@ Pamplinas: My apologies then for misinterpreting your position. I thought it was one of those "old guard" rants.
@ Out of the Gap: You are absolutely correct, of course. As it didn't relate directly to my initial question, I simplified the context.
To be precise, in Spain we have laws stating that when your job is taken over by another company you have the choice to remain at your job with the new company but at your old conditions. Your salary can not be downgraded due to this.... that is, of course, for all spaniards except those working as Atcos.
So Atcos at these towers have been faced with three options:
1) Leave your work as atco
2) Remain at your job but with the new salary conditions of the new provider (so far we've heard about 30k - 40k euros gross per year).
Unlike you, we haven't been offered to remain with another new provider (and who knows at which conditions) once the 5+1 years are over.
3) Remain with Aena but be moved to another post at their choice. This can be a blessing (staff from LECU moving to LECM) or a curse (staff from LECO and GCRR to LECP)
The only staff you would be likely to encounter would be the ones who chose option 2 but they wouldn't be technically Aena staff anymore. (There is an intermediate option to temporary stay with the new provider and after a few years return to Aena but due to a number of reasons it is unlikely that many will take it.)
In any case I didn't think Nats staff would be interested to move to Spain unless the job conditions offered would be better than you current ones. Given the legal framework you would be subject to in Spain it would have to be a significant salary increase, and I didn't know that FerroNats had such margins to do it.
@ Nimmer: Spain is different, didn't you know? Currently all staff of the towers to be privaticed have been
forced to make an instructor training. This is also true for staff who has been hired for barely a year. The penalty for refusing has already been stated: immediate loss of your licence and a fine from 250.001 to 4.500.000 euros.
So when Aena sends new trainees your way, there are no absolute markings, no objective way to say somebody is unfit to work as a controller. So you have the choice: either pass that guy and get out of there as quick as you can before metal bits start to rain or fail him on your subjective perception... and face an enquiry due to delaying or difficulting the privatization process with the aforementioned consequences.
Same goes for the exams mentioned by Out of the Gap at Senasa. There is simply no way they will not get the required number of passes. In Spain many consider safety regulations a check to be performed on a box, there is no reason for anything else.
Two examples on that:
You know that english fluency ICAO level 4 is a requirement for atcos in Spain. Obviously Spain is compliant with international regulations and all atcos have at least ICAO lvl 4.
No, an exam is not necessary, we have been granted that level by
royal decree.
(Granted on 19th feb 2011 for 18 months) A mere english teacher granted you your level, mine was granted by a minister.
As for the second, today at 16:00 CET two spanish atcos will stand before the european petittion comittee to report on the gross violation of european directives by the spanish government as they completely disregard the obligation of
previous safety studies
prior to any important modification ... something that never happened with all the changes done since 5th feb 2010 and afterwards.
