UK - NATS Pay negotiations - latest rumours

[Standard Noise]

A Labour govt admit a mistake!? You live in a parallel universe, don't you?
You looper!

[Vote NO]

Just a realist ! Unlike you perhaps. I dont care if its Browns lefties, or Camerons Etonian hooray Henry twits, privatisation was a mistake.

[hold at SATAN]

Problem is that the Whitehall W&nk£r$ won't pay attention or even admit there's a problem unless they fear for their popularity.

Take the London Cabbies yesterday, for example, they saw that the groundwork was being laid for mini cabs to encroach on their territorty (waiting in a rank) that they converged on Trafalgar Square and brought the centre of London to a standstill for a few hours.

Did the public go on about overpaid (I know one who pockets £6000 per month net) folk whining about the potential of taking a hit on their income? Did the public go on about Cabbies having to understand that it's credit cruch time and they need to to put up with it?

Like heck they did - most members of the public were quite supportive of the Cabbies and understood why they were striking.

Heck if we have to go down the route of sensationalism then so be it: I'm thinking "danger in the skies, who's watching the planes?"

or "ATC... Railtrack part deux"

It's time for us to stop taking this $hit and make some noise

[Vote NO]

Now you are talking

[jamiesonjs]

Retirement age

Recent legislation has changed the concept of retirement age in any case. Can someone enlighten me as to what ,in terms of retirement
age,redundancy really means these days .

[Vote NO]

Redundancy - Working Rights (UK)

Enter Age Discrimination Legislation

Age discrimination legislation, introduced in 2006, made it illegal to put lower age limits in job adverts and refuse jobs on the basis of age, in other words, age discrimination. Employers cannot treat people differently because of their age, for example in situations of redundancies, by selecting all the staff over a certain age. The upper age limit for workers' rights such as unfair dismissal and redundancy rights was removed and all retirement ages below 65 were banned, unless they could justified, for example on health and safety grounds. (might apply to ATC)

The age discrimination legislation also introduced a responsibility for employers to listen to employees' requests to stay on after retirement age as part of workers' rights and to notify them of retirement dates at least six months ahead to give them time to plan.


There is a wealth of info on that site, hope it helps

[Minesapint]

I work in the 'systems' side of things - not an ATCO. ATCO's doing a VERY similar job are paid around £30k a year more than me - do the maths. All ATCO's with a validation get back in the opsrooms, back in the 80's ATCO's did the wings, FIR, flow etc so I don't think there will be an ATSA shortage, just an increased utilisation of available staff. I understand this plan is already in motion.

[Vote NO]

I think the situation is now being reversed. ATSA grades are taking over posts filled by ATCO's driving desks in offices, and on half the salary The office ATCO's will be issued with a headset and told to earn their keep
Flow, and ops room "man management" with the aid of tools is not rocket science,and is easily within the grasp of experienced ATSA's. You dont need to pay someone £85k pa to watch a red light flashing to work out when you are SRATCOH'd . Better to giv em a headset and radar to play with. You know it makes sense

[Minesapint]

And there will be more space in the CTC carpark for our old cars - we poor T&S types can't afford to run large motors - that makes us even cheaper to run! Hey, that makes us vision 2011 compliant too - green!!!

My point was that if opsroom ATSA's take redundancy, and that leaves us short when the traffic picks up, there will be two basic options. One is ATSA's on short term contracts (from where?), or new toys like EFD and IFACTS to be in place and ready. I understand that a number of projects are being delayed so maybe this is not the case.

[Vote NO]

ATSA's who have retired or taken VR will be asked to come back part time. Manch has been running like that for some time

[eyeinthesky]

I hear that the number of Swanwick ATSAs offering themselves for VR is greater than the planned number of redundancies by a ratio of 4:1!!

So much for outraged indignation expressed earlier in this thread at the gall of the company for even suggesting that they should make cost cuts!!

[autothrottle]

Maybe they have just had enough and want to get out before NATS change VR terms. Back in the late 80's (1989 actually) some friends of mine worked in the pits of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The Coal Mining industry was dying and they took VR. Now they are ALL airline captains with VIR and BMI. Maybe nows the time for ATSA's to get out , retrain ,get a frozen ATPL and when all thats done get a job flying as the cycle will be on the upward curve by then.

I am not surprised so many peole want out.

[Flybywyre]

Having spoke to ATSA's on various watches over the last few days it would seem that the 22 VR's required should be met without a large surplus, if any surplus at all.

[anotherthing]

Maybe they want to get out before the goal posts are moved on the pension again.

The MOU is still not written, and Mr Barron has recently publicly stated that, even with the changes, the pension will be difficult to fund in the short to medium term.

Does anyone else believe that further changes will be requested by management within the next 2 years? For example closing the scheme to all people, even those already in it?

That has to be the ultimate aim. I'm afraid once we voted to have a two-tier system, we simultaneously voted in the demise of the current pension.

[Vote NO]

Mr Barron has recently publicly stated that, even with the changes, the pension will be difficult to fund

I would suggest the above quote is coded language for your suspicion that the Pension is in extreme difficulties.
If that is the case, which it probably is, I doubt that NATS private side (49%) will survive in the near future.

I don't think the fact that 40% of the staff couldn't be arsed to vote on the pension helped either, and as for those who voted yes, you reap what you sow

[Flybywyre]

The writing is on the wall ....................

BBC NEWS | Business | Final salary schemes 'face axe'

[hold at SATAN]

the pension will be difficult to fund in the short to medium term.

if NATS took heed of the story of Joseph and his multi coloured dreamcoat (inspiration for the NATS corporate colours?) and stocked up during the good years for the lean years - i.e. not taking f*cking pension holidays - then maybe we wouldn't be finding the funding of the pension fund quite so difficult.

[hold at SATAN]

FBW, from your link:

A quarter of major private sector firms expect to close their final salary pension schemes to existing members in the next few years, a survey suggests.

Which means 3/4 are not closing - we shouldn't let NATS management select the juicy bits of news, good or bad, to drive their own agendas to the detriment of staff.

A lot of folk are in a panic about this "credit crunch" but a lot a of firms are using this as a on-size-fits-all excuse to slash pay and conditions - certainly NATS has and much of the crap we're in is, whilst precipitated by the ecomic slump, is a direct result os poor, short-sighted management by NATS.

[DC10RealMan]

You the employees, could always say "No, we refuse to accept any further deterioration of our terms and conditions and any further erosion of our pension terms will be met with strike action"
I should point out however that this would require you all growing a pair of balls!!!

[Standard Noise]

No, it would require the union to grow a pair of balls and lead us in that direction, rather than them being a load of old bollocks.