£50million worth of shares for UK ATCOs

[Stan Sted]

From today's Electronic Telegraph in UK


AIR traffic controllers will receive a share windfall worth up to £50 million early in March.
This follows the Government's success in steering its troubled Transport Bill through the House of Lords yesterday. Tory peers had twice blocked the Bill because it included a provision to privatise part of the air traffic control system. The proposal also triggered two revolts by Labour MPs.

Yesterday the Transport minister, Lord Macdonald, persuaded Tory peers to abandon their opposition. This gave the Government a majority of 157-57 against a Liberal Democrat move to delay the sale until after the next election.

John Prescott can now set up his Strategic Rail Authority, which is central to his policy for sorting out the railway system. The way is also cleared for local authorities to introduce congestion charges in city centres. Both measures were included in the Transport Bill, along with the contested plan to sell 51 per cent of the National Air Traffic Service.

This will also allow ministers to prepare the sale and distribute to the staff five per cent of the equity in the partly privatised Nats. Ministers think that the windfall will neutralise staff opposition. The chairman of British Airways, Lord Marshall, helped the Government by telling peers that existing air traffic control systems were close to breaking point.

He said: "Events in June served as a warning that a more serious collapse in the system may be too horrific to contemplate. The time has come to get firmly to grips with the situation before disruptive delay turns into disaster."

Nevertheless, the air controllers' staff union, the IPMS, forecast that the sale might yet be blocked. Paul Noon, general secretary of IPMS, said: "If ever there was a pyrrhic victory, this is it. We may have lost the vote against privatisation, but we have won overwhelming support throughout the country, the aviation industry and from MPs and peers of all parties."

Mr Prescott faces another rebellion today when about 50 Labour MPs table a Commons motion calling for renationalisation of Railtrack. The rebels claim that, since the Government is taking political flak from Railtrack's failure, they should regain control of it and collect a share of its profits.

The move is being led by Ann Cryer, whose Keighley constituency has been particularly badly hit by delays. She said: "The whips know about it. No one has twisted my arm to try to stop it."

[squawk 6789]

stuff your shares mcdonald, stuff your privatisation- how on earth can these pompous, arrogant ******** STILL push to privatise us in any shape or form and introduce the shareholder & profits variable into a safety equation when the TUs have put a 100% viable alternative on a plate for them- WITH NO PROSPECT OF DIVIDENDS OR COMMERCIAL v SAFETY ISSUES TO WORRY ABOUT!

as already said elsewhere, when do we walk? there are legalities to be looked at but ipms etc should be doing their damndest to get us out the door at each and EVERY opportunity from now on. we played ball with them over pay (much to my personal disgust but anyway) and most of the dissenting voices on this site cited ppp as (rightly) the bigger fight and to save our thunder for that issue.
well......................?

[Postman Pat]

I said we should take the appropriate action over pay. The chances of the short sighted, selfish, underworked non LATCC w*****s walking out over PPP are about as remote as those of the millenium dome making a profit. I also agree that they can shove their shares where the sun doesn't shine.

PP

[This message has been edited by Postman Pat (edited 30 November 2000).]

[RogerOut]

:mad:Postman Pat said......
<snip>
I said we should take the appropriate action over pay. The chances of the short sighted, selfish, underworked non LATCC w*****s walking out over PPP are about as remote as those of the millenium dome making a profit.
<snip>
You're not on with this infantile rant. It's a good job you're 400 miles south. I don't need to say anymore - you've dug your hole.
I wholeheartedly support any action we can take to beat this PPP, the campaign of publicising our case, badgering those in power looks to have failed. Surely we need ACTION? I detest the idea of knocking my pan in (yes Pat, you're not the only one who gets busy) to boost a share price.
- I still can't believe that tits post!


------------------
RogerOut
I Keep Mine Hidden
(edited for punctuation!)

[This message has been edited by RogerOut (edited 30 November 2000).]

[Goldfish Watcher]

Well woopeedoo,

Shares in the company for everyone....!

In my opinion they will be worth b**ger all.
NATS won't be floated, so we can't sell them on the open market.

Can we sell them to strategic partner? Can we heck, that would mean loss of Govts 'Golden Share'.

So that means we could sell them to each other... ha ha ha. Anyone for a game of Monopoly?.....

Mind you, shareholders 'own' a tiny part of the company, right? So, if we all pooled our shares by, say 'selling' them to the Union, do you think we could create some havock??

just a thought...
GW

[Pheasant Plucker]

Postman Pat (a.k.a. Mr McNasty Grrrr)??
Please please come on a liaison to ScATCC, you can be assured of a very special reception.

[NudgingSteel]

Postman Pat

You don't give the impression of someone who has been in the job for long - a recent graduate perchance? Yes, London units are busy....but that's why you get paid more than airports group. Come visit the STMA one rush hour. And if you're so opposed to PPP, I trust you spent as much time on the streets, leafletting the public, as some folks north of the border did a few months back.

[Bright-Ling]

Postman PRAT......

...you are my hero...NOT!

Some of us OUTSIDE LATCC do support what you are saying - but calling is W*****s is hardly helping.

In the cold light of day, even your colleagues at LATCC will probably disown you if you repeat this in the coffee lounge.

So much for being in a UNION.

[Postman Pat]

Point made. I am sorry, it was in the heat of the moment and I withdraw unconditionally what I said in my previous post today. I could delete it but that would not show what a prat I was. Sorry guys.

PP

[daft fader]

dear goldfish watcher

couldn`t agree more, I`m just off to look at the eurocontrol jobsite

byee!

[Bright-Ling]

Postie....

....thankyou on behalf of everyone for that honest post.

As you say, you could of edited it all out. Respect.

Now, let's all get behind LATCC and all the other overstretched undermanned units and get some action here!

[Kings Arms]

Give me the shares ..... Plus I can't wait for the big R

[EarlyGo]

Kings Arms,
Back to L*******e so soon? You could spend all winter there...but don't expect your share dividends to pay for it!

[RogerOut]

Postman Pat, apology accepted. We do need to stick together on this, I'm pretty sure the pro-PPP lobbby would be delighted seeing us fighting among ourselves. The anger is correct - just point it in the right direction.
P.S. You should have seen my reply before I thought twice! :) :) :) :) :)

------------------
RogerOut
I Keep Mine Hidden

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

The "offer" as outlined in the Daily telegraph means ATCOs would get around £20,000 each..... but aren't there one or two other members of staff apart from us tin-packers?

[egffztzx]

.....but aren't there one or two other members of staff apart from us tin-packers?

Too right! Don't forget us ATSAs! :)

[NudgingSteel]

The figure I've heard is worth around £1.5 - £2k per staff member. Note the use of the phrase "up to" before the big number, though.

Don't forget, of course, it'll probably be payable in bonus shares form, subject to continual traffic growth and universal acceptance of PPP, payable starting in 18 months in increments of 0.5%, and taxed at source as extra income (non-pensionable of course), and to be offset against any further pay claims!

[OrsonCart]

It really depends upon whether is assessed pro rata based upon salary, or an equal amount for all NATS employees. According to NATS web site over 5000 staff are employed. With a £50 million share out, that equates to £9-10,000 of un-tradable assets each, but---------

If a company operates a share scheme, the staff can buy and sell via the administrator.

On day one, the company may have a value and 5% could be worth £50 million. Every so often the value of the company is agreed independently and should the original valuation vary (Up or down), one’s holding (Worth) varies accordingly. Although shares cannot be traded, the trust formed buys employees shares of the business and sell those shares to other eligible employees, so no need for the business to be traded. This ensures 5% always remains within the employee’s domain. Should the overall company be entirely sold off, the 5% held by staff would have a marketable value.

Some of the above may be inaccurate but shows the kind of schemes that are/were common a few years back.

If staff are “Given” shares, they do not have to buy them. I have no idea how tax is applied on gains or losses.

Do some research? If NATS will consist of private equity and we are to be ‘privatised’, the argument has it, that the harder we work, the more value will be in our shareholding? I personally would prefer stability, appropriate financing of infrastructure and a no profit for shareholder mentality.

Profit or stability?

[Bern Oulli]

Don't you feel that the Union involvement is beginning to niff a bit? During the pay negotiations we were told to "keep our powder dry for PPP". "Don't worry lads (& lasses), we've got the Lords sown up."

It was all very well having a few bods demonstrating outside the Houses of P, but they weren't exactly noticed amongst the crowds. It might have been different if EVERBODY had gone there but, Oh Dear, that would have meant shutting down UK ATC for the day. That would never do.

I refer to my post of 7th July in the Privatisation thread, and just hope that I can beat the asset strippers to the pension fund.

Disregard my next transmission.

------------------

[250 kts]

From what I can gather EVERY nats unit except for LATCC AC voted for the recent pay deal. I said then and I say again now that all this did was to give the impression to any new employer that the staff were a content workforce.
Get onto your managers / MPs pilot mates et al, and try to stir some interest. We have 3 months to make a real noise over this.
But then it's difficult to imagine some of the units even bothering to discuss privatisation at all---after all, everything in the garden is rosy isn't it!!!???

[Goldfish Watcher]

Orson,

I think you are mostly right on the subject of an internal shares market. As I said before, we will only be able to sell them among ourselves (and the trust).

When/If this all happens the pound signs will be flashing in everyones eyes. However we must all be very carefull. If we all offload our shares for a quick buck, they can and will be picked up by other employees.

And which employees have the financial means to scoop up large amounts of these discarded shares????????????

MANAGEMENT of course!!!

The implications of this are many. Think about it before the big greedy cash-in everyone!

Just my opinion
GW

[This message has been edited by Goldfish Watcher (edited 05 December 2000).]