The prime problem though is not that controllers are unable to work but that there is no-one to replace them. Most businesses get by if an employee does not come to work and the employee catches up when he/she returns. ATC is not like that. It is a high stress,24/7 shift working environment where the ATC gets four days off per fortnight. (And only one 2-day break in six will be a weekend) Well everyone else gets 4 days off you say but how many times do non-ATCs get asked to work on their days off? (Always week ends when all their friends are also off)
This, by the way, is not overtime as the world knows it, putting in an extra few hours to get a job done, this is five to seven hours sometime longer, on your day off.
It's sentiment like this that fuels my opinion all ALMs ought to be required to have worked somewhere other than ASA and/or the public service at least once in their career.
The problems of shiftwork and replacing sick workers are NOT unique to ATC - your local plumber is just as stuffed if his apprentice fails to show for a two-man job as is your local TCU; any nurse who's ever worked in a public hospital is well familiar with what overtime really means (with no pesky limits on duty time or minimum rest periods); any fire fighter or police officer or ADF member can probably have a few things to say about cancelling days with the family or missing a game of golf.
ASA ATCs are extraordinarily well-compensated for a non degree-qualified job, and unlike RAAF ATCs, are free to resign at the drop of a hat should they ever feel like climbing down off the cross long enough to find a pen.
I don't mean to trivialise the original issue at question in this thread - certainly I think ASA could improve quite a few safety aspects - but pissing on and on and on about how hard you have life as a shift-working controller is tired. I'm a shift-working controller and I earn triple what my shift-working ER nurse wife does, for half the hours and considerably less peril of being stabbed.