mr.777

Yes BD, everybody is entitled to their point of view but I find it astounding that any employee, operational or otherwise, can defend the current management position, with regards to pension, to ANY degree....unless they ARE management or simply don't give a toss about the pension.
I stand by for you, no doubt, to enlighten me otherwise...

BDiONU

Wow! Scud, biff, take that you bounder! How dare I express a viewpoint which isn't 'One out all out brothers!' The options are not that clear and I'd much rather wait to hear the outcome of discussions than post in here beating my chest
None of you appear to have an idea what I do in NATS and I actually don't see its relevant, one brother one vote isn't it?

BD

JonG

But surely the view that "when the pension is healthy stop paying into it and when it's not as healthy get rid of it" is not the way a pension should be run?

DC10RealMan

There are a lot of ex-raf people at swanwick who having retired from the mil on friday reappear as a nats employee on monday due to the "old boy network" (although they will deny it of course)
They are already on a military pension as well as earning a salary and so the affairs of the caaps are really of no interest to them, perhaps Bdiou is one of them???

Gonzo

Yeah, I'm sure all the ex-mil NATS employees really couldn't care less what happens to their NATS pension...

We need to see what the proposals are. I'm sure the union reps who are discussing the matter with NATS are quite aware of the strength of feeling.

BDiONU

Which are worth considerably more than an MoD pension for the equivalent number of years.
Here here Then we might be able rather than huff and puff and make ourselves look just a little bit silly.

BD

BDiONU

Have a read of my profile, its not a secret, I don't hide like a lot of posters do and my identity is well known throughout Swanwick (where I worked for over 8 years, a couple of years before 'O' date which gives you a clue to my job) and CTC (which I've recently moved to).

BD

BDiONU

The fund is still healthy, still in surplus but PREDICTED not to be if action wasn't taken. What would happen to the surplus IF the market hadn't declined? It couldn't be distributed amongst the people paying into the pot.
Not forgetting NATS was still troubled by the drop in revenue from 9/11, which had triggered additional loans of some £60 million. It seems to me (obvious ass kissing management lackey that I am ) that NATS behaved like any business would in similar circumstances, it tightened its belt. Just as it is now with the economic downturn looming and recruitment of paper shuffling office workers curtailed and contractors let go.

BD

PPRuNe Radar

BDiONU is absolutely within his rights to voice his opinions, and civil argued responses are what should be used to rebuff them if you don't agree with them.

To my mind, if NATS took some excess out of the pension fund, which in effect is what they did when they took their holiday, then they can damn well apply it the other way and put their hands in their pockets and make up any shortfall if it comes to pass.

You can't have it both ways.

intherealworld

PPRadar hitting the nail on the head. A company which valued it's employees and their goodwill exercised to date would be putting it's hand in it's pockets from the start, and we would be all saying how nice it is to work for such a company. Instead they choose to demonstrate how much the only thing that matters to them is bottom line.

fisbangwollop

What's all this talk about not getting the public's sympathy??....Do our French friends ever care????...who gives a stuff......having paid into this pension for 30 years I don't now want to see Mr Barron legging it up the street with it in his back pocket!!! Lets hope the NATS "Working Together" iniciative this time really works and we all see this through to a successful end!! If we fall over now we will be stuffed for ever.

BDiONU

Nah ad hominem attacks on those viewed as potential 'scabs' and bum licking management lackies are easy targets for some Its quite a good way of sorting the men from the potential bully boys though.

Lets say that NATS were prepared to pay some money in (although I don't know where it would come from as the projected revenues are already spent in the books on future projects, maybe we could stop Prestwick Centre, or iFACTS or iTEC or AMAN or DMAN or Near Real Time Weather Radar or nSIS or MSP or the RSS programme etc?) What sums would you be thinking of?

Bum lickin' Beadie

250 kts

So what's the cost of iFACTS so far?

I heard a figure of £100m+ and the much lauded increase in safety is minimal to say the least. And I still have to have anyone convince me that the capacity gains are anywhere over about 15%-and 15% of what-today 2009 or 2011 when it just may be introduced.

What a shame no one in management had the balls to stop this project rather than the balls to take on the staff. Or would that be too much of a face losing exercise?

BD-as you are in the know about costs-just how much does the company save in the medium term once we are down to 2 centres?

Barron will shaft the pension, sell the company and ride off into the sunset-probably via the Palace where he gets a sword tapped on his shoulder.

Caesartheboogeyman

iFacts, EFD, and near real time weather could all be shelved.

PPRuNe Radar

We could start by stopping nonsense like 'Visions' (a Mrs Barron spectacular, although her husband did at least declare his vested interest in giving his wifes company a cushy number supplying NATS with its latest fad - no doubt to be replaced with some other 'vision' next year at appropriate cost by someone in outside industry ... related to the CEO again probably) , halting Awards ceremonies for people just doing their jobs, stopping the endless 'away days' and 'love-ins' where management and various departments spend a shed load of NATS money to come up with the latest wacky ideas and plan their next fun outings, and finally by having a good long hard look at everything we do and whether it provides value for money and an actual return which helps us move air traffic. If we find areas or departments in the company which don't give us anything tangible or move aircraft, then let's scrap it and use the resource somewhere where it will actually help us.

Europe does plenty of R&D work as well, yet we never seem to let them do it for us. Why not ?? We are entitled to as Eurocontrol members surely.

It's also only a few years ago that NATS wanted to claim it was going down the COTS line and so everything would be cheaper. But everything we buy off the shelf then needs to be picked apart and 'adapted' by NATS since it 'wasn't invented here' and our airspace is far more complex and busier than the rest of the world, so the product couldn't possibly work without NATS input and improvement. Which is why NATS is continually operating with kit and facilities which are way behind those found in a lot of other places throughout the world who buy the kit and then make it work, warts and all. We spend years and years wasting time and having meeting after meeting to reinvent wheels which go round perfectly well.

We need to start accelerating the collaboration with industry and other States and stop continually blocking things just because they don't suit NATS. Or maybe it's protecting an empire or two ?? We're not the only ATS company in Europe, and we're not always the best at getting things done, or have the best solution.

Don't misunderstand me, we do a lot of very worthwhile and world beating things, but we need to spread the risk and the costs with other people in this industry and stop building Rolls Royce standards when we can do quite well with mid market products.

We also need to call in the Governments commitment to NATS and start getting them to provide funding and assets in line with someone who is a 49% owner of the company. If they own that much, then they should be contributing something in line with that level of ownership. And that includes funding pensions, which they seem to do well enough for their own MP staff, don't they ? If not, then they should perhaps sell up and get out.

pelagic

Quote "....could all be shelved"

and AFPEX.

ZOOKER

Real-time weather is available via the Met Office website, as are TAFs and METARs, satellite data and pressure forecasts. All the things ATCO's need. - And it's all free!
Arise Sir Paul, a Barron and a Knight (is this a 'first')??
Sorry, nearly forgot that 60s comedy act 'The Barron Knights'.

BDiONU

I'm not attempting to justify or defend any current or future project, just making the point that there is no pot of gold. The 'holiday' was approved by the fund trustees, and I think all of us can agree that they're impartial and not NATS ass kissing management lackeys, as they felt it was safe at the time. Hindsight is a great thing though.

I said it before when this subject came up over a year ago and I repeat it now. I find it presumptious of us to attempt to decide the pay and conditions for people who have not yet joined the company and who will be joining with their own eyes open. Provided sufficient guarantess can be given (and proven) that our pensions are ringfenced then newcomers should join on different terms.

Now I've got a busy week ahead and I'm out of here so its fairly pointless posting more attacks on me, I won't be back until the weekend.

BD

mr.777

Don't disagree with you on that, but the "guarantees "would most definitely have to be in writing and 110% legally airtight in order to avoid us having this conversation again in 10 years time. Is this something that the management would go for?

CAP493

I'm afraid that you're living in even more of a fantasy world than some of the managers who posters here seem to enjoy maligning. It was one G. Brown MP who bugg***d-up the UK pensions industry by changing the tax regime, not the likes of Paul Barron or anyone else (although I'm not defending the short-termism concept of "contribution holidays", etc.)

Sadly, you've missed the point. It's irrelevant whether you or I or anyone else in NATS "gives a stuff" about public opinion. It's HMG that cares about it, and the plain truth is that at a time when the Government's rapidly losing control (not to mention its mind) the old political adage arises ~ cause a diversion and focus the public's gaze on something less sensitive.

Since we couldn't now muster enough military hardware or personnel to mount a parade in Whitehall, an old-fashioned military campaign's out of the question, so something closer to home would better suit.

Thus, if NATS operational staff take industrial action that causes disruption and inconvenience to thousands of travellers and pushes some of the weaker airlines over the brink, the tabloid press will catistigate us, the public will criticise us and the 49% Shareholder that just happens to be HMG, will shaft us. Don't forget also, the current lot in power is a supposedly worker-centric LABOUR lot; the alternative is the temporarily "touchy-feely" TORY lot: once back in power and sitting with a comfortable majority, they'll have even less sympathy for a highly-paid workforce like ours than Knackered Labour.

Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences...

Oh, and by the way, SRATCOH did not come about because of industrial action (please file in the library under "Fiction"...).

During the strike of the early eighties, many NATS units were in fact, already working a SRATCOH-compliant five-watch roster anyway, and SRATCOH came in purely for safety reasons, in 1989 following a two-year cross-industry review involving a Committee that included IPMS, GATCO, NATS, the CAA, the AOA, NALGO, the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine and the DTI to name but a few.