I don't need the publics sympathy on this one.
This is my money - that I've paid in already.

And we're nearing the last resort - management have said that their terms are non-negotiable - and they want us to take a future reduction in pensionable earnings.

Not doing the odd AAVA isn't going to work. No AAVAs will cause delays for sure - but not enough to bother the Barron and his cronies. Only the threat of BA and the rest of the airlines (our shareholders remember) losing a whole days flying (plus the knock on effect of aircraft and crews being out of positon) will do. And that means we all walk out the door - together.

I would say that you are in a relatively safe position. You will be receiving your pension when the rest of us with 20+ years to go are working with a 2 tier divided workforce. With different T&Cs/pension will come divide and conquer. The new pension scheme will get offered decent pay rises. Those of us on the original will get RPI (if we're lucky).

ha ha ha ha

At Swanwick it will be more like Patio Heaters and Diesel Jackets! :ouch:

I can just see the BBC coverage showing Swanwick ATCOs (and some ATSAs) pitching up to join the picket line in Porches, Range Rovers, TVRs, Jags and the odd 350Z - public support, zero.

Don't forget the outside caterers :O:O:O.

No outside catering if its provided by Aramark thank you very much :yuk:

I have to disagree about 0% sympathy from the public.

Many many people have had their pensions disappear from in front of their noses when they thought or were promised they were safe.

Let's not forget we contribute to our pensions and NATS hasn't been paying their full whack for many years.

I think the public are fed up with being ripped off and I think we'll get quite a bit of support.

a good chunk of the population are very selfishly minded. as soon as a holiday gets messed around with Im sure they would moan.a lot.
Which in some ways is fair enough as they may have saved up for quite a while to go on holiday and could have been looking forward to it for months. Strike action is a last resort when negotiations break down. It would not be that we want to mess up peoples hols.
We are not like the french. They support their workers in times of industrial action. but they also smell of cheese and wine

We will not get ANY support from the public...in fact we will get -% support, we will get lynched!
But...who cares? The reason why public support has been important in previous big strikes such as Firemen or Civil Service is because they were up against a stubborn govt...who rely on public support. Did teh Shell Tankers care bout public opinion? nah...neither do i.

just for the record for all you old boys here moaning about us young ones who apparantly dont care about pensions.... we do and we will strike. ive been here 5 years or so and my pension that is a long way off is one of the most important things in the long term to me and us. the day i started paying into my pension was the day i gave a ****. the company can take us on if they want, i will strike and i could do with the extra time on my xbox on my 42" plasma tv... the only decision is which room i play it in :E

if we ever stand together as a union/company and units we need to do it now or we are seriously f****d.

KL

Actually Zooker,

there are several speed humps throughout the site at Swanwick that can't be avoided even just driving to and from the car park...

Add to that the building site that is "Swanwick Towers" on the access road and you will find that a Range Rover (Vogue or TDI Sport at the very least) is needed. In act one has virtually hardly driven the other car (the sporty number) to work since moving from West Drayton :}

I am - if one was to drive the sports car, one would damage the front skirt as it crossed the speed humps. The resultant pollution caused by fixing and respraying far outweighs the diesel my Chelsea Tractor uses... after all, I only live 2 miles form work so my Range Rover does not cause too much pollution

Trust what 250kts is saying.

10 years ago, the T&G members at Luton airport (security, admin, terminal staff) accepted new Terms & Conditions for new starters whilst retaining their own conditions. A hatchet man was employed to attack all T's & C's, he and his henchmen did their 'dirty work' then bu@@ered off to do it again for another business elsewhere in the UK.

9 years later, only a handful of 'Old Terms & Conditions' staff remain on the payroll. Staff turn over in manual grades is higher than in ATC, but for those ATCOs with 10 years or less service currently, by the time they reach their late 40's, they will be a minority work force and as such powerless against what the 'majority' want or are forced to have!

Please, please please trust what 250kts is saying.

Personally, I get delayed regularly by the European ATCOs going on strike. Good on em' if they can retain what they have.

If it takes strike action, I will back you guys all the way!

I am an ex union branch chair of a 'sister trade union'.

I don't understand this - can you give an example please?

I'm not taking the piss, I just don't get it.

VL

PS, Zooker;
Because you can take out more of the ducks with a bigger car and you don't feel the horrible squashing...

Listen to Buster,

He's right-I am right.........:D:D

......and Zooker is a tosser.:ugh::ugh:

Do all these troubles affect the other staff within NATS, for example the engineers maintaining your equipment?

I assume they are part of a different union. Will you expect them to strike and/or work to rule as well?

Could make a major difference

Yes and yes!

Wouldn't it be interesting for Barron to do his bar-stool sessions at the moment??

I was never taken in with that bar "stool" crap (no pun intended :) ). He will try and shaft us, take a shed load of dosh and move on to his next victim.
A lot of people have been sucked in by his style of leadership, I am not one of them :}.
Who is responsible for losing the £120 million over the Spanish fiasco? No doubt they left for "family reasons" :* or worse still they are still "active" in CTC or whatever it is called

A few things.
1)I was just thinking today why The Barron hasnt been doing his bar stool sessions recently.
2)Public support is neither here nor there.We would strike irrespective anyway.
3)The people saying they would be offended and disgusted that people might break the picket line.Who the h3ll do you think you are?We live in a democracy where we have the RIGHT to STRIKE and the RIGHT to WORK.The reason someone comes into work is nobody elses business(Whats wrong with having a big TV!)
I am sure I would strike,however I dont think anyone of us has a right to BULLY others pre-strike(or post strike):=

4)Lastly,I think strike action would be worth it.If only to read/hear the rantings at RyanTowers!!:mad:

Emma, you are right, we do live in a democracy and people do have a choice, but if it comes to strike action will those who choose not to strike happily accept their wages and protected pension, (if strike action is successful), whilst those who fought to protect those rights are out of pocket? What if it requires prolonged strike action and people end up seriously out of pocket, (as you tend to spend what you earn), will they think of assisting (financially) those whose actions they will benefit from? If your answer is that they will take their money and pension and suffer no loss of income themselves then that is where people are entitled to feel bitter.

Nobody is making anybody strike and nobody will make anyone work.
If someone chooses to strike,then they take the financial hit.If they want to waste their time feeling bitter towards people thats their perogative.

What happens if the non strikers are not members of the union?

I really thought we had moved beyond this working class "scab" attitude.

Let's see if you still feel the same in 10 years time when we wont be able to even negotiate an extended tea break because a people decided it wasnt worth striking this time around over something as important as pensions.
If you feel that strongly about it then I suggest you follow your own example and come into work.
Nobody is calling anybody a "scab" but people need to be made to realise the importance over what is going to happen over the coming months. If they choose not to participate then fine...just dont moan in the future about it beacuse you will get zero sympathy.

I am puzzled.

NATS management must know how dearly we hold our pension and how weak their argument is after all the years of their underpayment.

By saying their position is non negotiable they are setting themselves on a collision course with one of the most strategically powerful group of workers in the country.

The tanker drivers got a 14% pay rise after a couple of days strike action.

NATS management must know that after a couple of days of strikes, their owners – the airlines – will be screaming out for a solution to be found and found fast.

So NATS management must either be banking on us not having the balls to strike over our pensions or they must perversely want to find other employment.

Or, they must know something we don’t. Like CTC is so stuffed with Here Today Gone Tomorrow staff who will vote 'Yes Please' for any £1,000 that we are already doomed to lose any ballot.

Mr Jones wrote:

I am not entirely sure that "their" position relating to pay/current pension scheme members is non-negotiable. Below is what the NTUS statement says:

Now that can be read in several ways - I think it says that the non-negotiable stance is that pension arrangements for new entrants must be free of risk or in other words apart from that, everything is still negotiable but am open to correction on that.

DD

Mr Jones,
The tanker drivers were small fry compared with the North Sea divers.They wanted about 40% rise,and within 4 days got it.If you shut down the entire North Sea Oil industry,it gets their attention.Enough said.

Emma, are you serious in your posts?
The only excuse for breaking a picket line is if you are not a member of the union.
Any other picket line breaker should be known as "scab" in place of their first name for the rest of their days.
The point made in reply to your post about enjoying benefits and resolved terms of employment whilst not having the balls to stand up for it is very true.
scabs should be made to negotiate their own terms and conditions. See how far you get in an army of one.
Its not as if we would be on strike for a month or more. I can't imagine any strike would be longer than 24 hours action at a time. not exactly breaking the bank for us is it, when you consider how much impact it would have and how important the pension is. It is the most important part of our contract in my opinion. If we don't stand up to protect it we might aswell kill ourselves now to save a slow and painful death from getting rogered in the future.

on a separate note i heard a rumour that the red barron was bought a db9 from the company recently? is this true? that fits well with vision 2011 and is a waste of money that could be put into pension fund.

Yes DD, and that means ? ... come on, keep up!

Let me describe a thin end of a wedge - I am just going to introduce it to the side of your head - a slightly cold feeling, but you hardly feel it do you? Still comfortable? Why am I doing it? Oh don't worry about that. Now then, you may have seen me pick up this hammer before ... no need to flinch :uhoh:

Management say a new scheme will not impact on those of us in the current final salary scheme.....

At present all staff are paying into OUR scheme. Some of this money is paying towards the (well deserved) pensions of retired colleagues.If the scheme is closed to new entrants funding from younger staff will stop. When the staff who are currently in their 20's/30's come to retire there will be very little left (if anything) in the pot to pay our pension as the scheme is no longer being funded by the 'new' staff. Where do we collect our pensions from? The 'new' staff won't care, the public won't care and the shareholders in nats will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Any pension scheme must be properly funded or it will run out of money - I doubt people in any 'new' scheme would vote yes to subsidising our pension.

NATS 'borrowed' money from the scheme and have never paid it back.
NATS is not paying in as much money as it could into the scheme
NATS has made massive profits over the last few years due to the HARD WORK or ALL staff - office, engineers, atsa, atco's.

This is a very serious matter - join you union today. Lets stick together and tell senior 'management' what we ALL think. No pension = no NATS.

We will lose some money in the short term if it comes to strike action. Prepare for it now and put a little aside now to cover any shortfall in income in the coming months.
Sell out now and you can kiss goodbye to future pay rises, expect yet more erosion to your terms and conditions, less annual leave and longer working hours.

Please don't kid yourselves that this is not a problem. NATS does not exist without us - shareholders make no money and the airlines will be shafted. YOU do the hard work so stand up and be counted so YOU get the pension that YOU deserve.

Maybe management have been looking into what happened last time. Strike breakers sneaking in via obscure routes, calling in sick, panic leave requests, frantic scrutiny of duty roster hoping that it's a day off, any office numpty and/or manager with anything close to a validation anywhere being used to fill a seat.
It can come as no surprise that anyone showing competence in union activities can be promoted "on side", placing them in a tricky personal position.
Withdrawing goodwill or some other pathetic wishy-washy proposal is nothing, absolutely nothing!
I'll make my mind up when I've been briefed on all the facts by my union representative, and not before. Anybody else out there got "unauthorised absence" on their personal file......that is the measure of commitment you may be asked to make?

aewaite17, Yes i would include validating and college students in this aswell as families with a newborn.
If you are in the union, they negotiate on your behalf. if the union ballots its members and it comes back as a yes to industrial action then this is what should occur.
college students wouldnt (or shouldn't) have any instructors on site to teach them anything as they should be at the gate.
same goes for validating students, their instructors should be at the gate.

There will be people it would hit more, newborn families, big mortgage families etc but it is not going to be a massive hit. As i have said before, i dont think think that we would be on strike for such a significant length of time as to really make a difference to a pay packet?
three 24 hour strikes over a period of 4-6 weeks similar to recent strikes by tube staff etc would cause a lot of disruption to airlines, aircraft and crews in wrong positions, delays, cancellations, angry customers in terminals both here and abroad ( see zoom x 100)
I would guess that a full 24 hour day of action would disrupt the aviation world in this country for at least 3 or 4 days??
surely our customers, the airlines, would put pressure on nats to sit down and negotiate a resolution very speedily.
I don't like the idea of strike action, it is messy and can impact directly on many peoples lives causing stress, worry and frustration. But this is the biggest issue to affect me in my 16.5 years since leaving the college. It is a must that we at least negotiate very hard with management and make it clear that our pension is here to stay. at NO RISK to us.

As a recently validated atco, trying to pay off debts, i cannot afford to strike.
However, i am part of the union and if a strike was called, i would not cross a picket line. When you join a Union, you do not join just to get the benefits you undoubtedly aquire through being part of a strong team...you are part of a team, and you need to work together in that team...through good days and bad. If you cant then you shouldnt be part of union. Thats how i see it anyway...i do feel sorry for any atcos with newborns in particular, however, we are not particularly poorly paid in long term, a small hit wont kill anyone.

well said that man:ok::ok::ok:

I personally would rather not go on strike and as an ATSA I believe that NATS will try to get rid of me way before I retire (got to get there first!) but I am a member of the union and the union is only as strong as its members. The unions have negotiated very good terms and conditions for ATSAs and ATCOs and I benefit from the unions strength so therefore I will back whatever the decision of any industrial action ballot.

Sorry, but I don't see the relevance of 'families with a newborn'. Are we assuming that all ATCOs with newborn children are at the bottom of the scale or potless? Anyhoo, any pay lost is relative to the salary, ie if you're nearer the bottom of the scale or at a lower banded unit then you will lose less money.
Can I afford to lose two or three days money over six weeks if we were to strike, well in the short term, no. In the long term where my pension is affected, a couple of days' pay is small change compared to what we will lose. I've already lost by transferring my old CAAPS pot (and other pension pots) into the NATS section pension when Brizzel came into NATS. Many of my colleagues transferred their pensions in as well and are looking at having less years than they would have in their old scheme, when retirement comes around.

All out brothers...............oh, and sisters!

SN,
ex union rep