Nimmer
this is a rumour and news site .
is your posting based on rumour or factual news

The current downturn has little or no bearing on the contribution rate to the fund because as you say pension funds are long term investments. However it does have a bearing on any company's ability to pay those contributions and current legislation now makes if very difficult to defer contributions. There will be many companies forced to close their schemes simply because they can't meet the contribution rate set by their trustees. Those industries worse hit by the recession will be those most likely to do this.

pay rise / pension / anything else.
 

I'm fairly new to this rumour thing but i'm going to start with the pension deal. What was the point if for the next 15 years, the MOU which is supposed to be a legal document as opposed to trust of deeds or something like that, why not call it the same thing. i cannot help but wonder why change the name.

ooh wait a minute, maybe i can. Whats the reason for changing the whole ATSOCA phraseology? for legal reasons or insurance reasons or something like that. So a Flight Information Service is now going to be a Basic Service. A Traffic Service is now basically going to be a RIS and of course our favourite....Deconfliction Service is i think, basically a RAS. I would think its in the interest of the company hence the same for the above.

i went to the pension brief and i was very confused/worried with what was being said. Worried if the company went bust and very confused how if this is such a great pension deal, why wasn't it brought to our attention before hand. Some things were not explained very clearly and when asked if what we have signed lasts for the next 15 years, the answer was NO. eerrrrr, so whats the point in signing it? can i assume that after what we have agreed which is this MOU which lasts for a period of 15 years, (and the economy is better) we revert back to the original pension scheme after that?

with regards to the pay rise......i'm very disappointd to hear that there are a few staff that have/are going to receive a 13% payrise (i'm just going on what i have read here). Furthermore, all these developments and projects going on (which some are very costly and never see fruition).....what will these people do when all the projects are complete or not complete (e.g. ScottishACC) and there will be no more projects to do. Will job titles be invented for them. i think there are a lot of job titles already that in all honestly, i have not a clue what is their responsibility.

Another worrying rumour that i'm very concerned about is this 3 week non-payed leave. Can anyone elaborate on this please? Will everyone be able to take it at the same time? maybe in the summer/winter?

One last note, i really dont think the union went out to deceive us on the pensions, i would have liked it if they would have given us a better understanding if the vote was a NO vote. i felt that there was a certain amount of pressure to get people to vote YES and tell us what would happen if it was a YES vote. All there was about the NO vote was that the company will go bust and that this wasn't an option. Is this difinite or was it based on figures? maybe there are other places were the company could cut costs and not just the pension fund.
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Conspiracy Theories, such a lot of questions most of which are likely to re-open some old wounds on here. I'll answer some and wait for the inevitable response from those with different views.

It is a legal document but it can only ever represent the intentions of the two parties. NATS management can never give us a cast iron guarantee because without a crystal ball there is no way they can foresee what will happen to pensions in the future. It's better than nothing and we ought to get it signed quick before NATS changes its mind but for those of us in NATS at PPP the Trust of Promise and the Trust Deed still represent the best protection for our pensions. For those who joined since then the MOU gives you something you didn't previously have.

The main reason that the company couldn't afford the scheme in its original form was an increase in life expectancy, a fall in long term investment returns and higher long term inflation. It is unlikely that these will ever return to their previous levels so plan on more of the same or possibly another round of changes to the scheme after 15 years.

The reference to 13% is the amount that PB's pay went up last year. Technically it wasn't really a pay rise because the difference was he got more bonus and one has to assume that was baecause he or the company did something much better that year. Personally I'd rather not have such a big proportion of my pay riding on a set of figures although I think I could learn to live with it if I had as large a basic salary before the bonus as he does. What he might get this year isn't public knowledge and we'll have to wait for the publication of the annual report in July to find out. Other ANSP and industry CEOs are forgoing their bonus payments this year, it will be interesting to see if our's does likewise.

The "roadmap" has enough projects to keep many NATS staff employed for some time yet. After that we'll start all over again on the replacement for those systems. :) In the meantime a proportion of those staff will be working on SESAR for the Europeans.

Nobody should have told you that the company would go bust if we voted No. However unless something was done to control pension costs it was very possible that the cost of the scheme would reach levels that could make the company technically bankrupt. That was a very real risk to our pensions but nobody really knew what would happen.

Quote: The main reason that the company couldn't afford the scheme in its original form was an increase in life expectancy, a fall in long term investment returns and higher long term inflation. It is unlikely that these will ever return to their previous levels so plan on more of the same or possibly another round of changes to the scheme after 15 years.

So we were led to believe... IMO...

1. Yes there was an increase in life expectancy but it was not as large as we were led to believe and I do not think that enough options were investigated to fix this (the only) problem.

2. The fall in long term investment returns is to be expected in a market - this was not a problem - all markets have ups and downs in investment returns.

3. Higher long term inflation - this was not a problem - this figure is a 'snapshot' taken at the time of the last actuarial valuation - it is calculated from differences in values of long-term bonds (gilts). I recalculated the figure and found that it had decreased from 4.2% to 1.2% but, worryingly, could not find anyone in the TU that could verify my calculations were correct!

Voluntary redundancies to be announced this Friday - several hundred jobs to go in NERL.

several hundred jobs to go...... i guess starbucks must be downsizing at the good old CTC.

30 jobs from the ATSA staff at MACC and ScOACC......

The writing wa son the wall for the redundancies the moment the pension deal went through, what better way to reduce the now limited pension liabilty even further than by getting rid of people.

Barron must be well pleased with himself :mad::mad:

Radar707 makes a very good point that these redundancies are getting rid of members of the existing pension fund and all new employees will be members of the "new scheme". I would suggest that within three-four years these new members will be in the majority and therefore the unions will have to work in their interests and not the "old stagers"
I will give it 18 months before the management come back with suggestions about the "unfairness" of having two schemes and that they should be amalgamated into one (the new one, naturally)
One further thing, just to show that the redundancies were done fairly I am sure that there will be a few atco redundancies in there as well.

DC10, I reckon it will be even sooner than that, more likely 18 months to 2 years. With the relatively high turnover of support staff - HR etc getting a few years experience with a major organisation and then moving on - the likelihood of new members outnumbering old members is failrly high. The only major stalwarts of the old scheme will be the ATCO's, and the ATSA's and Engineers (at least those that are left after the move of MACC to PC and any redundancies that will be made from the introduction of whatever new off the shelf time and money saving [or should that read time and money wasting] systems they decide to bring in).

DC10RealMan
 

Why shouldn't there be a possibility of ATCO redundancies? Remember that NATS quote around 2000 ATCO's, but less than 1500 hold current validations.
ATCO's are heavy maintenance items!

the ATCOs hiding behind desks still pulling in £80 odd grand that cannot hold a validation should be in the firing line then.....

and those same office dwelling ATCO's who couldn't even sort out locker allocation in time for TCs move!!

I can think of a few who'll be told back in to the ops room to revalidate or out.

Can't imagine them making atco's with validations redundant while they're still taking recruits in through the front door.

The pension change is irrelevant. The writing was on the wall when those with little chance of being made redundant took the blood money to change the redundancy scheme. In previous downturns it was so expensive to make people redundant it wasn't really an option. It's still expensive but no longer too expensive.

PB told the CTC bar stool sessions that there would be no ATCO redundancies and indeed ATCO recruitment would continue through the downturn. I suspect he meant those holding ratings when he said that. That does of course mean that there will have to be double the pain in other parts to compensate if indeed redundancies become necessary.

Personally, if the freeloaders who are too **** to validate/remain valid get the big elbow im behind that, For too long its been a case of, youre **** so go prop up an office in the bowels of Swanwick and do buger all and, think about how great it is that you still get paid like a valid ATCO.
Other option is to knock the pay down by £55k for the job the are actually doing, if they are good enough to do that job of course!!!

Allegedly any redundancies will be vouluntary - to start with anyway. I doubt that desk bound ATCO's without a current validation will be responding -unless they are old enough to make it worth their while. ATSA/T&S/Engineers over 55 may be tempted though. I have heard that ALL ATCO's with a validation will be forced, kicking and screaming no doubt, to actually be an air traffic controller full time, and earn the pay! I pray that its so! :ok: :D:D:D:D:E

Minesapint - with you on that, about time too!

does that mean part time ATCO's being made to work full time? Also I heard ,they are looking for 40 ATCO's and 40 ATSA for VOLUNTARY REDUNDENCIES at Swanwick, presumably non operational ones.