st.
We are committed to our mandate to ballot NSL on the issue of Met which
is a fundamental part of the current pay deal. As such we intend to ballot
solely on pay, with a count of the papers from NSL members separately in
the first instance. If this result is positive we will then include the NERL
ballot papers and carry out an additional count to provide the overall
result. As always the count will be carried out and audited by Prospect HQ
staff and the result communicated as soon as possible after the closing
date.
This has been a difficult negotiation, and a long drawn out process. Thank
you for your patience. It has also been difficult with regard to the NTUS
claim and the politics of how this sits with the other members of the
NTUS. We are meeting next week to talk about how we progress this with
regard to the other groups.
Please look out for notice boards and www.atcos.co.uk for further updates
and details over the next days and weeks.
We look forward to seeing you all soon at a briefing.
ATCOs’ Branch Executive
21stApril 2011