Loxley,

I see you haven't responded to my post. Maybe because there is no argument against it?

I'll recap for you.

NSL does not need to be fattened up for a sell of, though a cheaper pension scheme does indeed help this.

All NATS has to do (and if Barron wants to run it properly as a business, he would do), is to walk away from loss making contracts when they expire. It would have nothing to do with selling NSL, and everything to do with making it more profitable for NATS as a whole.

It's not a course of action I would support, but its a feasible one.

Don't expect a huge "For Sale" banner to sell off NSL. As for evidence, its all there to see. First step was station grading to depress salary levels as a long term goal. Training for Aerodromes OR Area to prevent operational staff mobility back to the area side........you have evidence aplenty that management cross over the area-aerodrome bridge with amazing regularity in both directions....when the sell-off occurs they will be across to the safe side en masse. The current Pensions issue.
Remember the descriptive phrase "One NATS Two Businesses"......hardly competent management to have two complete sets of management running in parallel..........UNLESS!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is the nature of the evidence that you require?

I did ask this more than a month ago, and nobody seemed to give an answer.....why would NATS give up the one arm of their business that is able to fully go after profit, instead of being constrained by economic regulation?

Because to get the profit, they would have to tender at prices the host airports would not be willing to pay??

I'm against NATS selling off any part of NSL - I have argued long and hard that to be a 'world leader in ATM' we need the experience of doing the job at the coal face, but until certain contracted airports start making NSL money, why would a supposedly shrewd businessman keep them in his companies profolio?

Potential to make profit is all very well, what with cost pass through etc, but until you realise that potential, it counts for naught.

As the debate and vote approach their climax, NATS watchers gather outside the building and a breathless hush descends. Will it be white or black smoke? Will Barron become pope or made into soap on a rope? What will the photo of the day be if the vote is no? If there is a picket outside CTC, will they be allowed to have cups of latte sent out?

These critical questions and more await an answer





Sorry chaps but in view of all the acrimony I thought a little more light hearted consideration was needed. Plus I can now laugh because I've just confirmed I don't have to fly out this side of Christmas. Was always worried that you chaps and ladies would go on strike and I'd be stranded

Wow just where is a massive oil company going to get the money to make up the deficit?

The Shell pension scheme deficit is caused by th eeconomic downturn - a cyclical event which will be reversed within a couple of years.

Pension funds are long term investments - not short term... headlines such as the one linked to by Mr Jones are nothing but scaremongering and sensationalist.

I seem to recall that at the beginning of the pensions brief, we were told specifically that the current financial climate was not an issue to the long term state of the fund

Don't often find myself agreeing with anotherthing on this thread but he's right. The current downturn is an issue but not the issue. UK pension law seems to be a bit more forgiving than Dutch law and allows much more time for deficits to be made up. In addition the Pensions Regulator has issued guidance to Trustees not to panic so provided the deficit is purely as a result of the stockmarket downturn it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The collective deficit of the UK's final salary pension schemes has shot up by 40% in the past month. :eek:

BBC NEWS | Business | Pension scheme deficits balloon



Taxpayer should stage £7 billion pension bail-out of Royal Mail, ministers told :eek:
The taxpayer should take on billions of pounds of pension liabilities from the Royal Mail to put it on a sound financial footing, ministers are being told.

Taxpayer should stage £7 billion pension bail-out of Royal Mail, ministers told - Telegraph

At my pension brief the question was raised as to what pay rise we could expect in Jan 2009, the 2 Prospect reps ASSURED us that the August 2008 RPI figure of 4.8% would be the minimum they would achieve, as the August RPI figure is always used to determine the following years pay rise, and it's always a rise of RPI + X% and never RPI - X%.
So what are we all worried about? Don't we trust the UNION?

The best advice is free, and here it is.......... Never trust anyone, except family and close friends :)

Well well looks like the Post Office won't be PPP'd like us I wonder why?
 

Achieve or ask for? There is a big difference and I can't believe any union rep would ever assure anyone in such a cast-iron way,especially with the state of the economy.

It is a rumour network though and so a good first attempt to stir things up by rumouroid.

I don't know whether anyone needs cheering up about the downturn in traffic, but the November figures from CRCO show a drop below the 2006 chargeable unit level (note that the NATS business plan is based on the 2008 forecast)!
Sorry about the layout - I haven't mastered tables.

______________2008________2008_______2007________2006
Month________Actual____Forecast_____Actual______Actual
January_____847,791____848,000_____809,012_____755,222
February____796,176____781,271_____745,409_____711,219
March_______883,698____893,728_____852,683_____815,448
April_______894,901____889,037_____848,254_____813,350
May_______1,000,043__1,015,682_____969,034_____930,439
June______1,037,769__1,028,366_____981,307_____936,613
July______1,057,834__1,109,075___1,058,196___1,002,247
August____1,053,242__1,085,350___1,035,402_____989,429
September___995,716__1,029,685_____982,556_____960,797
October_____948,894__1,007,898_____961,667_____928,974
November____762,647____861,784_____822,366_____787,718
December_______________857,829_____829,902_____794,154
TOTAL_______________11,407,705__10,895,789__10,425,611

Don't worry, Nav Charges are not paid in £sterling.......NATS are absolutely coining it at the moment......neck-deep in cash.

Well, nearly right!

Quote:

---

Basic unit rates are adjusted every month if the national currency of a Member State is not the euro. The monthly unit rate is recalculated by applying an exchange rate between the euro and the national currency. This exchange rate is the average of the ‘Closing Cross Rate’ calculated by Reuters based on the daily BID rate, for the preceding month.

---

NATS gains in route charge income when the pound is in constant decline (as the income in December,for example, will be based on the exchange rate in November), so there will be some benefit this year. However, a number of our suppliers (of goods and services) are paid in currencies other than sterling.

I wondered if anyone knows when the pension vote result will be published?

I believe all 3 unions should be able to publish results on or about 19th Dec

Update on traffic and income
 

Perhaps beneficial to NERL but of absolutely minimal benefit to NSL which derives its income from its airport customers with whom it has commercial contracts, most of whom are feeling the 'pinch' of a downturn in pax if not aircraft movements. :{

When asked at LACC this week what would happen if it was a NO vote, he pushed the pension changes through anyway resulting in area radar type chappies giving up their voluntary extra sectors they do above their contracts and for FREE and any extra duties as a result and just do what we are contracted to do...... Mister Barons answer was that he would SACK 'EM.....
Another fine example of how little he understands ops staff, their contracts and what actually goes on in the big cogs of the company that HE runs.
I applaud you sir.:D

If that is true then it sounds very much like he would like to take on the ATCOs.

So there is a Plan B after all.

Bring it on....I'd love to see how far he gets trying to sack ATCOs because they won't do AAVAs. It seems that he has forgotten that the "V" stands for "voluntary" and as such does NOT form part of our terms and conditions.
I cannot believe that the CEO of our company does not understand this...but since when has he given s*** about what goes on in the Ops room anyway?:ugh:

Oh, and his latest blog entry? Something along the lines of "Went into the Ops room but there wasn't much going on"....no nothing at all, apart from the safe, orderly and expeditious movement of aircraft. Sorry Paul, we don't have a Starbucks in the Ops room or didn't you realise that???

Perhaps Mr B should take a little history lesson about the Reagan,Patco,controller sackings in the States during the 80's.
Sounds like he has opened his mouth and let his belly rumble.Bit like Reagan.:)

I suspect that "goodwill" towards NATS will be lost irrespective of the ballot result. I dont think PB realises that NATS runs on goodwill and AAVA/overtime by operational staff. Perhaps his underlings have been economical with the truth at each unit :suspect:.

Merry XMAS, a Happy New Year , farewell :), and for the sake of beating a dead horse.........
Vote No http://www.mbworld.org/forums/images...deadhorse5.gif :E

Not being able to take them, I'm no expert on AAVAs.. but my hazy understanding is that you guys sign an agreement committing to a certain number of AAVA within a given period. Right? If so, they would have some ammunition for getting at those who chose to not fully match their end of that bargain. However, if you simply choose not to renew the agreement... nowt they can do about that.

Union ballots may be available by end of this week... but the official line is that the results will all be communicated "at the end of December" They may hold the union results back and announce them along with the Board's decisions following their very er... even-handed... consultation process.

the 3 (week)days in between Christmas and New Year is an ideal time to lay out some very unpopular news and hope it gets lost in the haze of festive excess.

Must also point out that NATS also runs on the goodwill and professionalism of many non-shift rostered staff who work well in excess of their contracted hours, week after week. Many of them receive no payment of any kind for this.

Yes, I agree. My mate up in Scottish reckons a lot of ATSA staff may get some bad news when they are told this month how many jobs there will be for them in the new centre :(. I hope he is wrong :sad:

Sorry, I realise office staff give their time for free also :ok:

Completely wrong I'm afraid. There is no requirement to do ANY AAVAs if you don't want to...they are voluntary and done on ad hoc basis. Maybe you are thinking of "additional attendance" days, of which there are 3 per year and are used to cover things like TRUCE training. These are compulsory, AAVAs are not....as said before, he does not have a leg to stand on threatening to sack people because they won't do AAVAs.

You're absolutely right... I checked the agreements anyway :ok:

Amendments to AAVA agreements in 2004 and 2006. My recollection was of the original version before this...

I'm sure some people wouldn't mind signing up to X amounts of AAVAs per year! Not now though.....

Mr777

Just a small point - in the original post that started off this latest talk of "Sack 'em", King Louis stated He wasn't meaning AAVA's but rather the fact that the majority of Area staff and a high percentage of the TMA(APP) staff do sectors/an extra airport over and above the Minumum Unit Requirement and that it would be an option for people to drop these sectors as they are done on a goodwill basis.

Similarly he stated that people might not volunteer to attend 'best practice' etc working groups/assist with projects etc as that is not a requirement of the contract.

Regardless - Mr Barron is still wrong in that he cannot just sack people who decide they no longer want to do things for no monetary compensation, i.e. people may just fulfill their contract.

Bear in mind (as has been mentioned before) it will be the watch management that decides which sector an ATCO would have to drop, based on the biggest need. This could see someone who does say TMA North and TMA East being told they have to drop North... which would then mean that they no longer held the Minimum Unit Requirement!!

They would then have to train on another sector to get them up to MUR. As it is their colleagues who would do the training and the exam, there would be no worry about failing to achieve the new MUR, so the job would be safe. Similarly, the management would not have a leg to stand on if they tried to sack someone who they had, by stipulating what sector to drop, made the ATCO fall below MUR.

Anyways, it's by the by - he cannot do it and if he tried would face a huge legal fight... I can't see NATS being too happy having to fork out money to an ATCO sacked under such manner - bearing in mind the compensation figures involved for loss of future earnings and pension of a Band 4 or band 5 ATCO.

However, it does bring forward the argument (talking purely TC now) that Minimum Unit Requirement should not be 'satisfied' by someone holding 2 non-core sectors... all TMA(Area) ATCOs should be made to do one of the core sectors (North, Midlands or South)... that is why we are a band 5 unit after all - based on the complexity/traffic levels of the core sectors.

However, that is a little bit of digression!!

Either way, I'm not sure if Mr Barron has been reliably informed of the impact on service delivery of ATCOS only working to MUR... The company would be shafted. However, unless everyone was to take this course of action (obviously for personal reasons otherwise it could be construed as industrial action), then it wouldn't have the same effect. It would mean though that those not willing to join in, would get more AAVA's!

I have a feeling that when push comes to shove, not many ATCOs would drop extra sectors etc - and therefore the minority that did, would be effectively shooting themselves in the foot!

And of course as has been mentioned, when we are talking about working to contract, we should not forget the fact that many of the 'office workers', Engineers, ATSAs etc put in huge amounts of extra effort and hours to make things run smoothly.
It may seem silly to an outsider to hear of someone based at CTC working 50 hour weeks to bring a project in on time, and not to get paid overtime for it, but it's no more silly than an ATCO doing extra sectors for free!!

NATS has relied for a long time on goodwill. I don't see that goodwill being totally withdrawn, but it might be witnessed less often as people decide that actually, they have worked hard enough that week and are going home etc.

As ever, you put it much better than I ever could!

I fear, however, that it could be all academic as the word on the street is that it's gonna be a "YES". Well this IS a rumour website after all......

Looks like AAVA/overtime will be limited in order to comply with new European legislation.

Max. 48 hour week :eek:. which would mean only one additional shift on days off. Two extra shifts per cycle at my unit is common place for the money grabbers :}

Maybe, maybe not:

From the BERR web site, Your guide to the Working Time Regulations:
and 8.5 hours for 8 days out of 10 only averages 47.6 hours per week by my calculation.

Are you sure :confused:

I remember the incident well.
Reagan won a massive victory. He sacked nearly 70% of striking controllers and brought about the disintegration of PATCO (the union)
Both the controllers and the union were well and truly trounced. Reagan came out of it looking like a strong and decisive leader not afraid to put the public through a little discomfort in order to break a deadlock situation. His popularity rose amongst America voters.

Flybywyre -

I think the point being made is that the ATC system in the US is still suffering as a result of Reagans actions.

The American ATC system is still a shambles - underfunded and understaffed, held together by the overworked staff... not the way ATC should be run

Reagan was also the President of the United States, the worlds biggest superpower. I know Barron likes to think he's Mr Big but he has not, to my knowledge, elevated himself to Ronnie's position in world politics. He will NOT just be able to sack 70% of the workforce and disband the Union because he feels like it.

Surely if anyone or any group has been threatened with the sack then NTUS would immediately ask for an explanation and pending that explanation it would be reasonable to expect Working Together to be suspended.