Our union?.....thats right....would never happen.....dry powder.....everybody out or roll over and tickle our tummies.

I would have thought that there is an ethical dimension to this as well (agreeing to do additional responsibilities to allow the management to make colleagues redundant and make even more profit)

It isn't a new tactic. When home to duty payments were up for scrapping the ploy was that if there was a vote to agree to end the payments, every employee would receive a backhander.

Of course those who did not qualify for such payments were obviously going to vote 'yes' to scrapping, as they would receive money for nothing!

That's a bit rich coming from someone at a unit that cant manage to get itself a union representative.

Word on the street is that the new offer is a sigificant increase on the 2% offered previously....But one person's significant is another person's derisory.

If they have come back with a 3-3.5% offer, then I'll be voting NO to that (and hopefully 51% of others will too), and we can see how NATS stew without AAVA's this Summer.

I won't be voting yes to any pay offer less than 5%, and even then it depends on the strings attached.

I don’t know if the threat of fewer people being willing to work AAVAs will get us a proper pay offer but certainly talking doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere.

Maybe we need to look across the Channel for some guidance in effective negotiations.

The money is there, the company are making fantastic profits :D:D:D

So just on what basis would you consider a bonus appropriate in the operational world? Not having an incident, not filing an overload or no delays on your sector?

Think about it and you'll see how unsustainable it would be.

Just sh*ft the customer, that's how 'bankers' get their bonuses.
P.S. I didn't mean shift the customer. That's what ATCO's do.

Surely if a controller has an overload, those responsible for flow control, er, sorry, 'flow management' (ooh, no, it's now network management), would be held responsible.

Controller's fault for not seeing it coming and applying short term measures to protect himself. Bound to be. No blame culture mind you, so definitely no blame attached to flow, or management.

An overload is not necessarily related to traffic levels, monitor values, or whatever. Go and read the definition.

Why would it have to be narrowed down to such a level?

NATS has targets to meet, if it makes them company wide bonus. If it doesn't no bonus.

250 knots

And that should prevent me from having an opinion for what reason?

Bonuses are non-pensionable and non-consolidated. A nice little packet now might feel good, but not so clever when it comes to calculating your pension or redundancy.

We also went down this route with pay deals in the past, having lump sums tied to wishy-washy company-wide targets and it was generally agreed it was a disaster and we shouldn't go there again.

Be careful what you wish for.

I don't wish for a bonus as part of a pay deal, I was just pointing out that one needn't bore down too deep (as in, for example, to sector level) to see how any bonus might be calculated.

Jan Rpi 5.1% (+0.3%)

No issue with having an opinion-that's what this site is all about after all. :ok:

For comment please

From a reliable source.

I thought that at the last conference we passed 2 motions (it wasn't the curry), 51 and eighty something, which basically stated that if NATS attached any additional tasks for NSL controllers such as undertaking Met Tasks to any pay deal then we would immediately ballot for industrial action or words to that effect.

Whilst we have again knocked the offer back the majority of the union delegation, mainly band 4/5 atcos, allegedly found the offer on the table quite appealing even with the tasks attached. There was also allegedly more percentage pay on offer to band 4/5 atcos even though the majority would not be undertaking these tasks in NERL but who would have the capability of voting this through with a yes vote. Let's face it management aren't stupid.

Why are we even sitting down whilst we have all these strings attached?

If the union wants to keep any credibility or integrity that it may have, it needs to stick to it's own guidelines.

Draw a line in the dry powder now please and stop fa*nying about. :ugh:

No that would never happen. We are one NATS.:hmm:

2 'allegedleys' in one paragraph; not bad... not allegedly, a union rep at my band 5 unit reported back stating that the Union position was that the offer was unacceptable to all. Divide and conquer may well be a tactic they want to use, but lets not make it easy for them by posting comments based on 'alleged' events which will only serve to get peoples backs up.