Weekly Update for January 5, 2001
Sisters and brothers...
What a week! By far the one of the busier
ones. I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful
holiday season. Thanks to everyone for being
patient while I try to catch up with what's
been happening while I was on leave. The
burden has been easier with the help of George
and Laurelle, thanks...
If you haven't heard, Ron Morgan has decided
to end his career with the FAA instead of
taking the position in Brussels. After some
soul searching, he decided it wasn't the
right move considering his family circumstances.
And although it wasn't stated, he probably
figured his earning potential with outside
contractor or within the aviation industry
was about three times what it is in the FAA.
Let's just hope he doesn't go down the same
road as Pollard. Mo Woods will be acting
ATT-1 beginning the middle of next week,
and the search continues for Ron's replacement.
The next NGL third level review will be January
29 through January 31 in Cleveland. Chris
and I will meet on February 12 and 13 to
resolve those issues that couldn't be resolved
during that meeting. At that time, we will
schedule the next third level review for
sometime in late March or early April. All
those grievances that weren't addressed in
the previous review, will be addressed in
this one, with some or all of those filed
since. Due to the holidays and some previous
commitments, we have been unable to finalize
about 10 grievances that have been left in
limbo from the past review. I will be in
Chicago during the week of January 15, and
plan to address these at that time.
As for the resolution to the past grievances
(i.e., settlement agreements), I have to
admit that I've dropped the ball on notifying
the interested parties; I will remedy this
in the next two weeks. As for the results
of the next review, I am committed to get
those to the facility and/or grievant as
quickly as possible. If you believe that
we need to know more specifics of any issue,
please call me, George or the advocate assigned
to your facility.
Reference pay grievances, the next fourth
level review will be conducted on January
16; this is a change. It wouldn't hurt to
verify that we have a grievance from your
facility this next week by calling George
or Laurelle.
Apparently, the bids for OSH have been put
out, extended, and the region is still short
on controllers for the event. Chris has stated
that the budget for OSH was not separate
from the region's operations budget as it
was in years past. Evidently the request
has gone out to the managers to look at their
staffing again and try to release BUE's for
the event. Be advised, if you can't let someone
go, stick to your guns. Until the agency's
ready to support this event with sufficient
resources, quite frankly, it's not our problem.
Ron Oberg has provided me with some very
in-depth research on the money generated
by this event and the associated cost. I
will be writing a letter to the Administrator
requesting that the agency provide sufficient
support for the convention since it provides
great PR for us and the FAA. When AGL 540
mentioned this on the regional telcon, I
told them the simple solution was to provide
the OT, and they would have more bidders
than they could shake a stick at. More on
that later...
Evidently, management has been requiring
BUE EEO counselors to report for investigations
on their RDO's and while on approved leave.
Dick Petersen correctly informed the managers
that this was not proper and to cease and
desist. If this has been a problem at your
facility, ensure that these people have been
sufficiently compensated, and that this practice
discontinues. As of yet, I haven't been informed
by any FacRep or member of this problem,
so maybe it was in other BU's.
I have also been informed (from the Dakota's
Hub) that direction has been given to facility
managers that they are to inform BUE's that
they must schedule and use any comp time
balance they have on the books by the end
of the 2001 leave year. This is a violation
of the CFR's and the CBA. I have not had
a chance to discuss this with Chris, but
will the beginning of next week; we have
discussed this issue before and based on
those conversations, manager's should not
be giving these instructions to our people.
Per the CFR's (121.231 need to verify this),
management can request us to schedule the
use of comp time by a certain date, however,
if it is not used, then it must be paid out
at the rate it was earned (at time and one
half). Additionally, the agency raised this
issue at the negotiating table, and withdrew
it. Therefore, per the MOU in the back of
the CBA, this issue is "covered by"
the negotiated agreement and cannot be claimed
by either party to implement change.
Recently the FAA conducted a Severe Weather
Season Review to evaluate this past summer’s
performance in the National Airspace System
(NAS). It was determined that AT personnel
did not adequately understand the procedures
as it pertained to SWAP2000, the Strategic
Planning process or the use of Collaborative
Decision Making (CDM) tools. As a result
of this review it was determined to improve
the performance of the National Airspace
System, a joint FAA/Customer two- phase training
process must occur.
For the centers and selected Hubs, there
will be a one day training session for CPC's
at all of the en route facilities and selected
terminals concerning Spring 2001. This one
day training seminar will teach traffic management
procedures and provide an overview of traffic
management tools that are used during the
severe weather season. Additionally communication
and coordination procedures will be stressed
using the System’s Thinking approach, which
promotes full participation and accountability
for all stakeholders of the system.
It will be conducted by four CADRE training
teams and supplemented by regional air traffic
divisions. The training will begin the week
of February 5, 2001 and will continue through
the week of April 1, 2001. This training
is also highly recommended for CPC personnel.
To accommodate the training the Cadre team
will spend three consecutive days at each
facility listed below to ensure maximum participation.
Each Cadre training team will be comprised
of at least four members. Representatives
should include an airline dispatcher, a FAA
ATCSCC severe weather specialist, a management
representative and a bargaining unit employee.
Today I received notification from two FacReps
that management agreed to let CPC transfer
training failures/resignations to waive their
right to reduce the pay raise received on
transfer and return to their previously assigned
facility. As you know, this issue has been
a sore in the sides of these employees. Unfortunately,
the pay rules MOU dictates how these folks
pay will be set. Furthermore, the agency
asked to reopen this issue and the parties
have been negotiating a change to the pay
rules for this particular problem. I sent
a letter to Chris stating that this action
was a violation of the statute, the CBA,
and the MOU. As much as I want to get these
people back to where they came from, to allow
the agency to circumvent the negotiated procedures
and the statute, sends the wrong signal and
may harm the negotiation process and our
membership in the long run. If you are approached
by your manager about this, please let me
know.
Another issue that is apparently starting
crop up concerns the reduction of ops sups
and changing negotiated BUE schedules to
accommodate the movement of ops sups to busier
traffic shifts. I have already gone one round
with the region to stop this in its tracks,
but they believe that ops sups should be
staffed in the busier traffic periods as
opposed to using CIC's. What this will mean
is that management will move the ops sups
to normal shifts and move BUE's around to
cover as CIC's during the non busy traffic
shifts. Well that's just plain old bull shit!
The agency and the Union agreed to the reduction
in ops sups whereby BUE's would take on extra
duties such as CIC, to save the agency money.
As the Administrator stated to the OIG, properly
trained CIC's are more than adequate to act
in the ops sup's support position. The parties
at the national level agreed that the 7210.3
and in the CIC MOU that controllers are to
be trained and utilized in the same activities
and with the same responsibilities and accountability
as ops sups. This action being forced down
some of our throats is completely contradictory
to FAA orders and our negotiated agreements.
Operational requirements do not include ops
sups duties, and not having a sup on a particular
shift does not preclude the agency to shuffle
sups from less busy shifts to more busy shifts
thereby impacting BUE schedules to fill in.
If this issue is being raised at your facility,
and management requests to negotiate changing
BUE schedules based on their movement of
sups to accommodate the busy shift, propose
the schedule you have in place, or the one
you want that satisfies coverage requirements.
If management says that's no good because
it doesn't replace their ops sups, remember
to review Article 7 and declare impasse and
send it to me. Request status quo on the
schedule in place (so long as it satisfies
coverage requirements), since management's
right to implement prior to the conclusion
of negotiations must meet the test for operational
necessity (A7 S4), which ops sup coverage
doesn't. If the manager tells you it is an
operational necessity, get the reason in
writing, I'm the Administrator would be interested
to know that AT is contradicting the intent
behind the reduction of ops sups and her
assurance to the OIG that safety will not
be impacted.
Unfortunately, there is no break through
on the PCS/IPP MOU negotiations. All that
I can tell you is that the agency and NATCA
consider this as a top priority. To date,
there have not been any major disagreements,
so hopefully we can resolve this one now
that the holidays are over. The same goes
for filling some ingrade and downgrade IPP
request internally as well as those wanting
to come from outside the NGL. This also includes
hardships.
The region is now trying to sell me on a
story that AT is authorized 4305 personnel,
and their budget may not cover this. Quite
frankly I'm primarily concerned with our
authorized number of 2937; if management
is overstaffed in other areas, that's their
problem, they have a negotiated agreement
to meet. So the bottom line is we are now
playing numbers games around regional numbers,
including new hires. We have had a couple
of conversations (Chris and I) in the past
concerning the new hires and the on board
numbers. We had agreed in principal that
since the new hires were designated for the
attrition rate, they would not be counted
towards our authorized on board numbers;
these fluctuate too damn much. Plus, the
agency ahs not been counting part time employees
per the CBA, using them as one FTE (one authorized
body) when they are required to prorate them
(means about 10-15 more FTE's for NGL). It
seems now that they may be changing their
tune... I have yet to discuss this with Chris,
but will over the next two weeks.
One final note concerning NAR... it seems
as though funds designated for NAR are being
used for NAR functions, but because the Flight
Team Leads FLT's; NATCA and management) are
not approving the expenditures, one can't
be certain. Facilities that have a budget,
the FacRep's need to remind their manager
and FLT to pay close attention to those expenditures
designated for NAR activities.
And with that, I'll say good evening... be
careful at work, at home and at play!
Pat
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