anotherthing

Thread drift, but as an employee and shareholder, I want NATS to employ a company other than Cartus to manage the Manchester move.

I know of several cases where the process was woefully mismanaged by Cartus on the WD side - including the sale of my house which ended up costing NATS £70k (25% of the GSP), all because they did not take advice from me or the 2 surveyors about which local estate agent to use (the one we were psoposing already had a buyer who was willing to offer the same as the GSP). In the end, my house sold 17 months later, at 75% of the GSP.

However, it's probably easier, therefore for the lazy, more attractive, just to use Cartus.

ZOOKER

Why do we need "relocation experts" anyway?
Are they not similar to 'recruitment agencies', - parasites, middlemen.
How many of these "experts" have actually moved from Cheshire to Ayrshire?

mr.777

Just returned from my pension briefing.... NO NO NO!!!!!!
Too many assumptions and not enough concrete figures about what might or might not happen. The usual bulls*it about voting for your pension and not giving Barron "a bloody nose". I found the HR woman incredibly patronising and generally unhelpful...answered EVERY question by bleating on about the £595million deficit in the fund but then ran out of time when I wanted to ask her what they intended to do if we voted no i.e would they bring it in anyway? Suddenly she had to leave...what a surprise.
Union presentation was, to be fair, well rounded and they were pretty sympathetic to what most of us feel. My biggest problem is they don't know what they'll do if they get a NO vote...I find that astounding. I would suggest that they seriously start thinking about this now as a reality rather than a possibility. They have a genuine dislike for Barron and his methods, which I found quite good, but that will not be enough for me to get mugged off by the scaremongering that's going on, and to vote yes. VOTE NO

ProM

O/T I know but the question was asked
Zooker,

my wife runs a property search company (not in Manchester and no connection with NATS). For (usually well-off) individuals wanting to buy in her area she interviews them to find what they are looking for, searches properties, does inspections, checks schools, pubs, stables, or whatever you are interested in, and presents report before most individuals would have got around to touring the area.

She also knows of properties coming on the market before any details are published. Middle-men can be useful. Depends what you want

Do you need to be pilot or even flown to be ATCO? Let alone flown the particular route. Arguably ATC is a middleman trade as well

p.s. has a date been fixed for the vote yet?

Vote NO

Mr 777

We asked Phil whats his name at the briefing what they would do if the vote was no. He said "it depends on the size of the no vote"!
Read into that what you may, but they may reconsider things if enough staff are not too pleased?
Answers to questions I thought were very poor indeed, and they were just going through the motions. Very unprofessional and lacking in substance.

Another reason to Vote NO

anotherthing

ProM

Cartus are based in Bath or Bristol I believe. They have a list of preferred Estate Agents all over the country - no doubt there is a deal tied up there i.e. they, Cartus, will get commission from the Estate Agents, as well as from the removal companies - on top of the huge fee they charge NATS.

This would be fair enough if they, Cartus, listened to the staff they are relocating. People who live somewhere have a much better idea about estate agents to use etc than some office bod sitting hundreds of miles away, yet Cartus disregard them and use their preferred agents. I know of numerous cases where this has meant that prices achieved for houses have been lower than they should be, which NATS then has to cover.

Also removal costs. A colleague of mine thought that the cost quoted by the company Cartus provided was over the top, so he went about getting his own quote in a bid to save the company some money (removal costs are part of the relocation package). Despite a quote which was £1800 cheaper, Cartus ignored him and went with their 'preferred' company - again no doubt because they get commission from them.

Your wife specialises in property in her area. The word to note is specialises, Cartus do not give a fig because they know that NATS will pick up all the costs, so where is the incentive for cartus to spend some time and do a proper job? Meanwhile, although this money is being wasted, we are fighting for the survival of the pension!

Vote No

I think what might happen is this -

If there is a 'NO' vote in the region of 60/40 (or less of a margin), then the pension changes will be pushed through regardless.

If there is a bigger percentage of people voting 'NO', then that may be enough to force management back to the table.

It will all be down to how management perceives the mood to be - and a big part of that will be the way the vote count turns out.

mr.777

Just to clarify, as the HR woman was too busy to answer my question, I asked the Union guys whether this could be pushed through regardless, in the event of a majority NO vote. He said that certain parts of it COULD be imposed regardless but, importantly, the cap element could not be. So, we vote NO, the worst Barron can do is implement a SMART pension scheme with no cap. Oh, and the Union guys also confirmed that he DOES drive a DB9 (contrary to his NATSnet rebuttal) and apparently never shuts up about it...their words not mine!

Vote NO

I thought the RPI+0.5% cap on pensionable earnings was essential for the SMART pension to work, otherwise we are back to where we are now?

anotherthing

Mr777,

presumably they could also close it to new joiners as well though as that is not changing existing members Ts & Cs? Or am I wrong in that assumption?

I think what Barrons' actual comments were on the DB9 is that he is given a certain amount towards a car and that in this instance he elected to put some of his own money in to upgrade to a DB9.

The amount of his own money he needed to use though is obviously what counts - I bet it wasn't much. I doubt he was offered a Ford Mondeo and decided to throw in £90k to upgrade!!

As for Vision 2011, how does a DB9 sit with the vision "Acting Responsibly"??

"Do as I say, not as I do" - yeah, **** off

anotherthing

Vote No

SMART pensions work whatever the pensionable salary is - they will always save the company money as they reduce the employer NI and tax contributions.

They have nothing to do with whether future pensionable pay is capped or not. If that's what was alluded to in your brief, you have been misled

mr.777

Exactly. He cannot impose the whole proposal, only the SMART part of it....which, as you said, is a waste of time without the cap element attached to it. If that IS true, then he can't do anything if we vote NO ,without further negotiation with the Union. Certainly, he will not be able to bring in this proposal as it stands now if we vote NO.

You were right about the Aston, anotherthing. Did make me laugh though when the Union guy said he never bloody shuts up about it! I bet he just lurrrrrves talking about it.

.

privatesandwiches

Im still voting a big fat NO. if it drags their rich arrogant arses back to the table then that is excellent. if it only means they can bring in smart pensions, fine by me... its a no brainer that saves the company money of which they probably wont put back into the pension anyway.
cracks seem to be showing courtesy of HR and phil whatshisface..... depends on how many vote no,,, come on, thats got to prove that we can fight this and they are chancing their arms to get this through. they are taking the piss and now arent even hiding it... its being waved in front of our faces. we do have strength in this and hopefully seems to be showing.
off topic slightly, but i have just read online that NHS nurses are going for a strike before xmas due to a 'lousy 8% pay rise' implemented this summer for 3 years..... if they can get that and its still not good enough, Mr Barron and Co, you can go swivel if you attempt no pay rise next year.

mr.777

Talking of payrises...the Union said we have a much better chance of getting a decent rise next year if we vote this in as the company will be saving money. My view, which I put to them, was that we're more likely to get FA as we have rolled over on the most important issue and the management will see this as carte blanche to f*** us over on other issues.

privatesandwiches

what did our union chums say to that???

Vote NO

privatesandwiches

Thats what I think too. We have just got to see this through and see what transpires. We have nothing to lose and all to gain

Vote No

ImnotanERIC

The cap is not as big an issue as the new scheme being implemented.
As soon as a new scheme starts, our scheme is on death row.
The union answers to questions about the future viability of the current scheme in a few years (eg 15) were poor and evasive to say the least.
A two tier workforce is going to cause massive problems for us when it comes to vote time again in 15 years about removing the cap or whatever is in place at the time.
Since this process started, having spoken to people at work who have spoken to people at work etc etc etc, i now believe this will be a close vote but will turn out yes.
If a no vote wins, Nats will bring in all the proposals anyway.
Then we would be looking at a vote for industrial action. That won't pass.
I am bored with this fight now because I think we have already lost.
vote no, for all the good it will do.

privatesandwiches

then say goodbye to goodwill sectors, safety meetings that we have to come in 2 hours early to have and anything else we do for free.
any loyalty to the company gone.... any pride in working for nats gone.... keeping sectors bandboxed due staffing, not a chance.... GS asking to bandbox as its quiet, erm NO....morale down..... productivity down.... looking abroard for employment, YES....well done nats.

fisbangwollop

IMNOTAN..."If a no vote wins, Nats will bring in all the proposals anyway.
Then we would be looking at a vote for industrial action. That won't pass.
I am bored with this fight now because I think we have already lost.
vote no, for all the good it will do

Were are your balls man???????......if you believe you are being shafted (which you are) how about a bit of fighting spirit???

eglnyt

But the opposite may be true. If the NTUS can't carry the membership on a deal which is far better than most employers are offering is NATS likely to take them seriously in the future and spend any time on negotiating with them ? You may think that the old fashioned way of conflict negotiation gets better results but does it really ?

And if it is a No you may have to follow through on the threat of industrial action. NATS managers are scared stiff of industrial action but often the fear is far worse than the actual event. Can you trust all your colleagues to back it because if NATS management discover that your powder isn't as dry or powerful as they thought they really will have carte blanche in the future. If it's a Yes vote they don't get the chance to find out and that uncertainty could continue to be very useful in the future if you aren't too greedy. You may not like the deal but it is streets ahead of what most people are getting and that can be attributed entirely to management's fear.

There was plenty of time to ask both NATS management and NTUS about a No vote in our briefing. NATS management said they would talk to NTUS if that happened. They can implement SMART and the closure to new entrants anyway but it's the cap which has the most immediate effect on the financial health of NATS and is the most important. They claimed that the executive hasn't yet considered what to do if it is a No vote. NTUS said they would talk to NATS but there isn't much to talk about unless we tell them why we are voting No and so far nobody advocating No has come up with a reason which would warrant any further negotiation.

A lot depends upon how the voting goes. The two Prospect branches and PCS will be considered as 3 separate ballots and all 3 have to vote to accept. That means there are a number of different possibilities and I'm sure NATS will react differently depending upon which it turns out to be.

BAND4ALL

Quote
They can implement SMART and the closure to new entrants anyway but it's the cap which has the most immediate effect on the financial health of NATS and is the most important.

Exactly that is why we should vote NO to stop two schemes being run if the cap makes that much difference