You Don’t Deserve This
Posted by Paul Cox on August 13th, 2009
Today is, of course, a huge day for NATCA. The decision of the arbitrators is due today, probably within a few hours of my writing this.
I don’t know what they’re going to do. People at work have asked me, since they know I pay too much attention to union/FAA issues, and I tell them it could be anything from basically nothing to full backpay and restoration of the Green Book contract pay scale.
That said, I doubt it’ll be that last one. I hope for it, of course, but I don’t expect it. For the record, if I have to predict, I’d say that there will be a significant raise for the “B scale” people and that the A scale will start getting the standard inflation increases again.
I think the B scale will also see some kind of equivalent of step increases that aren’t as dependent upon ratings and managerial discretion as the present system; instead, it’ll be more like a traditional governmental employee’s longevity increases.
But I have no special insight, no moles in the DOT or FAA that are giving me the advance word.
There is something I really, really want to urge everyone reading this to remember, though.
The FAA, as an institution, didn’t think you deserve it.
They don’t think you deserve a raise.
They don’t think you deserve to keep pace with inflation.
They don’t think that as you gain experience and build your skills in your job, you deserve to make more money.
If you’re on the B-scale, the FAA thinks you are worth 30% less than some of your peers- if people were lucky enough to get hired and make CPC status prior to September, 2006, they’re worth more than you are, according to the FAA.
And the most galling thing is that the FAA didn’t think you deserved enough consideration or respect to deal with you fair and square.
They “negotiated” over three years ago in bad faith. They went into those “negotiations” fully planning on screwing you, and me, and every other air traffic controller over. Their offer basically never budged. They went into that bargaining room fully ready and planning on simply giving you what they’d already decided they were going to give you.
The FAA didn’t want to bother treating you in a fair manner. They didn’t treat the NATCA bargaining team with respect, even though that team represented us.
The FAA didn’t even think you deserved a process that was set up such that if they and the union’s negotiating team couldn’t agree, it would be subject to a simple, fair review by a neutral third party. They weren’t willing to try and justify their decision and offer; they wanted a completely stacked deck.
The way a union works is that it IS the representative of the employees. That union representative, whether the crew rep for 3 or 5 employees or the NATCA President, representing 15,000, is the physical manifestation of YOU.
And the FAA treated those reps- they treated YOU- like something they should scrape off of their shoes.
If the way the FAA treated your union rep, the way they treated YOU, doesn’t infuriate you, disgust you, and piss you off, then you’re not paying attention.
Now, in fairness, the things they did wasn’t necessarily representative of how every FAA manager feels or thinks about his/her employees. In fact, most of them are better than that.
But the ones that were in charge three years ago- and many of the ones who’re still in charge right now- they happily went along with the treatment of the employees that I’ve described here.
Thing is… NATCA knows who those people are. We know the ones who were on the negotiating team prior, and who changed their tunes. We know who the two-faced people are, who were delightedly cheering on the shabby treatment the agency was doling out, and who are now pretending that gosh, they felt so bad at the time, but they were just doing what Marion told them to do.
We know who the facility managers and supervisors are who have treated their employees with decency and respect… and who came out of St Louis with the smell of Kool-Aid on their breath, eager to get to their facilities and start throwing their weight around.
I want to urge you, the FAA employees, to know that according to the FAA, you don’t deserve what you’re seeing today. The ONLY reason they are doing it is because they were ordered to by the new President in the Oval Office… but like the song says, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
There are still a TON of FAA higher level managers, in positions of power, who were the old boss just a little bit ago.
And when the chips are down, my fellow FAA employees, I want you to remember and know something- those FAA mucky-mucks who treated us so shabbily are wrong.
We do deserve this. Not the money we might get today or might not… but we deserve a fair shake. Every FAA employee deserves a fair shake. We deserve a process that isn’t rigged from the start against us.
We deserve a fair resolution to a negotiation. We might not get what we think we deserve in terms of money today, but I urge my fellow ATCSs that if that happens, let’s not whine about it or bitch about it or complain.
Instead, let’s be thankful that we got what we definitely DO deserve, what every employee deserves. A fair process.
We might not “win” every time. We might not “win” today. But at least we can, today, live with the satisfaction that we got the type of treatment that we do deserve. Remember who helped get us here, and keep this entire episode in your head for the rest of your FAA career and your life, no matter how long you have to go.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:32 am
For all you Tech Ops folks out there, never forget what our AT brethren went through, and never forget that the FAA tried to do the same to us. This is the same management that contracted out 2500 Federal jobs to Cheney's puppet, and bitch slapped NATCA against the wall. Flakey the snake tried very hard to send us down the same river with no paddle. Fortunate for PASS, we saw the first two fornications and read that writing on the wall. Now maybe we will get something more along the lines we were asking for, a fair process.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I’d say never forget or forgive the sob’s that walked all over us during the last 3 years. Keep a sharp eye out, take notes, plan and cordinate with other’s to get enough dirt on these bastards. Out them, embarrass them, snitch on them to their spouses, the law, what ever it take to help bring them down. Ruin their carriers, their marriages, their relationships, make them regret the day they came to work for our agency. No more being buddies, stop and think about what these traitors have done to our profession. They deserve no loyalty nor friendship, they only deserve to be despised !
I know it’s harsh, but these managers have conspired to destroy our livelihood, they have choosen to take from us that which is rightfully ours and convert it to their own selfish use.
A pox on every manager and faa stupidvisor that benefited from the IMR’s. May they be flaccid, unhappy, sick and full of despair all the days of their miserable lives.
Paybacks are a bitch…. yehaw!
August 13th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
FYI, the items were posted a little after 2 PM EST.
Tentatively agreed upon articles subject to ratification: https://employees.faa.gov/org/linebusiness/ato/me...
Mediated solution not subject to ratification: https://employees.faa.gov/org/linebusiness/ato/me...
The MyFAA site closed with: "The TAU articles are subject to member ratification; the arbitrator's award is not subject to ratification. Neither part is effective until a later date. The 2006 NATCA contract is still in effect."
August 13th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Well said Paul. Resorting to dissent and resentment is the refuge of the selfish, and despite that we might not get what we want, it sure is nice to be thankful for what we have.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Attachment 3 looks like it might be the first thing people look for.
I. PAY BANDS
1. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, new pay bands shall be established, in
accordance with the schedules set forth in Attachment 3.
2. Pay Bands are to be adjusted upward on an annual basis in
January 2011 and 2012, in a manner equivalent to the
adjustment provided to employees covered by the FAA Core
Compensation Plan.
III. EQUITY ADJUSTMENT
A designated group of some 1440 Controllers who were hired prior to October
2006, to be identified by the parties, shall receive, in June of 2010, a 1-time 8%
upward adjustment to Base Pay, in accordance with Article 108, Section 8
[Attachment 2].
I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks about this.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
FAA, more specifically the ATO, has been using the money Snakey siphoned out of controller's pockets to feather their own nests and build their empires. I'm not sure how many "managers" it takes to run my facility, but apparently were not there yet. Career progression for it's own sake is justification enough to create one superfluous management position after another.____In fact, I've been told FAA is so flush with ops cash, they actually tried to transfer ops monies to the F and E side of the house the last few years, to buy Nextgen gear (i.e. send money to AIA companies that Snakey now whores for) . But the culprits weren't smart enough to come up with the necessary accounting slight of hand to fool Congress.____Snakey gamed the FAA for her own personal aims and in her quest to bust every FAA union, gave management the keys to the kingdom and a green light to tee of on controllers and NATCA.____The arrogance of the "higher skill set" knows no bounds. A ratified CBA and a fair pay deal are the next step to restoring some balance. But the question is, where does Babbitt take us after that ?
August 13th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
"The 2006 NATCA contract is still in effect."
The arbitrator's award stated –
Whatever else may be said of the White Book document, it is neither a
“Collective Bargaining Agreement” nor an “Agreement.”
How can the FAA still call it a contract?
August 13th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I hope my brethren in the AF field, and indeed throughout the FAA, get a fair process.
There's a lot of people at work right now who are NOT particularly happy with how this turned out. Many are not fully understanding that this isn't something we get a say in or a vote on at this point.
I am trying to remind them all, though, that this is what we've asked for the entire time- a reasonably fair process that, if we can't come to agreement, puts it into the hands of a fair panel that will make the decision.
You guys in PASS deserve nothing less than this same process, and indeed even the FAA's own propaganda (as opposed to the fine propaganda we have here at the Follies!) indicates that this process will be used in the future for union matters in the agency. Of course, if/when Congress passes the FAA reauthorization bill, it will cement this type of process into the law; right now the FAA's promise to use this process can change based on who's in charge of the agency.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Well, don't get me wrong- I'm still liable to have some dissent.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see the proposed contract fail to ratify due to anger over the lack of any "make-whole". The panel's language seems to reject "looking back" and instead looks to the future, but I think a lot of people are still pretty bent out of shape over the whole thing.
I'm not urging people to focus on the past with my post, but I am definitely telling them to REMEMBER that past and remember how their employer (dis)respected them in this whole matter.
August 14th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Anybody notice anything on staffing, like the restriction on filling positions (aka) sups positions a la article 94 of the green book? How about an MOU that adresses that subject. I seem to remember an MOU or something that mandated the FAA have a ceretain number of controllers on board. After all with out the proper staffing, it still gives the FAA the right to deny leave and work you all more than 2 hours on position etc
August 13th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It feels like our only option to truly express our disgust is to vote NOT to ratify.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
you couldn’t trust them on the first contract, but u are going to trust them on this one? Shame on u guys.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:22 am
"Management, for its part, took a markedly narrower view of the issues in dispute; advocating from the outset that any future movement must be premised on the proposition that one takes the validity of the White Book as a starting point"
This is who we work for folks. They hate us, they devalue us, and they continue to rip off the American people with their full payraises and the benefit of not working for a living. The veteran controllers took it up the wazoo today..
August 14th, 2009 at 2:32 am
So if the arbitrators stated that about the white book, how can it still be in effect since it is known that the award is binding? I think we have 2 more months of pain coming down on us before things get better.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Attachment 3 of the "mediated solution" looks like it might be the first thing people look for.
From the "Opinion of the Panel" section:
"Predictably, the years since the birth of the White Book have been characterized by a steady drumbeat of protest from the Union, which has sought, in many venues, to voice its claim that the White Book, as an operating document, is void ab initio. In that vein, the Union has vigorously urged this Panel to compensate affected bargaining unit members for White Book reductions of money and prerogatives, by “reinstating the Green Book and by making whole members affected by the imposed rules, including full retroactivity on all economic losses”.
Management, for its part, took a markedly narrower view of the issues in dispute; advocating from the outset that any future movement must be premised on the proposition that one takes the validity of the White Book as a starting point.
We reject both these backward-looking assumptions. This Mediation to Finality process began with and proceeded throughout on the premise that the parties and the Panel were working from a clean slate with an eye toward constituting a new, bargained relationship that will enable the parties to move forward as joint stewards of a bona fide labor agreement. As such, that process and this Award are designed and intended to set to rest any remaining questions of White Book/Green Book vitality."
I. PAY BANDS
1. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, new pay bands shall be established, in
accordance with the schedules set forth in Attachment 3.
2. Pay Bands are to be adjusted upward on an annual basis in
January 2011 and 2012, in a manner equivalent to the
adjustment provided to employees covered by the FAA Core
Compensation Plan.
III. EQUITY ADJUSTMENT
A designated group of some 1440 Controllers who were hired prior to October
2006, to be identified by the parties, shall receive, in June of 2010, a 1-time 8%
upward adjustment to Base Pay, in accordance with Article 108, Section 8
[Attachment 2].
I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks about this.
August 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I think I "lost" due to the fact that I was one of the lucky ones who didnt get per diem at the academy. Making poverty level wages learning one of the most demanding jobs in the world was enough to turn me away from the job and to resign… Never got a fair shake.
August 15th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
i retired in june and iam glad i didnt waste a summer waiting on this so called contract.any of you that can retire your nutts for staying for the few pennies you will be getting.come on in the waters great
September 26th, 2009 at 2:30 am
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October 12th, 2009 at 6:34 am
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