Me Me Me Me

I do agree - my feelings are that NATS management chose to apply the trustees' guidance on contribution rate to the letter in order to force this situation.
They have paid what they were required to pay - the minimum required. But, given they were already telling us there was an issue, the chose not to do something about it right there and then... reducing the future problem at source.

My point is that such mechanisms are subject to strict rules and procedures and everything they have done is within those. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't have done a lot more to address the issue.

Having received an email copy of an desperate plea from the top TU guys to please accept the deal... it would seem they are a bit nervous the vote will not go as planned. I'll be doing my bit.

EDIT: I must also add (strangely in defence of NATS) that my understanding is management did propose SMART a good while back.. but under their mandate to reject any discussion on the pensions issue completely, the TUs wouldn't entertain it. How times change.

mr.777

Funny, I was told the complete opposite at my pensions briefing...i.e that the Unions had brought up the idea of SMART pensions but that Barron wouldn't accept it because he also wanted to cut costs at the same time. Who do we believe, the Unions or the management...I don't know to be honest.

Oh, and the ballot has now been put back to January apparently. I wonder why that is?? More briefings to attempt to brainwash staff in a last ditch attempt to push this through, perhaps?

StillDark&Hungry

I've been keeping up with this thread since it began. As the majority of poster's appear to be "no" voters could I please ask you what would be acceptable?

I'm sure we're all of the opinion that doing nothing is not an option.

It's been stated on many occasions within this thread that we should not accept managements first offer (even though i'm of the opinion that this is not). But, I say again, what is acceptable to you?

I'm pretty sure that the SMART issue is pretty much a no brainer - so what would tempt us / you to vote yes? How about a cap of RPI +2% or 3%?

I've read a lot of posts who, and please correct me if I'm wrong, seem to say let's vote no just because we're p****d off at the managers - Not altogether a constructive attitude.

So let's have your figures in writing please.

Responses of "I want a better offer" will just heighten my beliefs about the people who are sipmly posting VOTE NO in big capital letters and bright colours

Dee Mac

I'll accept nothing less than my pension as it currently stands.
I'm willing to strike and stay on strike until I have that.
I am not open to offers and I don't have a price.

VOTE NO.

mr.777

I want a better offer.
I am fed up with management.
VOTE NO.

kinglouis

if the ballot has been put back,i would like to expect an email asap from the union...... to save their now rubbish reputation for communicating to us meager members.
these are all last ditch attempts to get us on the yes bandwagon, and i hope for everyones sake no one falls for this garbage.
if they were so confident it would be going ahead anyway.
so, when fingers are pulled out of behinds will there be a ballot of a strike if this pension deal get forced through.
Philip james said it best with his 'depends how many vote no' quote.
And if rumours of 'that' TC ATCO who took on barron are to be belived, he will be spending the day with him soon.... i hope he has some nice questions for him regarding at least the last 30 or so posts.
voting no from the start and still a no.
and stilldarkandhungry, if you want more constructive attitudes, can you pass that on to management as they are clearly taking the piss out of us, phil james is proving this (see above)

Vote NO

That was the first real sign for me that they are weakening and have other offers. So when they say "there are no other options" what does that say about them? (keep it clean!)

anotherthing

Of course the management team have options B,C and D up their sleeve, even if the union do not.

One thing no one can accuse management of is that they are inept. They have manoeuvred the pension fund into this position, they have started to run NATS as a 'for profit' business, regardless of any mandate that stated it should not be run that way when we were first PPP'd.

Management are very good at what they are setting out to achieve, they are very effective. I do not like Barron or his cronies because of what they are intent on doing to the company. I do not like them for what they have done to morale and trust within the company since they joined.

I have the utmost respect for their abilities in as far as they are doing exactly what they have set out do do from the outset, and they don't give a s!ht if it upsets us or not.

Still Dark and Hungary

Both correct and wrong. People are p!$$ed off at the managers, but the reason some people are advocating the 'NO' vote is because they do not want to see an erosion of their pension, especially after NATS has taken from it during the good times, yet is unwilling to give it back.

Voting NO to protect your pension is still possible, whether you like the management or not. It is people who believe that staff want to vote 'No' just to give management a bloody nose who are incorrect. Giving them a bloody nose may be an added bonus, but people will vote 'yes' or 'no' because they think that is the best for the penson, not because they either like or dislike the management.

If any management read these threads (I'm sure they do), then get it into your skulls that a 'NO' vote is not neccesarily as dig at you, it's a dig at your taking from the pension fund during the good times, and the belief that despite your protestations, the fund is still viable.

As an aside, if the vote has been pushed right by a month, are we happy with that?? Is this not just another example of the management getting their way??

All the time the pension drags on, our pay deal (payable from first Jan 2009) is not getting resolved. Considering that the Bank of England says inflation may continue to drop until it hits 1% next summer, it suits management to drag everything out, then plead poverty at every turn.

If it is true about any vote being pushed back a month, why are the Union allowing it when we have been promised a vote in December??

Vote NO

Another example of just how far removed the Union is from its members.
I also suspect management/unions (same thing) want more time to reposition themselves and decide on some new tactics

MrJones

eglnyt

There is a hole in your Cost Pass Trough argument.

I don’t recall BA making a cash call to its shareholders to pay off the US Department of Justice fine of $300m for price fixing.

Neither do I recall BA making a cash call to its shareholders to pay off the Office of Fair Trading fine of £121.5m or the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) fines or the £100m passenger compensation package they had to put into place following all these illegal activities.

So presumably the fines for these illegal activities were paid out of their revenue i.e. passed on to their customers yet we are told by NATS management the CAA would never allow our pension scheme to be funded by our customers.

During the time of BA’s price fixing fuel surcharges rose from £5 to £60 per ticket, I have seen estimates that Cost Pass Trough for our Pension would be 29p per ticket.

Cost Pass Trough is the way ahead.

Gonzo

Mr Jones, BA are not a regulated monopoly.

Vote NO

BA and Virgin are both part of the Airline Group who own 42% of NATS. Both of them have managers facing jail terms. Nice owners eh?
But we don't like talking about these things do we?
Office of Fair Trading charges British Airways executives with price-fixing - Times Online

Four past and present executives of British Airways will appear in court next month in a criminal price-fixing prosecution brought by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the regulator confirmed today.
A spokesman for the City of London Magistrates court said the four have been listed to appear before a judge on September 24.
In only the second criminal prosecution of its kind in the UK, the OFT has accused the four BA executives of conspiring with their counterparts at Virgin Atlantic to fix the price of fuel surcharges on long-haul flights.
Price-fixing — which was made a specific criminal offence, called the cartel offence, in 2002 — carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and unlimited fines.
BA has been fined £270 million for its role in the cartel after a joint investigation by the OFT and the US Department of Justice. Virgin Atlantic avoided a fine after it approached the regulators to blow the whistle on the cartel.
The two airlines have also settled a £100 million class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of passengers who were overcharged because of the cartel.

These fines alone are half of what TAG paid for their share of NATS
The Govt received £765m from the Airline Group for its share of NATS, but it had allowed the Group to borrow £700 million of that, so immediately on being PPP'd, NATS was saddled with this debt and its interest payments.Financial & Business - NATS

MrJones

I know they are not a regulated monopoly.

My post was about what costs get passed on to customers. BA passes on its fines to its customers but we are told we can not fund our pension from ours.

We need to get it sorted.

BAND4ALL

DEE QUOTE
I'll accept nothing less than my pension as it currently stands.
I'm willing to strike and stay on strike until I have that.
I am not open to offers and I don't have a price.

VOTE NO.

I'm with you mate

off my pension

ImnotanERIC

I would vote yes for smart pensions, and a cap, but not a different pension for new employees. that doesn't work in anones interests

Mad As A Mad Thing

I accept that something needs to be done. But I'll be voting no as in my opinion the something that needs to be done is that NATS need to pay the extra required to return the fund to 100% (at least) funding after under contributing and causing the current situation.

They caused the problem. They can fix it. I'm not losing out to fund their bonus payments. It's time to make a stand to protect ALL of our terms and conditions.

NATS wants to be a world leader? It can start with world leading terms & conditions for staff.

NO NO NO NO NO

BAND4ALL

If it does go YES then.........

YouTube - Strawbs - Part of the union 1973

VOTE NO

eglnyt

On the contrary the hole is in your choice of example. BA has already decided that it can't pass the cost of it's pension arrangements onto customers and taken far more drastic steps than NATS to reduce its pension costs.

With regard to the fines if you look at the BA accounts you'll see that BA has made provision in its accounts for those and has effectively reduced its profit by that amount. Technically that means the shareholders have taken that hit because it reduces the amount available for dividends and reduces the amount re-invested and re-investment is usually to the benefit of shareholders. You are right of course that ultimately anything BA pays comes from money paid by its customers and they could put up fares to recover that lost money. Whether or not they do will depend upon how cost sensitive their ticket sales are.

BA is considerably larger than NATS and can absorb much larger financial shocks without recourse to its shareholders. The two companies are far from comparable in many ways.

The Airline Group is a shareholder in a limited company just as I and many others are. If we are going to worry about the provenence of shareholders presumably we'll have to assess all members of staff to decide whether they are right and proper to hold shares.

Even if that were true nobody has yet explained quite where the money to fix it would come from. There is no pot of cash and the regulator won't increase the charges so how exactly do you expect it to be fixed ?

ZOOKER

Radical pruning of 'CTC' would seem to be a good place to start.
How did the CAA pension fund survive the economic slowdowns of both the late 1970s and the early 1990s?
Why have people suddenly started to live longer since The Red Barron has been in charge of NATS? Perhaps he should be made the head of the NHS?
Er, maybe not.

kinglouis

if this ballot has been put back i will be having a 'chat' with our union rep when i am back in this weekend... and not in a good way.
maybe a boycott of these 'extra' brainwash pension briefings is in order so they get the message.... NO ONE TURN UP!!!!!