055166k

Automatic right to two fam flights per year.............GONE
Automatic right to two liaison visits per year...........GONE
12 hours per year refresher flying subsidy...............GONE
Pension..........GOING..........GOING.......................

When you get a load of bus and train people thinking that Air Traffic is just another transport service provider you can expect trouble. The lean mean controlling machine that was inherited has been transformed into a milch cow. More departments than Harrods, and a sucker for every slick vacuum cleaner salesman that turns up at the door. Half a £billion down the toilet on a system that has no capacity gain whatsoever......which is being forced through to prove a point rather than by any demonstrated and coherent need.
This glossy brochure presentation company eats a lot of money.....and your pension is where it will eventually come from.
Time for a vote I think!

kinglouis

I dont want to bring the company to its knees.
I would like an easy life, earn good money, make lots of it for the company and have a good pension... but that is not the case.
My pension is going to go, and all the money i make by shoehorning planes through southeast london is being wasted by my management team on crap.
SMART pensions i would agree to, but it is the managements blind arroance and mis-managing of finances that will bring the company down, not me. I would rather look back and say i fought those wankers than bend over.... regardless of the outcome. If we will be made to suffer the supposed 'dire' consequences, you can bet your bottom dollar the average holidaymaker, businessman, anyone else who uses a plane and the UK economy will suffer more than us. I hope it doesnt get that far, but people need to see its not the workers sayin no that is the problem... managment have got us here so let them see it through.
So i will be voting no still and thinking which sectors i will be giving up.

Cheers

Mr A Tis

Well this is the nub, Richard Everitt was an airline man, brought in to sweet talk us into accepting the PPP. Promising us better quality Management to provide a superb ATC service to the aviation industry.
Once that task was completed (no resitstance to PPP), the real agenda has now come to the fore.
Our company has now just become a commodity, designed to make a profit & to be bought & sold like any other. The company has even dropped the word air traffic from it's name for heavens sake, its just NATS now, might as well be Cash Converters.
It's all very sad what they have done to our once wonderful company, still they print lots of brochures, do lots of surveys, graphs & charts, monitors that monitor the monitors. Liberate & Inspire ????! what a perverse sense of humour they have.

BDiONU

The penny has, at last, dropped for one poster

BD

Vote NO

Its a bit like saying an airline is a commodity which can be bought and sold, but take the pilots out of the equation and its worthless.
I will leave you to draw your own analogy with NATS, but let me help you. NATS is an Air Traffic Control commodity which can be bought and sold but take the
... ....... ........... out of the equation and its worthless

BDiONU

Its a bit like saying an airline is a commodity which can be bought and sold, but take the engineers (dispatchers/check in staff/ops staff/accountants/fuel tanker drivers etc.) out of the equation and its worthless.
As many many other posters have said NATS isn't just about ATCO's its a team effort.

BD

Vote NO

Exactly that. NATS staff is NATS! And the staff can change it for better or for worse.

NATS staff can also fight for their pension if they stand as one

keep up the good work

BAND4ALL

There you go a new phrase the Union can have

ONE STRIKE ONE PENSION

fly bhoy

Well, having had a personal briefing (aren't I the privileged one!!) by one of the union negotiators in a nice pub in Wokingham yesterday, i've looked at all the facts and figures being presented by the company and listened to what was said and asked my questions and have decided we have only one choice...vote NO!!

The SMART pension bit is an absolute no-brainer. No down-sides to that at all so i'm all for that.

Ignoring any question of whether there was a mandate to negotiate or not, and definitely completely ignoring any patently ridiculous ideas or suggestions of bungs, ATCO 1 promotions or any other incentives being offered to the negotiators, you have to ask yourself two questions...do you believe the facts and figures being presented to you, and do you believe this is the only option available to us? I for one don't doubt the figures, but I question whether they can't have been presented in such a way as to scare people into voting yes.

The current pension bill is about £60 million and has to rise to about £120 million next year leaving us £60 million-ish to find. Now repaying the loans early has brought about charges (quite how much I don't know) and the costs of closing west drayton and other costs this year have resulted in profits of £60 million, so there's nothing to say that had these things not come about, our profits (based on our current charges, which the airlines are happy to pay I might add!!) might not have been £150 million plus, a difference of about £90 million, which would more than cover the extra £60m required and still leave another £30m for other projects or dividends or whatever the finance people decided to spend it on!

I am definitely annoyed that we're being asked to change our pension when the facts and figures from 2003 and 2006 both showed that the underlying costs were rising and yet the management still didn't decide that that was just enough cause to pay the ACTUAL underlying rate, they continued paying less than required! And yes, I know that its their prerogative to do that, but they then can't come bleating to us asking us to bail them out because the underlying rate has risen to "unsustainable levels"...i'm sorry, but if you'd been paying the correct amount for the last 6 years then it may have been sustainable!

And, putting my scientist hat back on(), if you change the frequency with which you analyse something, you will see more variation than looking at it every three years. Dec '03 underlying cost was about 18% (I think...we got to this slide after my 4th guinness so may be a bit of variation in MY figures!!) and underlying cost in Dec '06 was about 28% (again I may be making these figures up but don't shoot me yet!!) Now in Dec '07 its apparently 42%! Again I don't dispute these figures, but there is also the possibility that the underlying rate in '04 or '05 could've been up as high as 40%, but came back down again due to normal variation, but because the scheme wasn't reviewed then, we'll never know. Now that we're reviewing every year though we will possibly see more variation, so who's to say the '08 or '09 figures won't have reduced back down to a sustainable level.

Also shown was the effect of the RPI cap and how it immediately brought the underlyng costs down to 25% (which is apparently an acceptable level for the management). Now if this is the case, then why do we need to close the scheme to new entrants?

I also think the fund has been badly managed because when it became apparent that a massive fall in the stock markets etc was on the horizon, the high risk, high yield elements were not changed to more secure things...a poor decision if you ask me!!

If we're being told that this is the only option to secure the company then fine, I want some sort of assurances though that if, in the future the scheme is seen to become massively healthy again, there is some sort of option for reopening the scheme or getting some sort of further compensation or whatever (I don't know what...i'm not a negotiator!!) We are being asked to sign up to a longterm deal based on scaremongering facts and figures that can be twisted to fit the situation, and with no means of return once it's done, something i'm not prepared to do to be honest!!

We all have a vote and can do with it as we wish, but make sure its for the right reasons! Don't just vote no because you don't want to see barron driving off into the sunset in his shiny new DB9! Equally, don't just vote yes because management tell you "its the only option"...it can't possibly be, no matter what they say!! If you don't like the salary cap, vote no. If you don't like the two tier scheme, vote no. If you don't like the SMART pension bit, vote no. But at least do the research, ask the questions and make up your own mind based on your own conclusions (and remember stats can be made to say whatever you want them to!!).

Bring on the ballot and we'll see what happens. As for enforcing the changes...he'd be very foolish and i'd like to see him try.

I'm even more convinced it's a NO from me and I hope all my colleagues (be they Engineer, Assistant, Controller, Support staff or whatever) will see the offer the way I see it, which is as an attempt to use the current economic climate to scare us all into giving up vital terms and conditions of our gold-plated pension scheme, which is to no-one's benefit except those who have bonuses related to the "future health of the company"!!!

Anyway, enough from me...choose wisely people!

FB

mr.777

Excellent post

Dudley Bug

imnotaneric thats a great post love the idea haven't done one of those pictures since i was well a couple of years younger! however we have to vote accordingly otherwise none of this will get sorted and our overall terms and conditions will be sliced and chopped and diced down. This was one thing i was assured of at the last vote we were fighting for through our union, we have people on here saying its our own fault we voted on our reps and i questioned my rep and he knew noting about the changes of what our union were fighting for! so the union basically went against its membership without even giving us notice that something had to be done. NATS CAN afford the pension its management just doesnt want to pay for it!

time to draw that line i will start it NO NO NO NO NO ____________________________________________________________ ____

privatesandwiches

fly bhoy.....
you really are getting into your lengthy letters. do you do wedding vowels by any chance?

im voting no, and im photocopying my form hundreds of times with a big no on it and sending that back to so our week arse union get the message.

Ivor_Novello

thanks fly bhoy, excellent post.

Wish we had been shown something like that at the pensions briefing to balance the one sided presentation we received.

Should be made a sticky !!!

Ivor

expediteoff

BDiONU,

After 1400 posts by yourself, I never thought I'd agree with anything you said.
However I find myself in agreement with TWO on one page!! (1082 & 1084)

Strange times.

VOTE NO !!!!

PaulM

I had the brief today.

As the cap is only relevant if the salary increase is >RPI + 0.5%, I would like to know......

Have the salary increases over the past 15 years for example, been much over this ?

What has the average been ?


Oh yes, why has it taken Nats so long to introduce the Smart/Salary sacrifice pension system ? My previous employer brought it in 5 years ago. ( 5 x £2m they said it would save them per year = £10m )

Vote NO

I think it was RPI +2.5% over the last 10 years, from a previous post on here. Which presents a problem when you use it in the model!

PaulM

Yes that does change things a bit.

Thanks

mr.777

All we need now is some of the YES crew to pipe up and say "you'll NEVER EVER get a payrise lof RPI +2.5% in the next 58 years so it doesnt matter".

Vote NO

It may have been on the NATS intranet at work, check to make sure, I am pretty sure it was rpi +2.5 though as I remember being shocked by how much I would lose

3miles

I just have to say, as various posters have commented on my posts. That i in know way infer that EVERYONE at CTC/Heathrow House or other NON-operational posts, are Dross. I work quite a lot outside of just sitting in front of a radar screen, I work with ENG and other support staff in various projects, initiatives, I see many talented people, many people who bring a lot to the company, or support the operational staff in many ways. And to those who have posted on here who feel offended by my coments, who are among those working at CTC that do these jobs to help make NATS work well and are a needed asset in the company I apologise, but from my experience, and yes this is experience not just a view, there is an awful lot of positions at CTC that are either not really doing much for the support of the company, could maybe be done by others rather than 10 people to do 1 or 2 peoples job, or quite simply do we really need it. Those that work at CTC should be just as equally concerned by this as the operational staff are, as its those that are doing a good job at CTC that are getting Tar'd with the same brush.

The slagging off of some of operational ATCO's about their hours/conditions/pay etc is as rediculous....AAVA's are there because there isnt enough operational staff, often AAVA's are not approved at many units, and the unit left to run short so controllers, who not only perform operational tasks, but also involved in other work and work with CTC people, do so on their breaks, they often work a full cycle and end up at CTC on days off, hence a massive problem with ATCO's accuring loads of rest in lieu days that they cant take because of ATCO shortages, and being required to be either operational or at CTC again on another project. So think of it like this, a monday to friday job at CTC and then go work at swanwick at the weekend, that is what its like for some atco's. ATSA's who are on day 9 at work without a day off, due to sickness and shortage.

So when you see comments by some people on here of their views of SOME CTC staff, they are not just being nasty, they are not just thinking of themselves as something more than important than non operational staff, they are commenting from a view where they not only do their operational job, but also work along with CTC staff, giving up their days off, not being able to take leave, working short and harder because an AAVA wont be paid, dont all work at swanwick, with nice sleeping accomodation, and in fact dont actually get to sleep on night shifts.

Oh and for the poster who referred to Airline staff, pilots vs check in staff etc. I think you will find that Check in, baggage handlers, refueling, and all of those other jobs, are not actually part of the airline, they are employed by contractors or the airport. The airline doesnt need all these etc people either.