Spanish ATC

[Lon More]

I got the following reaction from LH2 on the thread referring to salaries,

Then you show up on another thread where, as far as I can tell, nothing of substance is being discussed, in order to contribute exactly what? Some out of date trivia?

this being the thread where nothing of substance is being discussed I believe.
I wonder why he bothers visiting. Not that i expect an answer from the Troll, I'm on his Ignore list.

[saintex2002]

Originally Posted by AngeleToR

...They want to destroy ATC in spain to rebuild it from the ground up, people with 1500€/month and no laboral rights...

AngeleToR, not only Spain...
Be sure , we're facing a total European war against the European ATCO collective...
And Spain is only for test and training... if it works in Spain, it'll work in the all next FABs...
And for the moment, it seems to work well...hope we gonna see that as the final countdown...
Time is coming for the European ATCO collective to think about how they want to live the next decades...

[gato]

I agree with you.

[flameproof]

@surferboy indeed, but take into account that the Barcelona FIR serves some 12 airports, the London FIR is much more complex in terms of number of airfields, airspace arrangement and number and type of operations.

[aldegar]

and I know MANY of us will get back to their previous lifes.

I was allready working on that, and since the last decree I now have no doubt about it (with full support from family and wife). In fact, two months ago I started "refresh training" on my previous job.

What I am wondering is that, if we start to leave (and since they have no replacement right now), ¿will they extend the state of alarm forever and ever so we can't quit the job? ¿will they FORCE us to work as ATCOs against our will? It may sound ridiculous, but the situation right now is so unreal...

[VJW]

Perhaps I'm insensitive to this situation, however I've experienced the backlash of these strikes for years now.

Look at the bigger picture, my mum worked as a nurse her whole life looking after the sick and dying and made 1000 euro/month - much more important then an ATCO.

My basic point is, Spain's ATCO are the worst in Europe - which is a fact. London manages fine, and put it this way, I've never had an ATC slot in my career unless flying to or over spain.

I understand people have a right to strike, and we've seen ALOT in spain. My main issue is with these unauthorised strikes, that screw everyone with zero notice. Look at the bigger picture, you've brought it on yourselves. Be happy you have a job, when many people in your country have none. Don't also lie about your wages, the document you wanted signed clearly stated you wanted an average salary of 300,000 euros a year with less working conditions.

Be serious, and take a long hard look in the mirror. Bit like BA strike, what type of person strikes during a worldwide economic crisis? A selfish one I think. No matter how many people insult me for my opinions, I just can't agree to that!

VJW

[Blue5]

Hi VJW, you just mentioned wordwide economic crises. Who tells you that we got a crises.

For months we hear that word crises. The news tell us we got a crises and what's written in the news is correct, isn't it?????

Well, just to keep in mind. Watch the previous numbers in different economies. Asia is booming, the middle east is booming. Some European countries are booming (the others just will follow). Yeah, forget the US, it's just a country left with service-sector, agriculture and financial institutions rescueing for their country what they can (FED).

Look at the traffic situation, overflights etc. We are not in an economic crises any more..... that was 2008! we got almost 2011! Wake up, guys. Use your brains to see what's going on. Don't be sheep.
I get sick people talking about the economic crises ....

[samotnik]

I've never had an ATC slot in my career unless flying to or over spain.

Most probably your career consists of two flights.

[BeT]

Look at the bigger picture, my mum worked as a nurse her whole life looking after the sick and dying and made 1000 euro/month - much more important then an ATCO.

So what! A footballer can get paid €1,000,000 per week and I think its fair to say an ATCO is generally of more use than a footballer.

The point you are trying to make is mute.

[flameproof]

@BeT: A footballer is not paid with our taxes, an ATCO is. My money, my questions, my right to demand accountability. There have been no answers to many questions, and zero accountability. And now, either:

a) They lied and did not suffer a collective hysteria (a medical condition that required them to stop working they say), which is likely as some 100 controllers in Madrid walked off and assembled at a nearby hotel (presumably to receive group therapy?), or

b) They did suffer collective hysteria, in which case they are the LAST people I want manning an ATC facility. They are, by their own definition, supposed to be calm, steady and cool-headed in order to do this job.

both of which are awful prospects.

[Elephant and Castle]

Well many are certainly not much better at controling than most footballers and definetly much more spiteful. We have suffered for over one year your "campaign". You have cost our employers hundreds of millions, you have delayed millions of passengers you have made our working lives misserable with petty enforcement of petty rules. Now you ask for simpathy? Sorry unable, standard route I am afraid.

Any of you seriously thinking of looking for a job outside Spanish ATC you are on for serious shock: lots of work, no perks, a tenth of your currently salary and.... If you dont deliver you are fired. Try walking out because of a "headache" see what happens in the real world.

[calcagafo]

the document you wanted signed clearly stated you wanted an average salary of 300,000 euros a year with less working conditions.

May we see a copy of that document? have you seen it?......

Oh, I get it, you heard someone on the TV saying it, then it must be true.....

Regards

[VJW]

Samotnik you're quite funny for a polish guy. Unfortunately for you (and me) my 2000 some odd hours have all been out of a spanish airport, so feel my input as hated as it appears, is probably more valuable than yours.

300,000 euros is what they were demanding, I wish all the ATCO's here would stop trying to hide the truth, and am glad there are some fellow pilots with some valuable and honest input adding to this argument. (well said Elephant and Castle!)

beT you make a ridiculous point too. I'm definitely not going to justify a salary of a footballer in the whole scheme of things, but most footballers are better at their job then a Spanish ATCO at theirs. A football club is a business, and if the club pays a player a ridiculous salary then I guess they deserve it.

Blue5 maybe you should wake up, Spanish ATCO's have been doing this before 2008!! Come fly in spain, would take you 10 minutes to agree, nothing has changed, and you think Spain is not in a crisis you need to seriously wake up and smell unemployment stats.

Winds me up how much the ATCO's seem to beg for sympathy on here, even the rookies in training get more the 1500 a month. If anyone doubts a thing I say, you give me your email, and tomorrow I'll go down to the ATCO car park round the corner and take a picture of the cars they own.

You can clearly tell who is a pilot, who is an ATCO, and who is a pencil pusher in an office somewhere by the responses to these posts.

Yesterday a female ATCO started crying on the freq due to the stress, these are the people asking for more money.......it's amazing!

[BeT]

You can clearly tell who is a pilot, who is an ATCO, and who is a pencil pusher in an office somewhere by the responses to these posts.

Quite, and it doesnt say much for pilots either....

Ive already written on here numerous times that I can not agree with the methods the Spanish ATCOs have employed and that they need to wake up and smell the coffee in terms of salary, so dont go confusing me with someone who carte blanche agrees with their ideas.

However:

1. Why oh why are people so wound up over ATCO salaries (either past or present) - In the grand scheme of things its peanuts. Its one of the problems afflicting most countries in the Western World - ' if I cant earn €300,000, then nobody can! ' Jealousy at its worst.

2. ATC is not really a portable job. It has a finite workforce with a very slow turnover. Locations are limited and it does not leave you with a widely useful/acceptable skill set. Do I think €300,000 is an outrageous salary for an ATCO? - no. Would I care if a pilot earnt €1,000,000? NO! I'd say fair play to them. Is a footballer worth millions and millions? Somebody thinks so, so fair enough.

3. The Spanish government are now undertaking a MASSIVE piss take and the fact that a lot of people seem happy so see it happen is both scary and extremely short-sighted.

Sour grapes arent pretty, and there are a lot being thrown about on this thread.

[Always Moving]

government mismanagement!

I do not know exactly what happens but there are some facts here


1 ATC works for an agency that is control by the Government
2 There is no private ATC school, so you can only be an ATC after you go to Government School.
3 If you control supply AND demand and you can not control a close market I do not think you are very smart (the last part is a personal thought)


In my opinion the government should had toughs 5000ATC and slice the salaries of all of this APPARENTLY over inflated salaries.


Should they had walked off?, NO it is illegal!,but also APPARENTLY they have been trying to negotiate with the government for years!
And a few months ago a minister very much on the line of the last socialist president “X” I do what I want and I bend or change the rules by either buying the judge (sorry they did not buy them they were already bought long time ago) or passing law. They change a legal contract! And then they MILITARIZE the ATC (I still do not even know what that means, how can they make you a military person if you are a civilian and you do not want anything to do with the military is beyond me)


And what is with the state of emergency! Buddy you brought this problem onto yourself! but hey! It sounds good with the dumb sheep (read voters)


Bottom line, one more time, government mismanagement!

[andrijander]

Continuing on what Always Moving just said,

yesterday there was a session at Congress and the president said that, when there is a gap in the civilian law, military law should be used instead. That is a very weird way of interpreting law since, you could argue, that in that case you're always considered military personnel except when civil law states otherwise. Very perverse. That is what government is defending at the moment.

Won't go into much detail since I'm not a lawyer but it is a very complicated case indeed. Never before have we seen a situation like this (in Spain, during "democracy"). There is a chance that the rule in which they based their decision to mobilize controllers (under military command, or "organization and supervision", as stated in the decree) is not a valid rule, since it is previous to the constitution and it may be clashing with it. When the constitution was approved it invalidated previous rules that may clash with it but the system didn't specify which rules, one by one, were invalid. So we may be in one of those cases where the rule used should be invalid. Comprenden? I hope so
Worthy to mention that all political parties have their doubts about the legality of it, but they still support the government.Also worthy of mention is that the government initiated the mobilization of the military units and personnel BEFORE getting approval from Congress. Which may also invalidate the whole thing.

¿Es inconstitucional la ley de Navegación Aerea? · ELPAÍS.com

In any case that is one of the many legal fronts opened last 03-12. You could say Pandora's box has been opened. To summarize controllers now have to contend with:

-Legality of militarization decree (as mentioned above, initiated by controllers)
-Disciplinary action from AENA (employer)
-Disciplinary action from AESA (regulator)
-Actions through civilian law code enforcement agency
-Actions through military law code by the civilian enforcement agency (nobody is very sure about how this one is gonna pan out??? Controllers are, at the minute, not recognizing the civil authority in the matter since they claim they're under military rules. Therefore it should be a military court taking care of it. Government says that what they're being charged with was previous to the decree, albeit for a few hours, therefore it is a civil court that has to take charge.)


So it is quite messy at the minute. And this is becoming a precedent on how to deal with issues in the future, let's not forget that.

Spanish tourism ads abroad motto: "Smile, you're in Spain."
I would add: "Smile, you're in Spain. And that's an order!"

[rennaps]

IFATCA comment

It seems that IFATCA does not agree with a lot of you and I quote:

"IFATCA is a professional organization that promotes safety, efficiency and regularity in international aviation. To this end we are equally frustrated and fully understand the anger caused by the current disruptions to flights in Spain. We are especially aggrieved that the unplanned nature of these irregularities during a holiday period affected a large group of travelers and their families.

IFATCA understands that this crisis resulted when the imposed maximum number of working hours was surpassed, which meant controllers would effectively violate a Royal Decree imposed on them earlier this year. When this limit proved insufficient, as was previously predicted, AENA and the government simply changed it. Contrary to persistent reports in the press, air traffic controllers did NOT strike about pay, allowances or financial compensations.

To solve this entirely manufactured and avoidable problem, the Spanish Minister for Internal Affairs declared a State of Alarm applicable only to air traffic controllers on 4 December 2010. For the next 15 days, Spanish air traffic controllers are under military mobilization. By choosing conflict over any form of social dialogue, AENA and the Spanish government wish to divert attention from the main issue AENA faces: a series of disastrous financial decisions and the resulting deficit. Using controllers as scapegoats, they hope to salvage what is in essence a badly mismanaged state company.

By choosing to resolve the conflict with a law last used 40 years ago under the Franco regime the Spanish government has created extremely serious concerns for the safety of air traffic and passengers travelling within the Spanish airspace. By forcing controllers to work under military supervision the government has cancelled all previous agreements derived through social dialogue. The Spanish authorities have not only disregarded all international conventions, including the Lisbon Treaty and basic human rights, they have also disregarded accepted safe standards and recommended practices.

Safe and reliable service cannot be guaranteed by military commands in any safety critical function. Given the duress under which our Spanish colleagues are forced to work, IFATCA declares that the safety of Spanish airspace and airports is severely
compromised while this military rule is in force.

By resorting to totalitarian and dictatorial measures, Spain and its service provider can no longer be considered a worthy partner in international projects and we would submit it has effectively forfeited its Single European Sky (SES) certification. In addition, we submit that Spain has effectively reneged from international agreements and projects, up to and including commitments made to ICAO. IFATCA urges international organizations such as ICAO, the European Commission, EUROCONTROL, and CANSO to ensure that the situation in Spain doesnt escalate any further and that it realigns itself with international standards. Failure to do so could well trigger a wave of solidarity actions of controllers around Europe in support of their Spanish colleagues.

Only an open and constructive social dialogue, worthy of any democratic and civilized society, can resolve the current deadlock in Spanish service provision.

[flameproof]

I really don't get why people don't read more than the last 2-3 posts of the thread. To make a few things clear:

1. People don't complain about ATCOs making a lot of money per se, even if the salaries are huge and benefits wide and generous, but about the fact that every few months, ATCOs complain about their working conditions, amount of hours they work, and so on. When you make an AVERAGE of 300.000€ a year, you simply cannot complain that you work 1700 hours and your EU colleagues only 1400. Man people work 2000 hours a year for far less money and are not complaining and whining all the time.

2. ATCOs don't go on planned strikes (they keep saying on TV that they have NEVER been on strike - yeahright!), but instead sabotage procedures, eg. making all aircraft heavy, closing sectors, getting 'sick', etc. Any pilot who flies to/from Spain regularly will know what I'm talking about.

3. ATCOs are under a very generous agreement signed in 1999, and which automatically renews if a new one is not agreed upon with AENA. Makes sense thus that they are always negotiating a new agreement, and never reach one. As an example, overtime is paid at 450€/hour, do you think from a company/manager view that it makes sense to pay this, or hire more controllers? The fact that the ATCOs, through their union, have had veto over hiring new staff, makes it obvious where the interest lies. Eg:

1200hx150€ + 470hx450€ = 391.500€ (1999 agreement)
1670hx150€ = 250.500€ (Feb. 2010 decree)

In their shoes, what would you defend?

Yeah, thought so...

[AngeleToR]

Flameproof, we are tired to say this last months to everyone that we are exhausted up to an unsafe point, and the government 'reinterprets' it as that we are menacing the passengers...

We made some simple sums this summer and saw that the maximum hours will be reached by the end of the year, and government said we were menacing with undeclared strikes. They let the problem rot until it wildly exploded, I say again, we are EXHAUSTED and thousands of lives depend on us and our good job (thanks god for the TCAS)... We are AFRAID of doing our job in our current conditions (physically and psychologically tired, many are menaced with jail and losing EVERY property they have, people HATES US thanks to our incompetent government).

OK, we deserve it because of what we have done, screwing everybody up and all that stuff... But honestly, do you believe that what we did is a rational reaction for a group of equilibrated people just forcing the government to earn 350.000€ instead of 200.000€??? It seems more a desperate measure of desperate people trying desperately to be heard, to stop all the madness we are living in from ten months now until it's too late and we all get really sorry about it. And please, forget about money once and for all, 5.000€ gross per month sums 60.000€, google a little and you will find scanned monthly wages proving it.

We are playing with human lives, nobody sees??? When finally the accident happens, as we are warning since months ago, let's guess who will end up in jail... Right, the ATCO!!! Because we have warned (menaced according gov.) about colliding two airplanes... And then, any spanish ATCO, being the most hated people in Spain right now because we enjoy ******* up people's holidays, are evil and greedy, will also be declared mass killers without trial... I'm concerned about MY safety and my family's, that's why I want to leave the country, before it's too late.

As it's been already said, for god's sake, we're not monster, we haven't killed anybody.... yet...
Please, think by yourselves, will you believe a colleague's word or a spanish politician's... We LIVE for safety, you LIVE for safety, do politicians or company managers LIVE for safety??? Or they consider safety a vague word we use to work less and hide behind it to not accept 50 movs/hour when we say only 40 will safely fit???

[paidworker]

Flameproof, you wanted to be an air traffic controller but failed to get in. Give it a rest with the sour grapes. Regardless of the maths etc. etc. the point is now that the government is using the military in an illegal manner to force people to do their work, next when they think its a good idea to get rid of 1000 bus drivers , 5000 nurses , 6000 metro drivers ..or they just dont like what people are protesting about. All the time of course they are wasting 1000s of times more money awarding each others companies state contracts. There are issues beyond ATCs pay at play and it would only be somebody who has not worked for any reasonable time / or as a pay to fly is used to bad conditions and no rights who would fail to see that.