Prospect ATCOs Pay ballot
 

Pay ballot


The BEC met this week and they have no idea of the ballot result. They, and everyone else, will know next week when the ballot is completed and counted.

Until then all speculation is bull****.

SJL says that

Result
80% Turnout

73% In favour
27% Against


Pretty amazing that 20% didn't bother to vote. A significant percentage probably from non Band 5 units.

OK lets get to the Special Delegate's conference and start talking about getting the structure formula right and the aims for structure 2 talks.

Structure formula my arse.

Just goes to show that it was right in the first place.

Why should we change the formula to get the whining Northern ATCOs more money?

At long last my prophecy has come true :

BIG JETS = BIG MONEY

P7 (Band 5 ATCO)

Actually, 80% is, I suspect, not a bad turnout. It would be interesting to break down the vote unit by unit, however. If the 73/27% split of the vote is correct well fair enough. Democracy is democracy after all. But I think the fact that 27% voted against an offer that the BEC thought would be universally accepted has perhaps got the message across.

Let's hope they don't make the same mistakes again.

Confused
 

I'm a litle confused by this. If the non band five units felt so strongly about this deal, why didn't they turn out and vote?

I also (personally) think that 73% is a fair old majority..... reading all that was said here I would have expected a much closer result

Chips
Unaffected

What does the band 5 payscale look like, out of interest?

As a band 5 ATCO I am, unsurprisingly, very happy with the result, but I have to say Point 7, your attitude stinks.

Not all band 5ers share your views, and I feel it's a great shame that this has been so divisive. I'm not going to be a hypocrite, I did vote for it, but I wish the whole issue hadn't been handled so poorly as to upset so many people.

I hope in the future our colleagues in other units get the recognition they deserve, and that we remember we are actually all on the same team.

BALIX - I suspect the only way of getting "the message across" would be to find somewhere else to put your £120 p.a. TU subs.

P7 - As you mentioned said body part why not catch a bus up here and kiss mine!!!

Rgds
T3

In the run up to the vote it was often said that the issue was not the money but the principle behind the banding.

It seems that for the majority the money WAS the issue and how the final sum was arrived at was not so important.

27% is a significant minority and should not be ignored. However, if many of those who voted "No" leave Prospect as they have threatened to do, the need to address their issues reduces in significance with each resignation. No one has done badly out of this deal and the majority find it acceptable. The only way to influence future deals is to be involved in Prospect.

All that said, have we reached a point where the current structure of the ATCOs branch does not effectively allow proper representation? Specifically, should we be considering splitting the Area ATCOs and Aerodrome ATCOs into seperate branches within Prospect? Or do we need some form of sub-Branch that can deal with Airport issues seperately and on which Area units have no say? If we did have a seperate Airports ATCOs branch would non-NATS units want to be involved?

Seven months to conference and twenty one months to the next pay deal!!

A yes vote doesnt prove it was correct. The threat of losing 6.2 million pounds a year off our pay budget might have put a few more yes votes in.
Special conference must be held as the model is wrong and whoever constructed the model must be removed from this role and have nothing further to do with it. The lack of knowledge in its construction is scary.

Where r these results coming from???

From a hot off the press circular that should be hitting all your units shortly.

Now hopefully we can all be constructive with what is said and done
point 7 -You are not helping anyones cause with your attitude - try to come up with a view point that helps all your colleagues move on from this - HH




To: All Prospect ATCO Members 8 March 2004



Dear Colleague

ATCO PAY AND STRUCTURE BALLOT RESULT

The ATCOs’ Branch ballot on pay, structure, and working practices concluded at 12 noon today (8 March).
The ballot has resulted in a vote in favour of accepting the proposals. The result is as follows:-

Number of ballot papers distributed 1830
Number of ballot papers returned 1488
Number found to be spoilt 8
Thus number of valid votes counted 1480 (81% of distributed ballot papers)

Number voting YES 1077 (73% of valid vote)
Number voting NO 403 (27% of valid vote)

TOTAL 1480 (81% of valid vote)

The ballot papers were counted and validated by two independent Prospect scrutineers.

With the clear mandate to accept the package on pay, structure, and working practices, Prospect has today informed NATS of our acceptance of the proposals.

During the course of the ballot a number of individual members requested a suspension of the ballot process but after consideration and consultation with the General Secretary it was not believed to be appropriate. We also received just under 100 letters by the close of the ballot calling for a Special Delegate Conference, against 170 letters that are required. The BEC debated whether to call an SDC anyway, but after considerable discussion decided to call a series of special representative and membership workshops at ScOACC and Manchester AC to further discuss the concerns that have been expressed and review the Branch organisation and communications in the light of some of the criticisms that have been made. The provisional arrangements for the workshops are as follows:

Scottish and Oceanic Centre 20 April
Manchester Centre 21 April

Prospect ATCOs’ Branch recognises the strongly expressed views and concerns about the structure proposals particularly at ScOACC, Manchester AC and at some airports.

The National Secretary, Branch officers and BEC members will be present at both meetings.

Can we take this opportunity to remind members that motions for the next ATCOs’ Branch Delegate Conference, where many of these issues can be debated and, if carried, incorporated into Branch policy and action, must be submitted no later than noon on 24 September 2004, and the Conference will be held on 19/21 November. The calling notice for the conference will be issued on 30 July.

Further information on the remaining issues of structure, including details of the proposed approach to structure `part 2` will be circulated to members separately.

Would you please bring this circular to the attention of all ATCOs at your Unit.

Yours sincerely


DAVID LUXTON

National Secretary

Where in the Branch rules does it define the timescale for calling a Special Delegate Conference ?

I didn't send my letter because I was waiting for the ballot result. Nice of Mr Luxton to tell me I now need 69 fellow signatories to get the magic number :ok:

All letters not in yet surely !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rules are guidelines apparently if 170 letters appear in total over the next few weeks they must have a conference!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still Confused
 

Am I missing something? Democratic Process. A clear majority of ATCOs have voted to accept the pay deal.

1830 ballot papers sent out, only 403 voted against....

1830 members (I assume!) only 100 requested a special conference.....

I guess it wasn't as major an issue as we were told!
I'm not bothered to be honest as I am not personally affected, but the results don't seem to support what was said......

It does seem strange that following all the teeth gnashing, chest beating and general uproar expressed on the 41 page thread that accompanied the initial pay proposals that the deal has been democratically accepted by a significant majority.

Several contributors told us that their unit would be voting no, and that it was only us southern units (LACC,LTCC,LL etc) that would be voting yes, and in the process selling everyone else down the river!

This result clearly shows that many of the people at units away from the south also see this deal to be a good one for NATS ATCOs, and as such have voted for it.

I suspect that despite the fact that people said the main issue wasn't money, and who would be getting more than them , when push came to shove a lot of people realised how much better off they would be, even if they were not getting band 5 money.

Just my thoughts anyway,

Cheers

JuniorX

junior

do you have the stats as to how many prospect members you have in the south
and have you then done the stats as far as the % goes

strange though that prospect choose to count such a vote by themselves:mad:

It seems that there is a view that some of us did not vote against because of the money on offer. Don't think from anyone i spoke to at my unit that was the issue. As was said here agaian and again there are big problems with locking us into a structure which does not have the majority acceptance. I doubt if many of those in Band 5 even botherd to read the explanation of the structure but were happy with the result of the negotiations.

I think a conference to discuss the whole thing before setting out on the next part of the structure negotiations makes lots of sense. :O

mainecoon,

Surely you're not suggesting that the fact that Prospect did the count meant the vote was rigged????????? Maybe possible over a couple of % you could be suspicious, but over 23%????-get real. The membership have voted significantly in favour of the deal. Now let's all get on with building NATS into a successful ATC business.

OK, so nearly 59% of the total Branch membership voted in favour. What I now want is to know what % on a unit basis voted to accept. The envelopes were colour-coded, (Magic marker on bottom of the envelope in case you failed to spot it), and the fact that a numbered ballot paper can be linked to the address to which it was sent means this process would be pretty straightforward.

I am not alone in thinking that if management and the TU are only interested in keeping the 'majority' at certain (other) units sweet and to hell with the rest, then this is not a situation/organisation in which I wish to remain.

The only way to sort this out once and for all is for the TU to be up front about what units went which way.

Oh, and before anyone starts lambasting me about 'divisive' processes then I'm afraid I've just witnessed one and Pandora's Box wasn't opened by me!!!

Rgds
T3

dvdr

I'm sorry but there has been a special conference (held last year in June), it was hotly debated at conference in Nov, all unit reps/units have been briefed, and plenty of paperwork has been flying around since.

I will agree the model is not yet perfect, but it is a good base to work from. It is a vast improvement on the current structure with more to come from part 2.

In the absence of any viable alternatives (which nobody against the deal seem to have), I am glad that we have voted for a bloody good deal.