Jolly good. If it comes down to it do give me a wave whilst you cross the picket line as I and my Prospect colleagues defend our own T&Cs as well as yours.

Just have the good grace not to denigrate those that are acting on all our, yes even your, behalf.

I rejoined ten years ago also :) but I don't agree with this "working together" stuff. I don't think its in the interest of your average punter like me.

What would you suggest in its place then?

Roffa,

I think that "Working together" has been compromised in the minds of the workforce. We can still have meetings with the management to discuss "stuff" that affects us, however it should be in a more formal enviroment with minutes taken of what was said etc.
I freely admit to being old fashioned and wonder if the union representatives themselves feel comfortable with informal "get togethers" with management in overnight stays in hotels with management personnel, including confidential briefings that they are not allowed to tell the union membership.
Rightly or wrongly the union membership feel that under "Working Together" their representatives are being compromised by their position hence some of the complaints/observations being voiced on this website.

Roffa

Not working together :)

I agree entirely DC10RealMan, "Working together" can only be beneficial to management. Overnight hotel stays plying reps with booze is not healthy (excuse the pun) for the workforce, and sends out the wrong signals. A more formal gathering would send the message we mean business and give a psychological advantage

Missed this thread for a few days now and have just caught up.......

Firstly I completely agree that public opinion matters not one jot, I cant really see why it would TBH. If its so important to some then I reckon we should all buy sub-£1k motors and use them for work which would, at a stroke, negate any arguement about us driving flash cars.
HOWEVER, how I wish to spend my money is MY business. If I want to but an Aston or Lambo then I will, I wont be pressurised NOT to in case some non-NATS employee takes the hump.

Secondly, knowing how the media like to sh1t-stir I have no doubt they would portray us in the worst light (unless, of course the editor has ATC connections). I strongly believe that the union should invest in a PROPER PR company to oversee things should things start to go down the strike road.

Thirdly, I sreally believe that the withdrawal of goodwill i.e no AAVA's, second sector work etc will produce the goods if carried out for a sustained period of time. This alone will have the desired effect going by what folks have said regarding staffing issues in their area of the business.

Spamcan

You're 100% right in what you say, Spamcan defender, but please don't refer to AAVAs as "goodwill" - being paid £350 to £500 a shot (depending on your unit) to come in for an additional duty has bug**r all to do with "goodwill"; it's simply down to economics i.e. it's cheaper for NATS to pay the AAVA rates than to pick up the bill for the likely delays, and it puts a not inconsiderable amount of additional cash (even after tax at 40%...) in the ATCO's pocket - which is a perfectly reasonable financial arrangement.

As for comparisons with the US ATCO strike and the current situation, one of the biggest differences is that back then, there were plenty of young recruits available to "join up" and eventually replace the guys who'd been fired. Nowadays (and it's the same throughout Europe) we're in the middle of a massive retirement bulge that's not due to peak until around 2013 by which time it's estimated that there could be roughly a 25% shortfall of controllers across Europe. Against that background, even the most right-wing administration and management would baulk at a "mass sacking" option.

As an ex US controller told me out here in the desert the other day, the US strike was illegal as FAA employees weren't/aren't allowed to strike ISTBC.

As no such legislation exists in the UK, and providing due industrial dispute process is followed, then a similar outcome would be highly unlikely!

Best wishes, on behalf of the ex NATS boys in Dubai.

Now you are talking ! :ok:

You're going to have to convince the non-members to rejoin.Why did they leave?Well ''working together'',and being constantly sh:mad:fted might have something to do with it.
Would the larger units come out on strike,if any pension changing plans involved NSL lower band units only.Errr No.Maybe that's what going to happen,because that's the trend from the past.
Our pensions are already much lower,because of the huge pay difference.In fact a Band 5 Atco can now retire on more than a Band 2 can earn.
I talk as one who has taken industrial action,and there will always be ways of getting round it.:uhoh:

Oh for goodness sake will you change the record!

This CAN'T happen :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Any changes to the pension happen to the pension as a whole - not individual members.

Banding is not the issue here. It is an issue - just not this one.

If we don't stand together on this then what banding did to pay will be insignificant.
Once Barron (and any future boss of NATS) sees that we aren't prepared to fight for our pension, our biggest T&C imho, then you can kiss pay rises goodbye. It'll be RPI + 0% - "because we have to save money".

It doesn't matter what band/grade/job you are. If you have money invested in NATS pension scheme - your money - then you have to stand together.

Please leave banding out of the pension discussion.

I want to know when exactly there is going to be anymore news. "Working together" or whatever the hell it is that is going on right now sounds fabulous, but people are FED UP and want to know what is going on NOW.
The lack of information is just serving to crank up the rumour mill and the longer it goes on, the less goodwill (not that there is any) there will be towards any management position.

Sorry, but I have to defend my colleague ThrowaDyce here.

The title of this thread is NATS Pay Rise for 2009.

Somehow this thread has skewed off topic onto the important pensions dispute. Might I suggest this thread gets edited and a new thread solely for the Pension 'negotiations' is started?

TAD doesn't mention 2009 pay and was referring to the pension in his post - which is what I was replying to.

There is a pension discussion in the NATS forum.

Or maybe you could start your own thread on unit banding :ugh:
Pensions are more important than any payrise...fact. This is just the kind of division that Barron and his buddies are counting on. Whingeing on about banding is playing right into their hands....can't you see that???

Stupendous Man, is it not a case that any changes to the scheme have to be agreed by a majority decision? In other words, to defend TAD, could there not be a proposal to change those that are elligible to be memebers and put this to the vote of pension members? Would this not be a change to the whole of the pension but one which would only affect some members? I am not saying that if this was the case any proposal would be voted through but I think this is where TAD is coming from with his distrust of the unions and their ability to look after the smaller units.

Bratbaak - as far as I am aware there can be no changes to our current pension scheme except by an act of parliament. In fact this works against us to a certain extent, because if we as emplyees said "lets increase our contributions by x% to help the fund" we couldn't.

Is what you and TaD are alluding to is a new pension for bands 1-3 units i.e close the scheme to new entrants at these units only?
I doubt this could happen as these people would have to be employed on different contracts to Band 4/5 units and when you join NATS you don't know where you are being posted. I'm looking at this purely from an ATCO point of view here.

What could (and probably will) happen if we don't stand together on this, is a new, worse scheme for new entrants (and all those that joined post 2001 - dates might be wrong) will be introduced.
Then any moves / promotions / postings will be dependant on you joining the new scheme.
Plus in X years time when the new-schemies outnumber the old-schemies, any pay deals will be split along the lines of New= RPI+ 5% Old = RPI. Plus I can imagine there will be a bung to buy back 6 days leave - which the new guys will accept and we'll lose out and so on and so on.

So its not just the pension at stake.

Anyway I seem to have gone off topic in my own post! Sorry about the wall of text.

:ok:

Stupendous Man, I will stand corrected then, thanks.