Octuber 10th: 14.000 ATCO´s called for a pan-European action day!!
 

Hello, fellow ATCO´s:

Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination (ATCEUC) calls its 14.000 members of all EC to an industrial action on Octuber 10th.

More at:

http://www.atceuc.org/upload/ATC-EUC...ss-release.pdf

Dió!

It'll only happen in the south of europe. Spanish and greeks possibly a few italians will strike for anything to protect their highly paid under worked positions.

And they wonder why their countries are being bailed out...

Link seems to have disappeared.

@Lon More: the link works fine for me, it downloads a .pdf file. Anyway, more info at:

atceuc.org - Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination

BTW, not a word about $alarie$ in all the call ...

Thanks, took a long while to download - probably busy.


.... but there's always someone who won't let that get in the way of a bit of ATC bashing.

Will U.K. ATCOs be involved?

Can´t agree more!


I don´t see them in the ATCEUC members list ...

atceuc.org - Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination

... but, who knows!!

I doubt it very much.
In a number of countries mentioned there is more than one union active so it's possible the result will be patchy

I'm sure we'll get some postcards together again :ugh:

Thanks to Maggie there is little we can do with regards direct action in the UK.


To be lawful, industrial action must:

be a dispute between workers and their employer relating to terms and conditions of employment, sharing out work, discipline, or union issues

not involve 'secondary action' or action taken by the employees of an employer who is not involved in the dispute

not involve unlawful picketing

follow a secret ballot, for which there is a legally-required procedure and timescale.

At the moment this is action over a political decision and as such would be illegal in the UK and would leave the Union open to legal action.

Sad, very sad. UK ATCOs have only gone on strike once and that was a waste of time and nothing to do with ATC.

IIRC UK ATCAs went on strike back in the 1970s and many ATCOs did everything in heir power to sabotage it.

The strike action taken in the early 1970s was everything to do with ATCOs. The reason union members went on strike was that that method of determining their salaries was scrapped by the Thatcher government despite having give assurances prior to the general election that the had no plans to interfere with the pay bargaining formula. I disagree with the assertion that the majority of ATCOs did not strike, some certainly did not and I have a lot of sympathy for those approaching retirement age who felt their pensions may have been affected, but all in all the action was well supported by union members.:ugh:

I seem to recall that the action was in support of government scientists, called by IPCS. However, my brain is knackered so I could be wrong.

We were all part of the same pay determination process and I can assure you I would not have gone on strike if I had not been directly affected; I found the whole process deeply unpleasant.

The situation a few hours ago:

Definitely on strike:

Germany
France
Spain
Portugal
Italy
Balkan countries

Almost certainly on strike:

Belgium/NL/Luxembourg in the upper air space

Possibly on strike:

Belgium lower airspace

Definitely not on strike:

UK

Unknown:

Scandinavia

Norway and Denmark will not participate by going on strike. So guessing Sweden won't neither. But there will be some kind of "acknowledgment", at least according to the norwegian atc association.

Does anyone what time the strike is due to start, is it going to be midnight or later?

By a strange coincidence I happen to be travelling on the 14th. Booked ages ago.

As a retired controller, after a 35 year career, I can relate to legitimate grievances (management was and always will be peopled by those that couldn't control) and I was employed during strike action but again by a strange coincidence I was always on days off when strike action took place. What I did notice, as a result of strike action, was that those who struck generally didn't achieve whatever it was that they went on strike for, apart from inconveniencing the general public and only ended up losing a days pay.

As I understand it the latest "call to strike" it is to protest against the introduction of SESAR. So, who initiated this? The French? The Spanish? The Greeks? The British? And what do they hope to achieve? An improvement in working conditions? A better salary? Better equipment? No, it appears to be the status quo?

To achieve that just go to work and watch Management try to implement SESAR and save a days pay. Eurocontrol was supposed to be the forerunner of SESAR and how many years has this been going now and how many Euro countries does it control?

I'm not saying it's not a good idea but are the present Managements capable enough to pull it off? History seems to say not. So, why waste a days pay, just sit back and wait for Management to negotiate with politicians (yawn, check watch, yawn, check calendar, yawn, check pension, yawn, retire. Yawn, P.S. Is SESAR implemented yet?).

On the beach

P.S. I'm on a ferry on the 14th! :E

On the beach:

May I be so bold as to say that you seem to have very little / zero understanding of what the proposed EU regs actually entail and would mean for ANSPs across Europe.

Im not going to sit here and type it all out, it would take too long - but just to scratch the surface it would mean huge (and damaging) job losses across Europe, the removal of in house engineering support to the live systems, year on year pay reductions - whilst at the same time working to a law that dictates a 5 (or 10, I forget) fold increase in 'safety', whilst dealing with a predicted doubling of traffic by the mid 2020s.

Normally bills passed through the Euro parliament are subject to lengthy consultation processes, all of which have been disregarded so that the bill can be pushed through before the next elections.

Its absolute drivel, dangerous mindless drivel, written by imbeciles with personal agendas that have no place within a safety critical public service.

Management dont get a say, because if the EU have their way itll be law.

If indeed you are an ex-ATCO I find it a bit of a shame you posted what you have.

If the ATCEUC calls for their 1st unilateral strike in >10yrs, and Maastricht UAC (as an example) are willing to strike for what will likely be the 1st time in 22yrs, do you not think it might be a slightly serious issue?

I could go on all day, but you really need to do your own reading.

PS. The action day is on the 10th, not the 14th.

BeT, since 9th June, you seem to have change your mind... never bad... "One point" !... ;)

...but again, penalize users is no more the appropriate answer, the final and appropriate answer lies elsewhere...

@saintex2002

^^^

I dont understand your post - sorry.

If its in regards to French controllers continually going on strike - then I stand by my opinion.

Im afraid that French ATC strikes so often, that in isolation not many people give it too much attention any more.

Just to clarify. The strike is about SES, specifically SES2+ not SESAR
SES - Single European Sky Regulations
SESAR - Single European Sky ATM Research (connected but not the main issue).

Massive ATC strike action planned in October | Air Traffic Management | Air Traffic Management - ATM and CMS Industry online, the latest air traffic control industry, CAA, ANSP, SESAR and NEXTGEN news, events, supplier directory and magazine

*sigh* Flying Manchester > Osaka via Helsinki on the 11th. Let's hope this doesn't have too much of a knock-on effect. :uhoh:

ATCEUC Position Paper, much too long to cut and paste.

Tumtiddle probably no direct effect initially though the route will be busier and inevitably Flow Rates applied.

EU ATC REFORM
 

A quote from Reasons Foundation;

Europe's Single Sky in Big Trouble
From the outset, the idea of creating a Single European Sky for air traffic management has entailed a basic contradiction. A key goal, in addition to modernization of technologies and procedures (a la NextGen in this country) is to increase the efficiency or productivity of European ATC provision to U.S. levels. Given that Europe has 40-odd ANSPs (compared to our one), about 17,000 controllers compared to our 15,000, and 64 en-route centers compared to our 20--but only 60% as many flights--achieving this goal would mean doubling IFR flights per controller.

"Safe, Orderly, and Expeditious". :ok:

Link to the rest of the news letter:Reason Foundation - Air Traffic Control Newsletter #106

The US - EU comparison is deeply, deeply flawed, uses massaged or plain wrong figures and is generally just a massive load of tripe.

http://thumbsnap.com/s/5UJAAYBQ.jpg|http://thumbsnap.com/5UJAAYBQ

As usual with Europe we in the UK will roll over, do as we are told and take whatever crap the di ck wads in Brussels want to throw at as.

The Uk response? Make a load of ATCOs redundant, reduce our route charges and toe the line.

What would happen if we simply said 'no, don't like our charges fly across the Atlantic another way'. We are never going to learn to stand up for ourselves and it's going to slowly finish us (the UK) off

Is the UK making a load of ATCOs redundant? Must have missed that.....

post 10 from the closure of ScATCC thread.

confused atco,

Voluntary redundancy is very different from 'making a load of ATCOs redundant'.

UK airspace ?open for business? despite threat of strikes | NATS

So british ATCOs will work along with NATS to reduce the impact of the strike of their fellow ATCOs across the continent. Ok. Understood.

Best regards.

Anyway, the protest is not going to take place. ATCEUC just called off the strike.

How can valid ATCOs be considered redundant (voluntary or otherwise) when so much overtime is required and recruitment continues. Surely this does not come under any normal definition of redundancy.

How about when they are at the top of the payscale and the bean counters think 'why should we pay them all this money when a new recruit is cheaper'?

And according to the ATCEUC they have indeed posponed the strike but it says for details see the Press Release about the Malta Meeting which try as I might I can't find.
Can some kind soul please provide a link.

Edit: The Press Release has now appeared on their website
atceuc.org - Air Traffic Controllers European Unions Coordination

Basically it revolves around "the EC is now willing to listen"

Looks like this is back on after talks broke down

Threat of flight chaos for passengers as Europe's air traffic controllers plan strike | Mail Online


German air traffic controllers to strike on Jan 29 | Reuters

Prospect best get the print order for postcards in pronto!

I'm already drafting a strongly worded letter to my local MP...