NWP “Hot Sheet” Week of 7-16-07

NWP Reps/Members,

As I sat down in my assigned seat on an American Airlines flight from Burbank to DFW and then onto Washington, I took a minute to look at the American Airlines inflight magazine.  I was expecting to read about good restaurants or good hotels or entertainment.  Instead, what I did notice was some public relations spin from the CEO of American Airlines.  He mentioned that delays are due to the old ATC infrastructure and that until the general aviation community and the business community pony up their fair share of the system, user fees, that problems will only get worse.  Believe it or not, this same rhetoric has been used by our FAA administrator Marion Blakey, the Air Transport Association, and other Administration officials.  They are all beginning to blame delays on our aging equipment and the associated funding stream, the Aviation trust fund.  While I won’t get into a drawn out discussion on the merits of the Aviation trust fund vs user fees, I did want to mention that certain portions of our Air Traffic System can absolutely be updated with new technology such as ADS-B, NEXCOM, CPDLC, etc.  However, neither this technology nor any future technology will solve the problem of airport capacity or basic wake turbulence separation or weather.  We need to strive to educate Congress and the flying public that the world’s most sophisticated technology will do little good when there aren’t enough gates, taxiways or runways at a particular airport.  The most sophisticated technology will be of no use when there is a thunderstorm over a particular airport.  Something else to keep in mind is that it’s not as easy as the American Airlines CEO would like us to believe to change the funding stream and the ATC system will be instantly modernized.  We need to also take into account that the users of the system have to be willing to buy the new equipment for their aircraft so that they can partake of the benefits of ADS-B or CPDLC or NEXCOM.

Therefore, before we start looking at new funding streams or modernization, we need to make sure that we have a solid infrastructure in place to handle the increasing capacity.  This is where it becomes crucial to have qualified and experienced air traffic controllers, engineers, technicians, etc. in place to handle the upcoming surge in air travel.  Unfortunately, you are not going to get the CEO of American Airlines to come out and state that the FAA should fix these imposed work rules and offer fair and competitive pay to incoming controllers in order to bolster the ATC infrastructure and prepare our NAS for modernization.

Ham
NWP RVP

• Over the weekend, I exchanged some e-mails with Teri Bristol regarding a potential adverse action case out of L30, and refresher training for the Empire Area controllers at SCT who need to begin On the Job Training for the PSP sectors.

• Teri has directed the District Managers to allow employees to leave the facility to buy food if the establishment is 'reasonably' close, and return immediately thus ensuring that they are available for recall. It does need to be coordinated with the first line managers.  Unfortunately, this does NOT include “driving” to a “reasonably” close restaurant.

• The National Executive Board shall hereby accept voluntary donations from NATCA members in order to provide brother Jerry McArthur (ZAN) with the means to temporarily meet his essential financial obligations pending the appeal of his arbitration decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Donations can be made via PayPal link on NATCA's Internet home page or by check payable to NATCA and sent to the attention of NATCA Executive Vice President Paul Rinaldi at the NATCA National Office.

• Mike Hull and I worked with Steve Palmer, PHX Facility Rep, regarding some potential grievances at PHX.  We have asked Steve to use Article 8 (Problem solving) first before resorting to a grievance.  This will demonstrate whether or not the ATM is willing to resolve the issue at the local level.

• Chuck Zapf, Regional LR rep, Mike Hull and I work with Steve Costa, ZUA Facility Rep, regarding a training review board.

• Eric Carter, Regional Safety Lead, is up and running.  He will be setting up a regional safety committee with the help of Aaron Fishman from ZOA.  He was on the National Safety telcon on Wednesday and will be finishing up his work on the accident notification checklist.

• I checked on a rumor about one of our Northern California facilities being contracted out.  I found no credible evidence that they were planning on contracting out this tower anytime soon.

• Mike Hull and Jim Corey meet with regional HR to discuss a potential resolution of an unfair labor practice at PSP.

• I discussed our media strategy with a concerned member at RNO.

• On Tuesday July 17, 2007, HNL AFSS went ATC-0 at approximately 8:30am.  They had a total failure of Radios and landlines.  No reason known.  They just resumed operations back from Prescott on 7/15/2007 at 9pm local.

• I received a surprise call from one of our past president’s Mike McNally.  We talked about how things are going in the Western Pacific and how things are in general.  I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from my friend and appreciated his words of encouragement.

• Gordie Thompson, SBA Fac Rep and regional LR rep, Mike Hull and I work with a Facility Rep regarding an EEO issue at his facility and what facility representative’s responsibilities are with respect to a potential EEO complaint.

• Scott Conde briefed the NEB on the GI Bill and how the program is progressing.  He mentioned that members who believe that they are entitled to the benefit should be submitting an application ASAP so that they can get it time stamped.  Certified controllers are ineligible for the benefit.  Trainee’s that are close to certification need to submit their application ASAP since the VA will go back 1-year from the date of the application for benefits.  Here is an up to date link to the VA website for your application: http://www.gibill.va.gov/GI_Bill_Info/How_to_Apply.htm

• The FAA is spreading its own version of the facts on the Hill with respect to Consolidations, here are some of them:

• FAA will lose $110 million of expiring funds this year that are now targeted to modernizing facilities.
• $34 million more needed to re-scope construction & add unplanned, duplicative automation for 5 of the above facilities.
• Delays replacement of infrastructure beyond this list.
• Costs of these and future projects increase.
• Delays critical airport projects on land freed up by FAA moves.

• I had a telcon with Steve Osterdahl and Heather Leonard from Western Enroute.  We discussed the NCT-ZOA airspace, a hardship out of ZOA, the agency position on training failures with no D-sides, and a training failure from ZOA who is being sent to E-10 (he is retiring next year), and the rumor of the ATC-12 upgrade for ZLA.  Steve mentioned that he had just talked with Rick Day and that he had not heard of the FAA upgrading ZLA to ATC-12.  Both sides submitted their post hearing briefs for the ETAP arbitration to the arbitrator last month.  The arbitrator will review the transcripts and the post hearing briefs before he makes his decision.  It could take the arbitrator several months to render a decision due to the technical nature of this arbitration.  I am expecting a decision from the arbitrator sometime this fall.

• Dan and Maria Ellenberger are expecting a child in a few short days.  There have been a few non-life threatening complications with her pregnancy, and Maria has exhausted her sick and annual leave prior to the birth.  The new addition to the Ellenberger family may have to be transported to an Atlanta children’s hospital for a series of surgical procedures and observation in a neo-natal intensive care unit.  This will require Maria to stay out of work longer than anticipated.  Maria is now in the VLTP (Voluntary Leave Transfer Program, https://employees.faa.gov/org/staffoffices/ahr/policy_guidance/hr_policies/hrpm/lws/lws-8-12/

Dan and Maria have given much to our NATCA family, and now they need us to help them.  If you can, please consider donating some leave to Maria to help her get through this situation.

• I worked with Tim Leonard, NATCA Southern LR/ Hardship specialist regarding a training failure at ZOA who we are trying to direct to the Southern Region.

• I worked with Jose Ceballos to develop some language for our testimony this week before the House Aviation Sub-Committee.

• Eric Carter, Regional Safety Lead works with Aaron Fishman and Pete Trono to finalize the accident/incident checklist and writes an introductory letter to Ron Beckerdite who will be his FAA counterpart in the Western Service area.

• NATCA files a national grievance regarding the failure of the FAA to pay night differential to trainees.  The issue is whether the agency violated Article 7 of the CBA and MOU #216 when it imposed a prohibition on the payment of night differential to employees assigned to training.

• Noel Kingston, PRC Facility Rep and Legislative lead, works with Mike Farrell, FAT Facility Rep on how to get members of Congress to FAT.

• Mike Caldwell, NCT controller and Terminal Airspace Lead works with Mike Hull and I to highlight a very serious problem with the FAA not paying our trainees following the first full pay period after their promotion to the next developmental level.  This issue was discussed as an agenda item during our NEB meeting this week.

• I got some currency at ZLA on Wednesday July 18, 2007 and delegated the official time to Mike Hull.

• I reviewed two responses to proposed suspensions that were prepared by Garth Koleszar, ZLA Facility Rep.  The members of ZLA are well served by Garth; he did an absolutely phenomenal job representing these two members.

• NATCA disseminates a press release out of ZLA; here is a snippet from the release:

“In a recent FAA newsletter originating at Denver Center, entitled, “Traffic Management Update,” the FAA admits that it does not “have the luxury of doubling up” staffing at busy sectors at L.A. Center. Under normal circumstances, an air traffic sector would be staffed by a minimum of two controllers and sometimes even three controllers based on traffic complexity and volume. “Air traffic controllers are trained and directed to limit flights through their airspace when the volume of the traffic exceeds a safe limit,” Koleszar said”.

• A good friend of mine Dean Iacopelli, N90 Facility Rep and Contract Team member provided some clarification on the issue of the agency controverting OWCP claims.  Here is what he had to say about the term Controvert:

The term "controvert" is generally incorrectly considered as synonymous with "challenging the validity of a claim", however the terms are not the same.  Controvert is a legal term as defined by 20 CFR 10.220, which permits the Agency to terminate COP immediately for one of 9 reasons and only those 9 reasons listed.

Challenging the validity of the claim (or disputing the claim) as defined by 20 CFR 10.117 (attached) can occur whenever the Agency has reason to disagree with any aspect of the claimants report. The Agency is required to submit the reasons concurrently with the submission of the employees claim to the Department of Labor.

In addition, contained within Article 75 Section 9 of both our Contract and their work rules is the following:  Section 9. The Agency may only controvert claims for Continuation of Pay (COP) in accordance 20 CFR 10.203 (20 CFR 10.220 in the IWR's).

• Mike Hull and I had a telcon with Teri Bristol, Barry Davis and Monique France who is Teri’s new executive assistant.  Here are some of the issues that we discussed: new guidance to district managers on chow runs which are within walking distance, problems with the FTI line at SCT, PSP to SCT consolidation issues, Las Vegas TRACON potential adverse action case, an ERR request to P50, reasonable accommodation for an employee at one of our Northern California Towers, Reno LMR issues, and PSP controller forced on leave.

• John Paiva, POC Facility Rep and Regional LR rep works with regional finance lead Eric Hughes and EVP Paul Rinaldi to get some guidance on how best to rectify some old LM forms out of ONT that were filled out incorrectly and have to be amended.

• Mike Hull and I received the following from Barry Davis, Western Terminal regarding the usage of credit hours: “We allow an employee with denied AL to secure a replacement by allowing another individual to work for credit.  We want to make sure we allow our employees the opportunity to use the AL they have available.   An employee who has secured someone to work credit for them may not convert their AL to credit”.  I will be discussing this issue with the NEB for a potential National grievance since it is affecting at least two regions and maybe more.

• Since the FAA has recently dropped the ball on accident notifications as per Article 63, Section 2 of the CBA, I reminded them of my designee, Pete Trono, NWP’s lead Air Safety Investigator.  Pete is to be contacted by the FAA in case of accidents/incidents involving fatalities or injuries in which ATC services were provided.  Pete’s information can be found at http://nwp.natca.net under the Safety tab.

• Mike Hull works with regional HR regarding an adverse action case out of CCR.

• Here is a reminder from Mickela, Admin lead:

“With all the new Local elections, please remember to e-mail/fax me copies of your new Facility E-Board (Pres, VP, Secretary, Treasurer) with e-mails and contact phones, so I can update your National Facility Database.

• Also, whenever you get a Change of Address for one of your Members, after updating your Local Database, please e-mail/fax the change to the NWP Regional Office, so we can update the Members Database with the correct address.  The National Office gets stacks of returned mail with incorrect addresses, so we want to try to eliminate that for NWP Members and save the organization some money.  The Regional Admins have access to both National Facility/Members Databases, and any help we can give National would be great.  Please send them my way at Mickela@natca.net or fax (760) 477-6080”.

• Steve Costa, ZUA Facility Rep asked me about the DOD schools arbitration and whether I had an update.  I contacted Peter Gimbrere who handled the arbitration for us.  He advised that there will probably be a ruling from the arbitrator some time on or about the end of August and we anticipate that the Agency will file exceptions to the ruling if the arbitrator were to rule in our favor.  As such, any members who need to make decisions based upon availability of access to the DOD schools for the 2007-2008 school year should assume that there will be no access granted to the DOD schools for their kids by the time the school year starts and to thus plan accordingly.

• I got word from FAA HQ that there is a freeze on moving 2152's out of controller positions unless there is a significant safety reason.  The rationale provided by the agency official was, “We are trying to keep our controllers doing ATC work. ATC transfers (controller to controller) are status quo”.  It is not clear how this may affect transfers to the TMU or Staff ranks but it does appear that there is a moratorium on moves to management positions, at least until the end of this fiscal year.