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.