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Weekly Update for March 16, 2001
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This week brings out the new NATCA NGL web site at
www.ngl.natca.org please take a
peek. It's by far, the best web page out there, and we have Cris Johnson
(C90) to thank for that. Laurelle will be administering the site once Cris
gets the chance to fill her in. Take note of some of the great information
on there, such as the calendar, where you can pretty much tell where I'm at all
of the time, and the beginning of the LMR site, which provides examples of
grievance responses, disciplinary action responses, impasse arguments, and
negotiation proposals. My intent is to populate this area with as many
issues as possible for quick and easy places to start when you are required to
represent your members. I will be asking
Cris to provide links to just about everything imaginable so that you will have
one-stop shopping for information. So make sure you add this page to your
favorites...
SupCom - I was in Chicago last Tuesday speaking at
the NGL SupCom "love fest." I think it went quite well; informed these
ladies and gentlemen on my philosophy when it comes to representing our
membership, and answered quite a lot of questions that were presented. So,
If your manager or SupCom rep tells you something that I said, please give me a
call if it doesn't sound right to you... as I've learned from doing this job for
the past 11 years, inevitably, information gets lost in the
translation....
ATX Meeting - I met with Jeff Walukonis, Tim
Haines, Tony Tisdal ATX-20, Pam Foss ATX-2, and John Pugh HR specialist at FAA
HQ all day Thursday. We initially met to resolve a discrepancy in the pay
rule requirements surrounding OSI/SCI increases in circumstances involving
employees in pay retention. We resolved the problem and identified roughly
65 employees who are owed some money. We don't know who they are just yet,
but they are out there, and can expect an adjustment to pay (and back pay) in
the near future. Management will inform pay roll to correct the
programming to ensure that the bands move first when an OSI increase
occurs, before checking if an employee is above the maximum for the
band.
John Pugh stated that for the few individuals who
are awaiting 3R adjustments to their pay, they should see a new SF-50 within a
couple of pay periods, and an adjustment to pay shortly thereafter.
Once that easy issue was concluded, we worked on
some adjustments (minor) to facility consolidation pay rules MOU, NAR MOU and
CPC training failure/withdrawal MOU. John stopped over at about 5 pm for a
meeting with Bill Peacock to discuss the consolidation and NAR MOU's. I
believe that the parties are very close to an agreement on all three
issues.
NATCA Member Only Benefits - John put out a page
today announcing an "open season" for disability insurance for NATCA
members. Every member will be receiving a comprehensive package describing
this policy sometime in late March. The period of guaranteed issuance will
be April 1 through April 18, 2001, whereby individuals will not be required to
undergo a medical examination. After reviewing the package myself, it
looks to be a great safety net at a reasonable price for anyone who wants
coverage. The premiums are derived from your base pay, since the insurance
pay-out is based on your base pay. Once the open season is over, members
who decide to enroll will most likely be required to undergo medical
examination, and if you're not healthy, will probably not qualify for the
coverage. So take care to read the information thoroughly... staff jobs
are few and far between. Get more information on NATCA.net.
The NATCA benefits department is also looking at
low cost dental insurance for members only as well. Unfortunately, I don't
have any of the details, since the product is not finalized. I'm pretty
sure that the premium will also be derived from base pay...
Staffing - In our last NEB telecon, John stated
that he was going to put out a call to all FacRep's to try and determine a
suitable staffing contingency for their facility. This would be done based
on what criteria the agency was using in their staffing standard. However,
I believe that it is incumbent upon us to decipher just exactly what the agency
is using in their standard, so that the rep's can have a place to begin.
Additionally, we will be asking the rep's to determine how many BUE's would be
eligible to retire in the next 10 years, and how many planned to retire in the
next 10 years. Let this serve as a heads up; when the call comes, we will
need your help!
Next week I'll be in Chicago doing 3rd level
grievances with the advocates and a third party neutral per A9 ADR.
Hopefully, I will be able to conclude some of the other outstanding issues that
have been hanging for some of you; this week proved very difficult to close out
issues due to the SupCom meeting.
This weeks update is kinda short, so if I left out
an item that you are interested in or were wondering about, send me a message...
Have a great weekend!
Pat
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