Fit_to_burst

I'm sorry but i will have to continue my support of the union here -

'How times and loyalties have changed'

'i seen, heard and read the ultimate in betrayal'

What on earth do you mean?? Loyalties of union reps who like you and me pay their subs and instead of just expecting someone to do the work for them actually do it themselves. If their 'loyalty' has changed its changed to themselves as well as you!! Can you be disloyal to yourself or betray yourself and would you willingly and knowingly do so?

I assume that as the whole onenatsonepension thing has been posted again that you actually asked why their position had changed at your briefing, if you didn't maybe you should go and find one of the Reps or go to a briefing and ask them.

Vote NO

I would have thought it was rather obvious

Anyway I am not going to start bashing Union reps who have signed confidentiality clauses, and can't tell members whats really going on because its sensitive "business information" and they will go to jail if the break that confidentiality

They can wrestle with their own consciences

eglnyt

As somebody who was affected by both those changes I took a very close interest in that and having researched it very thoroughly I can tell you that NATS had no choice but to make those changes. The person to blame for that change to our pension was Gordon Brown who headed up the Government that brought in the age discrimination legislation.

Me Me Me Me

After reading the mail from PCS... which I must admit, made me more inclined to vote NO just because I hate feeling I'm being "persuaded" by a biased argument. The TUs should not be pushing people to vote either way, just informing of facts and leaving us to our own free decision.

However.... one thing I think it's important to mention. That's 18 months of discussions between a team of senior managers, including highly experienced accountants and negotiators, with a support team of professional pensions analysts... taking on a team of union officials that are actually office workers, controllers, engineers etc etc. Not to say the guys in the TU who sit on the pensions committees aren't intelligent and well informed... but the professional experience and the qualifications to speak with authority on these subjects is heavily weighted on one side. It's not surprising in such a position, that people can be persuaded in to an opinion they would previously have recoiled in horror from.

ayrprox

fit to burst,

your posts seem to infer that anyone voting no should either stand as a union rep, or else, not post any dissenting view on the negotiations that took place.
Why should any no voter have to stand to be a union rep. I did not join NATS to be a Union Rep, I joined to be an AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER. I have the utmost respect for the union reps, who do a hard job in difficult circumstances, but that does not mean i cant tell them that , in my opinion, that i think the deal they negotiated is a tub of sh1t .

I dont see why the deal needs to be over 15 years, that is way too long. A lot can happen in 15 years, you can go through an entire cycle of boom and bust in 15 years.
I dont see why closing the pension to new members is a good thing . a closed scheme is a dying scheme. surely you need new people in at the bottom of the fund contributing to ensure the financial future of those near to retirement about to draw their pension.If the scheme is closed to new members, then the pot of money within that fund will start to dwindle, and if the fund is only funded to 100% of its liabilities, then there is no margin to account for sudden downturns like we are seeing now. Thats another thing, i dont see why funding the pension to just 100% of its liabilities is a good thing, and the 'its best practise' argument is just horsesh1t!!! thats like saying ' oh well everybody else is jumping of the cliff, so we should too..' look whats happened to all those other pensions that have been closed to new members, aren't they all doing well. err... no.
Now i know that last argument isnt to do with the pension negotiations per se, but it does make me question the people that are meant to be looking after our interests and that includes the trustees who i think have some questions to answer as well.
As you can probably guess from the subtle tone of my post, its still a no for me i'm afraid.

anotherthing

eglnyt:

How long do you think external customers will value a service that is related to something we don't do front line?

Sell NSL, lose a huge area of expertise. NATS is so good at what it does (coal face ATC in case anyone has forgotten what NATS is about), because it does it for real at some of the busiets airports and in some of the most congested/complex airspace in the world.

Stop doing the job at the coalface, and the 'expertise' soon withers in the backrooms.

Putting it bluntly - if we are not doing it for ourselves, we can't maintain our expertise in it; ergo the CTC jobs will wither and die, not immediately, but progressively after any sale of NSL.

eglnyt

Times have certainly changed but loyalty ? Are you suggesting that the NTUS reps are acting dishonestly ? If so I think you either need to withdraw the accusation or find some evidence to support it.

Certainly the NTUS has modified its approach, sometimes you have to amend your demands when they are shown to be unrealistic, but to describe that as betrayal is ridiculous unless you can prove that they are acting in anything other than what they believe to be the best interests of the membership as a whole.

anotherthing

what an arrogant statement to make... you are saying that other people are wrong, but you are correct!

anotherthing

Fit to Burst

I don't agree with some of what you are saying, but that does not mean that you, nor anyone else needs to apologise for what they believe.

The same however goes for people who you are telling to become union reps, just because they believe in this issue, that the union has got it wrong. They are entitled to believe that, it does not mean that they have to become union reps - it's called democracy!

One thing I think the union will admit, either publicly or more likely in private - this matter has not been dealt with in the best manner - if it had been done differently, there might not be such a vociferous 'NO' lobby.

It's a shame because as you quite rightly say, the Union has done us well in the past, but going from a well advertised ('you should read this' - from the union) website proclaiming "OneNATSOnePension", to silence, then to see the website meekly change without advertising the fact shows how poorly managed this has been.

Vote NO

Quote:
Management have said that the existing scheme would be safe and yet in December last year they made a unilateral change to the existing scheme in respect of both the 40-year rule and the non-ATCO flex that demonstrated that this is not the case.

eglnyt


.

The above quote was made by the Union, so is Management to blame or the Government? If it's the Government then this quote from the Union is incorrect !

eglnyt "old boy"

I think you are losing the plot here, it is you who are suggesting that I am suggesting that NTUS reps are acting dishonestly!

I have not described anything as betrayal (you are mixing up posts here)

Take a well deserved break and compose yourself and stop flogging a dead horse

Vote NO

eglnyt

I'm saying exactly what I wrote. If I think you are wrong I will correct you. If it is arrogant for somebody with access to the correct facts to question incorrect ones or arrogant to suggest an alternative point of view possible with the same evidence then I admit to arrogance.

mr.777

I am sure that the Union DID work their backsides off for 18months, nobody is disputing that fact. However, just because they spent that amount of time on it doesn't make it a reasonable proposal.
How can you defend a proposal that, for every single pension briefing, is presented to you in a different manner....as, more importantly, are the consequences of voting NO and other such gems like why cost pass through to the airlines is prohibited?! Is it just me that finds this odd?!

eglnyt

Vote No

The change was unilateral in that NATS made the change without agreement from the Union. The change had to be made because legal advice was that those benefits became illegal once the age discrimination legislation came into effect.

I've no doubt that NATS management must have thought Christmas had come several times at once because it allowed them to make changes to pension benefits and the redundancy scheme that they would never ever have been able to make previously but it would be wrong to suggest that this is evidence that NATS was targetting the pension scheme and renegading on previous promises.

anotherthing

Then you need to re-phrase it because grammatically, what you are saying is twofold... you think they are wrong (infers they might not be), but you will correct them (even though you only think they might be wrong.

Whatever, the way you have written it implies arrogance and a belief that you know better, whether you do or not. The same arrogant attitude that keeps telling people to attend a brief etc just because they see the statistics differently from you.

As for where is the provenance in that statement, apart from merely taking your word for it? Or are you happy for people to believe you at your word, but not anyone else?

You might not be arrogant at all, but that is how you come across to me - I doubt I'm alone.

mr.777

WRONG. This may not be evidence but Mr Barron and the management have been after the pension from day 1 of his tenure. The Union went to see Barron to discuss SMART pensions. He wanted £50million saved through pension cuts, at a time when the pension was healthy, they said "No chance", he said "No SMART pension discussion then".

Ben Doonigan

Anyone seen what Motions have been put for Special Conference ? Any news from the battlefront ?

Fit_to_burst

I haven't told anyone to become a Union rep - i have asked if you are going to become one as clearly you don't like what the reps have negotiated and think there is a better alternative which i assume you feel you could negotiate?

I guess what I am asking is if this is a no vote will you be the person that goes and negotiates what you feel is the right thing for everyone, or will you wait for whatever happens next and throw stones at that?

You can post all the dissenting views you like, i just find it a little sad that you are willing to union bash your own colleagues, on a public forum, who fight for your best interests but aren't prepared to be a rep yourself. I guess i just think that someone who feels so strongly about how bad the union are and the 'tub of sh1t' they've negotiated might have the balls to stand up, become and rep and deliver something better but as you say you didn't join to be a rep you joined to be an ATCO just like all those guys who are trying to do what's best for you and them.

hold at SATAN

The way I see it, here is how it goes:

The underlying cost is what it will cost NATS to provide future benefits to all members if there wasno surplus (i.e.100% funded)

100% funding means that there is enough going in to meet CURRENT outgoings from the fund paid in at a particular rate(lets call this rate value F%)


If there is a surplus, there is more being paid in than going out, to meet current commitments, and a deficit means the opposite.

What NATS have done over the last few years is made it their aim to bring value of the down to 100% funding (i.e paid in=paid out), so instead of paying F%, they have paid in less and alowed the surplus make up the difference and thus causing it to dwindle down (now looking like a deficit)

Here's my biggest problem with the way the fund is portrayed:

Why the heck are we aiming for 100% funding when the underlying cost is what needs to be paid to ensure future liabilities are met?

100% funding rate will ALWAYS be much lower than the underlying rate, simply because future outgoings are going to bemuch higher than current outgoings.

NATS management are feeding us crap about the underlying rate being so high, yet base their contributions on the current funding

This means that the underlying costs will continue to go up every year as NATS will always be paying in less than what is required to keep the fund viable in the future.

so bloody NATS got us into this mess because they were paying in much less than the underlying rate (future obligations), indeed, were paying in less than what is required to meet current obligations, using the surplus to make up the difference 100% funding is a load of crock and is merely the actuaries equivalent od rose tinted specs:

In the form of a play

NATS:"hey, we have enough money to pay our current commitments and we will pay in just the right amount to maintain this. Aren't we great?"

LITTLE TIMMY: "but what about the future?"

NATS:" yeah, erm, well... erm, oh dear we haven't been paying enough to meet future needs. We'd better tell everybody that we need to pay in a lot more just so that we have enough money in the pot to pay future pensioners"

LITTLE TIMMY:"but you paid less in than what you needed to ensure there was enough cash in the pot to pay future pensioners. Isn't it your fault?"

NATS:"well...yes, erm..we can afford to pay it but we don't want to. We're just going to have to scare everyone into taking less when they retire and so we won;t need to have such a big pot of cash in the future"

THE END

Fit_to_burst

Mr 777 - I am amazed, you must be really tired, exhausted even, having been to EVERY SINGLE BRIEFING to make such a statement on how each and everyone has been presented differently.

anotherthing

Fit to Burst

if you say that my democratic right (otherwise, why have a ballot), to vote 'NO' because I believe that NATS can afford to do more than the proposal will entail i.e. I think that the Union could get a better deal is Union bashing, then I'll admit it.

However I can't see how my opinion that NATS can afford to cough up more, can in anyway be misconstrued as to be union bashing.

And I think you'll find that although you are answering me directly, the phrase you are saying I used (and are using to imply my feelings) - (the phrase shown in red taken from a quote of your last post) - was not written by me, but by Ayrprox.

If you are going to sling accusations, get it right. Do keep up