AngeleTor:

But weren't your 1999 working conditions not equally tailor-suited, you know, the one which AENA tried time and time again to re-negotiate with your union?

That is not entirely true. The decree establishing those 1,670 hours was already approved in February of this year. What really happened is that Spanish ATCO's interpreted some aspects of it differently, particularly regarding how to calculate total worked hours and overtime. As a result of that, UCSA union announced on November 26 that Galicia airspace had to be closed because workers had ran out of hours and that such situations would spread to the rest of Spain in December.

That is why on December the 3rd the government issued another decree clarifying the working time and overtime issues. You can therefore not somehow claim that it all caught you by surprise.

Bull****! Plain and simple.

The only difference is that now you have to get a medical examination by AENA when you report sick or want to leave your job feeling sick. The reason is that many of you, before the massive walkout of a few days back, had on many occasions already used the medical condition excuse and no one longer buys it.

Given the fact that the former working conditions agreement dates from 1999 and that on multiple occasions since then government/AENA has tried to re-negotiate it, I don't understand how you can say that just the past 10 months have been bad. So what were you doing prior to those 10 months then? Did you guys never go on a real strike before those 10 months? I think you did, always around the time when AENA tried to re-negotiate with you. Imagine how 'harassed' passengers felt every single time you guys had a strike or threatened to go on strike. Get real!

Sure, but you guys thought you had them 'by their balls' because your silly actions continued while UCSA was re-negotiating with AENA. And for some reasons your strikes were always around either festivities or summer holidays. What a coincidence!

You're an ATCO, you're supposed to be able to think ahead. Honestly, if you were totally unable to foresee that the government would issue another decree to clarify the overtime hour issue, of which your union days earlier had said it would affect airspace over the whole of Spain in the month of December, just because you all interpreted the February decree differently then the government, then you must be extremely naive.

So your decision to leave was not directly neither workload- nor safety related but exclusively a matter of an issue with your management then? I dunno but wouldn't it have been better to finish your shift first and not get distracted by other issues? Very unprofessional, if you ask me.

You bloody well should be!

Utter nonsense.

What happened is that your union leaders were meeting in a hotel near Barajas Airport, in a conference room since 1300 hours, waiting for the government decree to be approved. When that eventually happened, they very likely informed the ATCO's still on their shifts which then did the walkout. Several hours later, a journalist reported he had seen about a 100 ATCO's at that hotel. At that time, there were still thousands of stranded passengers and the news of your union's cozy meeting spread rapidly. Eventually, the police was ordered to identify all those present at that meeting (ie, those that had called in sick). While the police were there, they also protected many of the ATCO's from being lynched by stranded passengers who had gone from the terminal to the hotel.

Face it, for many years you guys have been in a monopoly position and a very well paid one. Not only were you able to set the rules, you also managed the shifts and you handsomely collected very generous overtime pay, which included all the extras usually left out of it. Every single time government/AENA tried to negotiate with you, you'd start with threads of strikes, usually around June/July.

And then came the economic crisis which hit all in this country very hard! But you all acted as if the crisis had somehow nothing to do with you. The government needed to take drastic measures. The writing was on the wall. But you were apparently too busy watching your screens doing overtime that you failed to see it. You thought you could keep bullying AENA and passengers during 2010 with your strike threads and sudden leaves for medical reasons which surprise, surprise, always happened when AENA had started a new round of talks with your union. 'No, the crisis is for normal people, not for us' you must have thought.

You lot committed collective suicide last Friday and now you come here asking for pity. Perhaps you should have visited these boards much earlier and see what other professionals actually thought of you and the quality of your work. It could perhaps have saved you a lot of embarrassment.

The above notwithstanding, I do wish you good luck and, above all, wisdom.

Old Fokker

Who are you exactly? You seem to portray yourself as a working pilot.
You seem to have a lot of information that appears to be gleened from media and government sources. Have you thought of a career in PR for AENA or the Spanish government, or are you already in that role?

Old Fokker,

Our working conditions, of course, are the best that we could NEGOTIATE with the company, isn't that the point of every negotiation??

The hours accounting in the last decree is unbelievable, and of course that I can get sick, but the days it takes me to recover will be returned to the company when they feel it fits them. The same applies if I need two days for a funeral, or 4 days if my son gets ill, I will take them (may the service needs allows it, as it says in every paragraph).

What you call strikes during this summer, last Holy Week or 2009 Christmas, I call them understaffing to create chaos to point us as cruel people enjoying to screw people holidays. Why would we drag people's attention to the fact that 2009's Christmas would be 'complicated' the least, in 2009 October??? In spain we are told by the mass media that we 'menace', but we were forecasting understaffing, but AENA didn't corrected it to force chaos, and the union pages show it with dates.

Closing the airspace this friday has been a government master maneuver, I must recognize. We've been pointing out the problem with hours accounting from the summer, and it's easy to prove too, just get to www.usca.es and take a look. So if they know the problem since summer, the partial LECG shutdowns began two weeks ago, but that problem will not worsen until the end of this week, why the government publish the decree that friday instead of the week before, or the week after???? Because they wanted chaos, millions of angry passenger shouting for our blood, and clapping when we get militarized and menaced. By the way, along with our decree, our weak government also approved in the same act several other decrees, where they stop giving a 460€ aid to long-term unemployed, or declare to modify the maximum working age from 65 to 67 (remember France???), all of them VERY unpopular measures, but nobody has said a word about it, I'm sure that the people don't even know it. So, we were set a trap, and we bite the cheese like hungry mice...
You can bet that we were sick, up to the point to stop working in the most orderly way it could be arranged to minimize safety risks. We aren't better right now, we are WORSE than then, but may I dare to not follow orders (remember I've been militarized) and I should better be dying so it can be perfectly measured with medical parameters. AENA can assess our medical physical condition, but there are no psychiatric nor psychologic assessment, the main component in our job, and we are taken as liars before opening our mouths. I've seen not only women breaking down and crying, but big guys in nervous crisis going to the hospital in ambulances under sedation. If you feel safe flying with ATCOs in those conditions, you're so brave or a kamikaze.

We were told friday morning about the decree, we received a leaked copy late that morning, and everyone not working met in a hotel nearby. Our union leaders received an official copy from the company management at 13:00 approx. and went to the media to ask for our cooperation and not to do any 'madness'... Obviously they got too late, the damage was already done...

You say I lay, I say I don't. Up to the reader to decide between both versions, or even better, read more versions and histories and make your own mind.

Kind regards and don't fly without TCAS, my friends.

max1, you hit the nail my friend :D

My english skills won't allow me to say it so clearly and politely.

Thanks my friend, for your comprehension.

Best regards

Old Fokker

"
Face it, for many years you guys have been in a monopoly position and a very well paid one. Not only were you able to set the rules, you also managed the shifts and you handsomely collected very generous overtime pay, which included all the extras usually left out of it. Every single time government/AENA tried to negotiate with you, you'd start with threads of strikes, usually around June/July.
"

What is wrong with that? I would call it good brinksmanship myself. The opposite of it is pay to control.

The notion that the guardia civil were not "polite" is one I can easily believe, they deal with shouting football fans with horse and baton ( beating football fans is a sport to them ) and would have not problem in getting a little "rough." .. This was all planned and sadly the controllers have fallen into the trap but I can understand how its happened entirely. While I understand the need for public sector reform in Spain , I do not for one minute tolerate the way it is being done , its Draconian and voices are emerging that its illegal. Zapaterro did not go to the Iberamerica conference because he " knew " this was coming. I dont think it takes a whole lot of latitude to understand or read that there has been a whole lot of pressure leading up to this moment. Disgusting. As an expat I find this country very strange. A friend of mine who works for the state was inconvenienced on Friday by the strike , I said to him, is your job really " important " ... will your " contract " be honoured .. what if it is you next..what if the people who make the rules dont play by the rules.. after he started to think about it he changed his tune. I think that is being very missed in all of this although Elmundo today had the courage to question whether what was being done is legal or ethiccal. Sadly though Rahoy is an equally large muppet and this is only the beginning.

Why this thread has been moved, once the Spanish ATC has become militar?

This is, maybe, not to important, to be in the principal, where this thread has been placed, due that directs where not issued?

Something is smelling quite bad around here...

Well it appears that the thread has been transfered into this one which make the discussion completely unintelligible in some parts. The reason? I can't find one.
Strange thing indeed...

by the way good luck dear southern colleagues!
http://www.sncta.fr/fic_bdd/magazine...resseSNCTA.pdf
http://www.sncta.fr/fic_bdd/magazine...61_CDA_601.pdf
http://www.icna.fr/publication/bn_06..._precipice.pdf

Nock

Old Fokker

What is your opinion of AENA management?
I have not been online for a few days and so was able to read through the last 200 odd posts in one sitting, I am interested on your take of what you believe has been going on, and why?
What has happened in the last few days has its genesis in the last 11 years, rather than the last few days. Why would a government/ANSP put out this latest Royal Decree when they did, why not wait until after this important public holiday period?
There is a huge whiff of Catch 22 here. To enlighten those unfamiliar, it is a book set in WW2 by Joseph Hellier . The basic premise was that the CO set a target number of missions to be flown before being repatriated, as the target was about to be reached the number was increased. This led to a dysfunctional group who had a damned if you do, damned if you don't attitude.
Really not conducive to an ANSP.

AngeleToR, months ago I wrote on this forum that the hostage of passengers and airlines is not the right technique to get what you want. If you guys could have only be smart enough to understand that to put pressure on your government you had to get support from the public. Politicians don't listen to you unless they are afraid of loosing votes. The only thing you have reached with your action now is that the last ones who supported you have turned their backs on you and the government have gained lots of votes over the weekend. Although I understand the situation you are going through is very severe and should not be accepted by anyone but since 1,5 years the only thing you ATCO's have done is behaving like arrogant, overpaid childeren by playing games with the lives of millions of people and making our lives as pilots as misserable as possible. To quote one of your colleagues not so long ago in this topic 'I don't care about the lives of passengers or pilots' end quote. Now you have put yourself in a situation where you clearly cannot handle it alone and start crying for the support of pilots, airlines and passengers which you have spit on for years. It's just another sad day for Spanish tourism and given the state the economy is in in your country a very stupid act on your behalf. Good luck though and I sincerely hope you all get your lives back soon although some of you don't care about ours....

Uniform is pretty much on the ball. We haven't seen the end of this quite yet.

A few more thoughts...
 

To put things into perspective, I'm of Spanish nationality, and spent a few years in the UK studying, including a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. While I was there, I also got my Private Pilot's License, and even did some supervised practice at a small airfield's control tower as part of a work experience program. My level of English is native, also in the aviation/aeronautics field.

When I came back to Spain, I looked into becoming an ATCO, and talked to a cousin's then-boyfriend, a military controller. His point was very clear and straight: unless I "knew" someone inside the ATC system, I stood no chance, as the union controlled the admissions process and could filter and reject at will.

This tied closely with what I had been told by the son of a fleet commander at Iberia who was doing the degree with me (who knew he would get 'plugged in' as soon as he returned into a nice job in the aeronautical industry) - that in the ATC sector you needed a 'godfather' to get you through the door, otherwise you'd be wasting your time.

I can imagine that maybe some people do study and make the grade on their own, but the odds seemed to be stacked against so much, it wasn't worth the attempt. With that, I was left listening to ATCOs with barely good enough English talking to aircraft, and myself giving aeronautical English lessons to student pilots to complement my salary.

Last night, I was reading through the 1999 agreement between the USCA, the ATCO union, and AENA, the employer. In short:

1. The ATCO agreement has complete independence from all other AENA workers, which is completely against the norm in Spain, where there is one agreement for all workers at a company.

2. Under "very serious faults" in Article 11, is listed:

"1.2 Insubordination, individual or collective"
and
"1.6 Abandoning the service, understood as leaving the assigned mission, causing serious prejudice to persons or things."

One of the consequences of these actions can be "Despido", or firing. I don't know how many controllers left with justification, but it doesn't appear to be many - over 400 disciplinary actions have been started by AENA.

3. ATCOs have three years of 'voluntary leave' in order to take care of a child, when all workers in Spain are given four to six months. This time is taken into account when computing salaries as if it had been worked.

4. There is a 'permanent commission' made up of AENA and USCA personnel, which is who decides on many aspects of the agreement such as assignment of working hours, shifts, holidays, leaves, training and so on. Thus, it is not the employer who decides who to hire or how to train people, but it must count with the approval of the union.

5. The agreement automatically renews, so all the union has to do to keep it active is force AENA to stop negotiating a new and revised agreement.

It is certainly odd that so many ATCOs suddenly left their post after the government published the new decree clarifying the working hours issue. It is also curious that the government had also decided to privatize up to 49% of AENA, which would no doubt put an end to the union's reign over their own workspace.

Let's apply a simple principle, Occam's Razor, which states:

"The simplest explanation is more likely the correct one".

We have on one hand a strong union, with 99% of workers affiliated to it, in a sector of critical strategic importance to a nation, and capable of inflicting huge losses. These workers, while working many hours a year, earn an average of 330.000€ a year. Some make over 600.000€, and a few are close to 1 million Euros a year. They claim to be overworked and overstressed, and they periodically setup hidden strikes (all of you who are pilots know this, being denied direct routes, shortcuts, made wait for ages at the threshold while other aircraft land one every few minutes, all aircraft suddenly taking on the "heavy" qualification...). These strikes take place at the time when negotiations with their employer take place, and always at the start and/or during busy holiday periods.

On the other hand, we have a government that is paying 2400 controllers an average salary of 330.000€ a year (that is 792 million Euros a year!) through its public company AENA. This government is, in theory, in charge of recruiting and training new ATCOs. Let's say it decided to pay 100.000€ per year as a maximum, which is the maximum wage for UK ATCOs, a country with much higher living costs. Now, it could afford to hire 7900 controllers. This would be a 3.3x increase, and thus would relax current ATCOs who could live nice, stress-less lives with fewer working hours.

Apply Occam's razor to the above, and tell me, leaving politics aside, what makes more sense. That the government doesn't want to hire more controllers but keep paying huge sums to keep a bunch of them on the brink of nervous breakdown and on the verge of hidden strikes on a periodic basis, or that the controllers are earning such huge sums that they don't want more people hired, as it would make them lose money and power?

Let me explain to all of you, read carefully and think why

I´m following very close this matter, although we are all sticking to the controller matter in this case the real problem is why did goverment issued a "Real Decreto" on Friday. Let me resume on "THIS IS ANOTHER POLITICAL DISTRACTION MANEUVER FROM THE SOCIALISTS".

Goverment knew that this was going to happen weeks in advance but they were going to use this situation on his own benefit.

On friday, among others, where approved by "Real Decreto" some important laws that will affect directly the spanish economy and the way of life os spanish society. These laws where the reduction and freezing of the spanish pension scheme affecting 14.000.000 people, the elimination of the unemployment finnancial aid on february for 2.000.000 unemployed spanish and most important, increasin the price on fuels and tobaccos, the privatation of the 2 most important airports in Spain, Madrid and Barcelona, and privatation of the Spanish Lottery.

Ok, last one was the "Real decreto" affecting ATCO´s.

Knowing that ATCO´s will respond to this as they did, and they are now, the focus of the media and the spanish population would not focus on the real problem, the spanish economy. Furthermore, the most import issue is that Zapatero and his goverment should resign and call for new elections but issuing and State of Alarm, which now they want to prorrogate 2 months, the rest of the political parties now can´t disolve the goverment. But, there is more. There are municipal elections in April-May next year, under constitution you need 3 months separation between elections so you can´t call for national elections so you can´t disolve the parlament

And the most important, if Zapatero wants to keep his salary for his all life paid by the spanish he must be on the goverment for 7 years, and when is that? Correct, April-May 2011!!!!!


Now think... you guys out from Spain and not knowing the issues on the country don´t know about this but the last 4 years have always been the same, everytime there was an important matter to solve Zapatero would come with some distraction maneuver.

This thread is rapidly going nowhere with people popping up, on both sides, with almost zero background on PPRuNe, purporting to be the only ones with the definitive point of view.

As these are anonymous forums the origins of the contributions may be opposite to what may be apparent. In fact the press may use it, or the unscrupulous, or sciolists*, to elicit certain reactions.

*"sciolist"... Noun, archaic. "a person who pretends to be knowledgeable and well informed".


In R&N it would have been closed several pages back; maybe time for the Mods to step in?

I never realized that to participate in certain threads in a forum - any forum - it was a pre-requisite to have "background", not in the topic, but as a forum user. It seems obvious that a controversial topic will bring new users to a forum.

Your position is wrong, even as the thread may indeed be spiraling into a flat spin, it doesn't mean that people, some who may be even more knowledgeable than you, cannot contribute.

I'm not talking about myself, as I'm neither ATCO nor full-time pilot, but I happen to live close to a major control center, during one of the worst crisis the Spanish ATC system has experienced, and I happened to listen to the 'action' with my own ears, so I'm probably better qualified than others to shed some light into the topic, regardless of their forum background.

In any case, I mostly agree with you in that the subject has been well trodden, and the thread could be closed already.

Flameproof, here in Ocana ( LEOC) there is the son of a farmer from Badajoz with no "connections" who spent years studying for the entrance exams and was accepted. 100k at the height of ones career as an air traffic controller, cant imagine for the pressure its a fitting salary. And yes Transilvana, I agree that for some time the controllers have been attempting to negotiate with people who did not want things resolved.

Yes, please note that I said:

but a cynic could say you provide the exception that confirms the rule. If there are no buddies to 'plug in', or there are places left when they have been, others can get in too of course. What I said is that the risk of wasting years of study and preparation were too high.

Can anyone tell me in (very) simple language (preferably English) what this dispute is really about?

I can't believe that anyone in a profession such as air traffic go one strike en masse unless something is seriously wrong!

So what is it that's the problem?

In addition to the detailed reply from Old Fokker:

First of all FYI, it's called a "state of alert", an alarm status having an entirely different meaning.

Secondly, you are completely wrong. I suggest you go and read up on your own laws (which you were supposedly examined on, as a member of the civil service). A few pages back on this thread I gave a fairly detailed analysis of the legal grounding of the situation.

Cry me a river, baby. :{ :{ :cool:

Lon,

I am very disappointed that you wrote this. You're not liking what you're reading, therefore it shouldn't be here? As has been said before, what matters is the value of the information provided in its own right, not who's supplying it. With caveats, I grant you, but this thread so far seems to have a fairly decent S/N ratio compared to many on Rumours and News, IMHO.

Bob,

this is probably as good a summary as you're going to get, from an insider's point of view (kindly translated by Old Fokker):

http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/416...ml#post6104455