What are FBAs? All this jargon is overtaking me!
Functionnal Block of Airspace. Basically, you divide the european airspace into blocks (much like the typical sector) and the EC will allow the most "competitive" operator to work in this FBA. In other words, the operator that will promise the best delay/cost ratio will be chosen by the EC, regardless of nationality, experience, etc. Which will eventually lead to side-by-side monpolies. Did someone say "english rail" here ?
All members of the EU try to negotiate the best deals possible for themselves, but you won't see them taking their argument out on their neighbours
Excuse-me, but I find it a bit naive. The perfect compromise does not exist and there are always "collateral damages" (to use a trendy expression...). For example, current immigration policy in the UK lead to the Sangatte center near Calais (ever heard of it?). Portraying France as the most egoistic country in the EC is pretty unfair IMO (though I wholeheartly agree they're not the most sympathetic either). We're probably less gifted to hide it...
I don't see how blockading ports, grounding thousands of passengers and sticking the knife into an already ailing industry is going to win your union any support.
Probably not. But I do think that if we have the opportunity to clearly explain to people why we are fighting for, then most of them will understand this is important. Most probably, journalists will mix up everything and people will just be pissed off...
It's then an opportunity to stand up against something that we believe is fundamentaly wrong and dangerous. It might sound a bit dull and contrived (but I swear it is not) but we fight for a safe sky for tomorrow...
I do realise it's a luxury, that whereas we're fighting for principles, NATS controllers have to fight for half-decent work conditions and tools. But that's exactly the situation we want to avoid in a not-that-far future.
There's this french saying I like a lot : "quand les riches maigrissent, les pauvres meurent", which translates roughly into "when the rich lose weight, the poor die."
the manner and frequency of your union's methods is creating much ill feeling (even hatred!).
I've tried to explain that twice already but I don't seem to be understood : we (the SNCTA, which is by far the major ATC union) have nothing to do with *this* strike, which was hand-made by our government to "dilute our arguments" (I'm quoting you). A wide majority of french ATCOs think they've been taken into hostage today !
Next week's strike, which we were talking about, is actually the first strike we've decided since the late eighties (I was still in high school then...) !!!!!!! Less than one national strike a decade does not sound that frequent to me
I know that striking is sort of a national sport here (though I was in England in March 2002 and there were tons of strikes, but I have to agree we're the most proficient strikers on the block
) but as far as Air Traffic Control is concerned and in spite of all the prejudices one might have (I suppose I had the same before becoming one), we did not strike that often AT ALL.
Actually our union has (should I say "had"? Hope not...) a very strong negociation/cooperation/counter-proposal policy, which proved to be very successful until today. Let's wait&see...
Votre collegue "decredabilizer" a Bruxelles
This barbaric term was referring to the DGAC (the french CAA). I don't think Brussels has anything to do with today's bad joke...
Merci de votre attention.