All you can gauge from this thread is the views of the small number of people that post on it. That's a very small number compared to the total union membership.

There's been a good response to this thread, the sample size to membership ratio whilst not great is probably enough to give a valid prediction of the population as a whole.

.

I would suggest that you don't get around the units much...Vote No is gathering HUGE momentum with every day that passes. 5 weeks ago I'd have said the vote would be close...I'm not sure now.

AFFLECK,

Your local Union committee would have held a meeting to discuss how the delegates should be advised to vote, and at that meeting the watch reps would have put across the views of each watch.

At least that's what happens at LL.

GONZO

No such meeting at Scottish, but our union reps are very approachable and definitely pass on our views, I believe it was the Scottish reps who petitioned for the SDC so our views could be heard. It's a shame they couldn't get the support they needed, but I'd like to thank them for trying.

From a Prospect Branch Briefing dated July 2006. (It helps to have a tidy up once in a while!)..,,

The spectre of a potential sell off only brings into sharper focus the issue of pensions and the need for strong and effective trade union representation within NATS. I am aware that many of you will have been along to management briefings on this issue and it is important that you understand and support the position being taken
by the unions. Prospect held a pensions seminar on the 23 June led by
our pensions expert at Head Office, Fiona Draper, to ensure that key Prospect and PCS representatives were aware of the facts and understood our position.
The reality is that NATS pays a relatively low level of employers' contributions to the pension scheme, (12.2%), in contrast to organisations in other areas of the economy which have defined benefits pension schemes (including the civil service). The fact that the contribution rates by the employer have remained at relatively modest and affordable levels is a tribute to the careful stewardship of the pension scheme by the Trustees on your behalf.

The arguments put forward by the Unions are simple but not simplistic.
We believe that the pension scheme is:
♦viewed by members as a key term and condition of employment which assists NATS in the recruitment and retention of highly skilled and motivated
should not be seen by the employer as simply a burden.
♦the interests of existing and future beneficiaries of the scheme are best served and protected by the scheme remaining open to all.
♦some of the comparisons made to the position of pension schemes
elsewhere are not valid due to the careful and effective stewardship of the NATS scheme.
♦any discussions with regard to pensions should be evidence led and based on empirical fact.
♦pensions are a long-term investment and should be viewed as such.
It is important that members are aware of the fact that the unions are not 'burying our heads in the sand' with regard to this issue and that we are seeking to effectively promote what we believe is in the best long term interests of members in NATS. Pensions are a long term investment and viewed by members as effectively 'deferred wages'. The unions have not been seeking to avoid a dialogue with management on the issue of pensions, but our starting point is that we wish to ensure that the current scheme remains open to all and has a long-term sustainable future.

On the most recent professional advice we have had we believe that the current scheme is well funded and sustainable for the future.

The pension scheme is due for its triennial review at the end of this year. Given that the scheme was in surplus almost two and a half years ago and given improvements in terms of equities we would expect that the outcome will show the scheme to be in surplus again. Against that backdrop we believe it is precipitate and premature for the employer to seek to take forward any work with regard to the future of the scheme until the triennial valuation has taken place and the Trustees allowed to consider the outcome.
Pensions are a key issue which affect all Trade Union scheme members across NATS. We have made robust representations to the employer and have also raised the issue with the Secretary of State for Transport. We will also be raising the issue with the Regulator and Airline Stakeholders to ensure that they understand how seriously the unions consider this issue and the potential impact if a dispute arose.

Conclusion
Given the challenges we face on issues such as pensions and ownership - there never has been a more important time to be a union member. The more members we have and the more we work together, the more effective we can be on your behalf. I hope to be doing a tour of airports and centres over the coming months and look forward to the opportunity to meeting with you. If in the interim you should have any issues of concern - please raise them with your local representative.

Garry Graham National Secretary

..A lot of bones to pick out of that, 2 years on, my, how things have changed. Just makes me deeply suspicious.

Good news for me then :)

AFFLECK, surely your local union committee have regular meetings? It would have been discussed at the last one I would imagine.

GONZO

I'll look into it. I know they have union meetings between the reps, but not had a local member to rep meeting that I can remember. Info tends to be exchanged on an informal basis with your rep rather than through meetings, but seems to work well up here.
:)

I must have missed something at work then. I've only heard 2 people definitely voting no, and 1 of those freely admits he votes no on principle to everything, and doesn't seem to care, as 'it's only 1 vote so it doesn't matter".

NOT LONG NOW

Must vary a lot unit by unit, I'm yet to meet a person up at Scottish who openly is a yes voter, no shortage of vocal support for a no vote.

Airways B
 

Good stuff.....how soon we forget....or more accurately.....how conveniently the union chooses to forget. We are witness to the death of a union and its transformation into a management lapdog staff association. All the evidence is there, from the joint glossy brochure attack, emails, and joint union/management presentations through to the on-duty pprune thread monitors.
Two opposing sides, and what happens:- "Deloitte were engaged jointly by both management and the unions....." ...that says it all!!
Right now my union membership hangs by a thread......someone convince me that the subscription is money well spent.

The ONLY reason I'm still in the union is just in case something nasty happens.This is because we are required to work in Class G airspace,providing service to airliners taking shortcuts,when perfectly good CAS exists.I have seen too many close calls with the military.
As far as what the union has done.Well it has helped erode terms and conditions at the lower Band units,until half the tasks we do,we don't get paid for.This pension issue is just another beauty,and after 15 years of it they expect me to smile and say thank you so much for sh:mad:fting me again.I don't think so.:suspect:

Lots of Yes voters at CTC, or so I hear when sitting around Starbucks all day drinking lattes :} It would be interesting to see ballot stats per site rather than per branch.

RS

p.s Vote YES

The Union genuinely seem to think what they are doing is for the best, so I can't fault them too much for that (I'm sure many will disagree). However, from the briefing I attended, they indicated that they may not support us on taking further action in the case of a no vote.

If the vote form the membership is for a no vote, that stance is unacceptable from a Union who we pay for and should be there to support us.
:*

RADARSPOD

Which Union are the majority of people at CTC a part of, or are they from a mix of memberships?

I assume a varied mix. There is a large number of non-ops engineers at CTC following the closures of Spectrum House, West Drayton and Kemble street - a significant portion of the ATSS branch of Prospect. Very few ATCOs. The majority of non-Prospect union membership (MSGs, etc) I assume are in PCS.

RS

Just out of interest, what is the legal position of industrial action if not the union's way forward? Take a (likely) example that the vote is close and ever so slightly more on the NO side. Does the union have to go back and try to re-negotiate as was more than 50% against, or can they still state that union stance is to accept the deal, effectively meaning any industrial action is not lead by the recognised union bodies - is this action legal?

I'm only asking as quite a few on this thread see that as the way to go, but what if the ballot is so close the unions do not support that action?

RS

What is that :confused:

Makes no difference at all what the CTC ers are voting....although it comes as no surprise to me that they would vote yes and sell us down the river. If rumours are to be believed, Scottish and Manch will vote NO en masse, the airports I assume would vote NO to protect themselves from being sold and Swanwick is probably veering towards NO if anything. Happy days:)

It could make a HUGE difference depending on how the ballot is organised.

If it is done by branch, then the fact that just about every Prospect member ATCO says NO will only result in a NO result for that branch. The ATSS branch could have a completely different result, as could PCS (not just ATSAs in PCS).

So what would the NTUS do if they had big fat 99% NO from ATCO branch but YES from ATSS branch and PCS members? :confused:

Just keeping the debate going :E

RS

Mr 777

I think not all airports will be a No vote, the union seem to have done a job on mine, I would say about 50/50 at the mo.
They, that is the younger element seem to have been persuaded by the brief.
A history lesson of PPP has not been fully digested.

I am still a NO main reason being tied in for 15yrs on the cap.
Wonder how many people who tied their mortgage in for a long deal are happy with that now eh, see anything can happen sounds good at the time though I suppose.

As far as I know, if any of the following three .......ATCO, ATCE, or PCS return a majority no vote, then its a no vote for all members in those three groups

From Red Barron's blog today:

Thank you for your comments in which you raise a number of issues that I will try to deal with as follows.

As you can imagine, we have talked to the Government about what was said around the time of the PPP and the guarantees regarding the pension related to the Trust of a Promise. This guarantees that employees at that time would have continued membership of CAAPS, or the same benefits as if they had been in CAAPS. If the company is in financial distress then it says that we should use “best endeavours” to provide those benefits. Ian, if the company became insolvent, the Government would appoint an administrator whose role it would be to keep Air Traffic operating but also to refinance the organisation. It is highly unlikely that this would be achieved if the administrator kept in place the very vehicle that brought the company down in the first place, namely the pension scheme.

Whilst I was not around at the time, I can fully understand your frustration that the Government made a guarantee that they now appear to be reneging on. This is in fact not the case. The proposal still maintains your membership of the scheme so the Governments Trust of a promise is still in place. The amount and type of pensionable salary were always the employer’s decision and outside of the guarantee. What I know is that we are members of the best protected scheme in the UK, but unfortunately the protections cannot deal with the underlying cost which the company has to pick up. It is this cost that will in fact bring down the company together with the scheme and its protections if we do not do something about it.

In terms of your suggestion that investments will go up and down so why not wait, the answer is quite straightforward. We know that the underlying cost is going to be with us for years irrespective of what happens to the markets in the short to mid term and we have to deal with that threat now. I have been telling people on my roadshow that I am also a member of this scheme and in fact put my entire pension from my previous employment into CAAPS so, like you, I am worried about its future and desperate to protect it.

As the Chief Executive, my sole purpose is not to destroy the scheme, it is to maintain the health of the company which is in fact the only way we can protect our pension scheme.

Be in no doubt that if we had not generated profits in the last four years, which we have largely ploughed back into the refinancing of the company and the paying down of expensive loan notes (11%) set up after 9/11, then we would not be in the shape we are today to tackle both the threat of the pension scheme and the fall in revenues as a result of traffic downturn. The senior management of this company are also hard working and dedicated professionals who are as desperate to save this scheme as you are and the proposal that you have before you, which has taken 18 months to negotiate with the unions, is the best that either side can find to do just that.

With regard to the CP3 pass through, we have no guarantee that the regulator will allow existing pass through which I am sure you know only currently applies to those employees in the company before 1 January 2006 and it does not include the proportion of employees employed by NSL. We estimate that by 2010 almost 40% of our employees (not the employees themselves but the cost of them to the company) will not be covered by any potential pass through.

I am not sure about the scenario we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. I agree, we are certainly damned if we don’t, but capping pensionable pay at rpi +0.5% and starting a new scheme for new employees to protect a final salary scheme with only a 6% employee contribution would not, I imagine, for most people in the country be viewed as being damned.
,
Neither the management nor trade unions want to be in this place, but we all recognise that the best way we can protect our scheme is to make the changes we have proposed. This is why, for the sake of all of our pensions, we hope that you will support the joint proposals.

The Cap is just one issue and people seem to be getting side tracked by it.

Closing the pension scheme to new entrants is THE BIG ISSUE. Close the scheme and it will wither and die.

Having said that, if the proposal goes ahead, then I personally don't consider what we will have left as a Defined Benefit Scheme, as the percentage of final salary will depend on the outcome of every pay rise for the next 15 years. Every fraction of % pay rise above RPI+0.5% will further degrade the ratio of the scheme. People with a lot of years to go will quite possibly find themselves retiring on 50% final salary or less :eek:

That leaves a lot to chance and isn't a very solid definition, as far as I am concerned.

Looks like the grooming has now started, one last final push from the CEO to get this deal through so he can set us up for a sell off.
If this goes through, our new owners will have us on a 50% final salary pension scheme as opposed to the 2/3 we have now.

How arrogant !

Its the financial incompetence of him and his cronies that are the vehicle that is bringing the company down :mad: He is only concerned about his big fat pay off.
How would an administrator keep NATS operating if ATC staff went on strike because their pensions were being :mad: screwed

As in my previous post

If NATS goes under,here we go again:ugh: HMG who own 49% will take over the rest and the Pension, otherwise we will go on strike! Remember NATS is crucial to the infrastrucure of UK security,safety,economy. NATS must continue to operate at full efficiency. The country would collapse with no aviation, no food, no tourism, no business!
I think any level headed individual would agree NATS can not "go under" if the private side fails, why do you think HMG has the major stake? Here we go again :ugh:UK SAFETY, ECONOMY, SECURITY.

That is why HMG retain the major share :ugh:


VOTE NO

Vote No

I don't think for one minute we are in this position because of financial incompetence - management want us to be in this position as having a cheaper-to-run pension scheme is in their interests (whether that be for sell off or to garner better profits is open for debate).
To that end, they have been very financially astute, taking money from the pot when it was in surplus, even though looking ahead, they could have forecast these problems.

Remember, the CAA section of CAAPS is doing very well, yet despite actuaries telling the CAA that they could pay reduced contributions, they have decide to maintain the underlying rate to ensure the viability of the scheme... a totally different attitude compared to that of NATS.

From Reds' Blog:If you know that, why has NATS acted in such a short term outlook when it decided to reduce its contributions? Why was the pensions problem not forecast prior to now (if you can make such a bold statment about knowing the future (above)), and why did NATS not act in a manner that the CAA has done to protect the pension?

Increased longevity etc is not something that has just sprung up over the past 5 years... SMART pensions are not a new concept.

NATS could have done more to protect the pension... what people have to ask themselves is why NATS did not, and do they trust NATS to protect the future proposed pension if it is voted in.

A 'YES' vote may well indicate to management that although we think more could have been done by them to protect the pension in the past, we are happy to let management rob the pension, then degrade our benefits.

If that's the message NATS receive, what will stop them in 5 years time coming back and saying they need to change the deal for the worst again?

The 15 year MOU is not worth the paper it will be written on... after all, the promises made at PPPAre being torn asunder because allegedly NATS is in trouble (though Red uses the fact that we are still in CAAPS to refute that the promise is being broken, and that the promise did not actually mention what the benefits would be... maybe true, but proof that we have been led down the garden path from the outset)

Something that can be used again in future years. This is the NATS that Red talks about (a nice bit of scaremongering), but NATS have in the very recent past made numerous claims about how well we are doing, have boasted about the improvement in our credit rating, have paid off loans early etc.

Finally, Red says - I think I am correct in saying Red received a nice big amount of money as compensation for having to leave his old pension scheme.

Also, I believe Red recently got a substantial pay rise... which will of course be fully pensionable (nice work to get that well-above RPI rise in before you push the cap through... nice manoeuvre Red)

And I also believe Red does not have too long to go to retirement... probably before any cap gives any real degradation on his pension.

I agree its not financial incompetence, its astute financial manoeuvering at the expense of our Pension scheme

Did you also read on his blog about the NSL watch manager he spoke to about pensions? He said that the NSL guy "like most people" just wanted the pension issue to go away. Actually Mr Barron, people just want you to go away I think.

Absolutely right. You just KNOW that there is no way he will come out of this NOT smelling of roses financially speaking. I console myself with the fact that the Chancellor has at least given him a bloody nose by hking his income tax up to 45%:)

Watch managers can't comment on NATS intranet or to the staff concerning Pensions. But its ok for Barron to spread rumours about watch managers to boost his propaganda machine !

Now come on, there must be some ATCOs in NATS that get hit by that new rate - there certainly aren't any engineers :}

If there are, I want a transfer to their unit!

"I console myself with the fact that the Chancellor has at least given him a bloody nose by hiking his income tax up to 45%"

45% rate doesn't come in until 2011 - Red Barron will be driving off into the sunset by then with his swag.

(Can't work out how to do quotes!) :bored:

In the words of James May..."Oh, cock!" :}

Me too with any luck !!! Providing the missus allows it :\

Minstack , click the
http://static.pprune.org/images/editor/quote.gif icon and paste your text that you have copied in the middle :ok:

Aren't the CAA still on 59ths?

Vote No - you mean like this? :bored:

That's an interesting question. Hopefully somebody who isn't boycotting the last few briefings can ask the Union reps. For industrial action to be official and enjoy the legal protection that goes with that label there must be a ballot for that action and the ballot must be called by the union. I've been able to find cases where unions wouldn't sanction action even though there was a positive vote (usually because the vote was too close) but not where the union wouldn't ballot for action in the first place.

CTC probably has a high proportion of non-members. The union-only briefing I attended probably lost about a third of those attending the open session. If you look at the early posts in the natsnet pensions area, you will see a lot of complaints about ineligibility to vote. Legally, the non-members' involvement ends with the 'consultation'. The bulk of the members will be Prospect ATSS and PCS. Both may have a different view to the ATCO's branch because they see more of the company than just the Ops Rooms.