NWP Reps/Members:
I would like to dedicate this weekly update to the 44th President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama.
I started the week by traveling to Las Vegas on Martin Luther King Day in preparation for our Basic Labor Relations class the following day. Mike Hull and Garth Koleszar also accompanied me on this trip as part of the teaching cadre.
The Basic Labor Relations class started promptly at 8am on Tuesday January 20, 2009 with thirteen members in attendance. We had developmentals in the class along with new facility reps and experienced facility reps. The class is designed to be educating and informative for all experience levels. Las Vegas was the third site that we had conducted the Basic LR Class and quite honestly, the classes continue to evolve and get better.
At 9am, we promptly took a break so that we could all get in front of the television and watch history being made in our country. The 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was sworn in and he then gave a truly inspirational and amazing speech. I have asked Kevin Sherwood to place President Obama’s inauguration speech on our regional website. Meanwhile, if you would like to watch the speech in its entirety, you can access it by going to the White House website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/
I would like to suggest that you view President Obama’s speech in its entirety and listen to his words carefully. After listening to the President’s speech, I had an opportunity to think about his words and what it meant to me. To me, the President’s words meant that together, the people of the United States changed the history of this great country by electing the first African-American President as our Commander in Chief. Together, the people will be able to help rebuild this country as we have done so in the past. We will once again emerge from these trying times as the world’s greatest country. This will not happen overnight and it will not happen without every American stepping up to help. This will require sacrifices by all. I especially liked these simple but yet very powerful words in the President’s speech:
“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America”.
Following President Obama’s speech, we re-convened the class and had a discussion about our future under the Obama Presidency. I told the class that we must measure our expectations due to the fact that our country is in crisis. Millions of American’s have lost their job; millions have lost their homes and will not have adequate food and shelter for their families. So, as we look to correct the injustice of the imposed conditions of employment, we must also be cognizant of those who are less fortunate than we. Nationally, we will do everything in our power to ensure that our issues are dealt with great expediency and are not overshadowed by the harrowing news of the worsening economic crisis.
Now, more than ever, we need to join together and make our voices heard. Now is not the time to relax and sit back, hoping and thinking that our issues will be dealt with by a Democratic Congress and a Democrat in the White House. We need to ensure that the Congress and the White House understand the economic importance of a fully functioning National Airspace System and how important that is to the overall economic recovery plan. We need to ensure that the Congress and the White House understand why thousands of experienced veterans are leaving the Air Traffic profession. We need to ensure that they understand that equipment, programs, and procedures are being developed without the expertise of the very air traffic controllers who are entrusted with public safety and who do the work, every day, with this equipment and these programs and procedures.
As you can see, there is much work to be done to ensure that our issues are not overshadowed by the various issues besieging this country; economy, two separate wars, etc. As such, I would like to ask you to pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and begin the work of making sure our issues are not forgotten and/or overshadowed.
Finally, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, I would like to close with two of my favorite quotes from Dr. King that certainly apply to all of us as American’s and as members of a great organization, NATCA:
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity”
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals”
In Solidarity,
Ham
NWP RVP
· I continue to work on a recruitment incentive that was promised to one of our members at U90. It’s a shame that you have to constantly remind the FAA to do the right thing.
· I would strongly urge developmentals, veteran members, new facility reps AND experienced facility reps to attend the upcoming Basic Labor Relations class in your area. If you can’t make a class in your area but would like to attend another class, please coordinate with Mickela. Here is a list of the upcoming classes:
o Tuesday February 17, 2009- Los Angeles (near the airport)
o Sunday February 22, 2009- Honolulu
o Tuesday March 17, 2009- San Diego
o Tuesday April 14, 2009- Phoenix
· Here are some of the topics that we will cover in the One-Day Basic Labor Relations Class:
o Importance of Documentation and how to properly document meetings
o Meetings with Management (Union rights and Employee rights)
o Security Investigations
o Training Review Boards
o FAA Reporting Requirements
o Probationary Employees
o Information Requests (Union and Employee)
· Mike Hull worked with L30 Facility Rep Sara George on an expedited arbitration request.
· I advised Western Terminal that the working environment and the morale of the employees at the Las Vegas Tracon are rapidly deteriorating. Just last year, the Las Vegas Hub was the model facility for Labor-Management relations. As a matter of fact, it won the award for facility of the year! It’s quite unfortunate that the Las Vegas Hub manager has now decided to abandon a fully functioning Labor-Management relationship and instead revert back to the way things were in 2006; heavy-handed discipline and little to no dialogue with NATCA.
· NWP Pay Lead Jeff Tilley works with LGB Facility Rep Paul Bugarin regarding a pay issue for one of his members.
· Mike Hull worked with VGT Facility Rep Mark Knabel and the national office regarding some changes to the VGT Facility Standard Operating Practices (7110.7E).
· There have been quite a few instances in Western Terminal where it has become apparent that quite a few managers do not understand the DOT/FAA policies with respect to sexual harassment. Most recently, a First Line Manager thought it was funny to touch a developmental after he had complained to him of a situation where a contract instructor had touched him in an unwelcome manner. When this situation was brought to the attention of the acting Air Traffic Manager, the manager stated that it wasn’t unwelcome until the individual advised the offending party to not touch them. The acting manager didn’t believe that this was an accountability board issue and felt that all he had to do was to talk with the contract instructor. Needless to say, it appears that neither the First Line Manager nor the Acting Air Traffic Manager has any understanding of the DOT/FAA policy with respect to sexual harassment and what creates a “Hostile Work Environment”
· I worked with Western Terminal to address a problem with a mandatory photo board at PHX, an ‘Accountability Board’ issue at MRY and SAN, the STS working environment, etc.
· NWP LR Rep/NCT Facility Rep Steve McCoy traveled to STS along with the SFO Hub Manager to interview the STS controllers to determine the reason behind the severely declining morale at the facility, alleged retaliation towards our facility rep, etc.
· In a recent news report, a gentleman from the Heritage foundation (a very conservative and very Republican think tank) who was commenting on the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) had the following to say regarding government mandated agreements:
“The EFCA would grant no opportunity to either employees or businesses to appeal the government’s decision, nor would it allow a newly organized union to vote on the deal. The law also does not allow for unions to strike if they don’t like the government-mandated agreement.
Any agreement the government dictates wouldn’t be a contract, said Heritage Foundation labor expert James Sherk, because contracts are negotiated between two parties, not dictated by governments.
“You can’t really call it a contract, because a contract is voluntarily agreed to by both parties,” Sherk told CNSNews.com. “They will dictate to the company and the workers the conditions that would have been in a labor contract for the next two years”.
· This is the very same think tank criticizing the EFCA, that has all of a sudden become very concerned about voluntary agreements and that wrote this about our contract situation with the FAA on April 24, 2006:
“However, the 1998 contract was not totally one-sided. It provided the government with some remedies in the event that the union became intransigent and abused its privileges as granted under the contract. Specifically, the 1998 contract included a safety valve that allows the FAA to impose a contract on the controllers, subject to congressional action, if good-faith negotiations came to a complete impasse.”
· I must admit that it’s very refreshing to see that a conservative think tank, such as the Heritage Foundation, that just two years ago was supporting and applauding the governments right to impose a contract on its air traffic controllers, is now saying that an imposed contract isn’t really a contract because it wasn’t voluntarily agreed to by both parties; truly refreshing!
· Mike Hull and I worked with LAX Facility Rep Mike Foote regarding a representation issue concerning a member at LAX.
· I worked with L30 Facility Rep Sara George and L30 LR Rep Bryan Baker regarding a very ill advised airspace project being devised by Las Vegas management. Management wants to create a dual downwind for the Las Vegas airport. This will increase workload and complexity and result in an increase in close calls. I am currently working with Senator Reid’s office to brief them on this ill conceived project that will not work with the very well thought out Las Vegas Optimization plan that is supposed to be implemented within two years.
· Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell’s last day was January 16, 2009. Lynne Osmus is now the Acting Administrator until President Obama nominates a new FAA Administrator and the Senate confirms his choice for a five-year term.
· Mike Hull will be visiting Tucson Tower on Monday January 26 and Tuesday January 27, 2009 with a staff manager from the PHX Hub to interview controllers and staff to determine the reason behind the sub standard working conditions and low morale at TUS. I would like to encourage all TUS Controllers to participate in the interview process.
· I received the following update from our NATCA Safety and Tech department in Washington, D.C. regarding the closure of some more flight service stations (FSS):
“Today, NATCA Safety and Technology met with representatives of Lockheed Martin concerning FSS issues. LM is in the process of closing five more stations in February. These are San Diego, Oakland, Macon, Denver and Albuquerque. There will probably be more closing in the future but this will take them down to 13 facilities including their 3 hubs.
At the meeting a question was asked about what are the major issues for controllers at the facility level reference FSS. I am asking for input from the field on FSS issues so we can get them addressed. Please email your issues to me at dwright@natcadc.org. We will assign tracking numbers to each issue and report back what we hear from Lockheed.”
· PHX Facility Rep Steve Palmer asked us to check into how a PHX-20 “Retired Military Controller” could become a permanent employee. Here is all the information about the PHX-20 program:
https://employees.faa.gov/org/staffoffices/ahr/policy_guidance/hr_policies/hrpm/emp/emp-1-20_ATS/
· SFO Facility Rep Dave Caldwell, P50 Facility Rep Tim Krieger, L30 Facility Rep Sara George, and PHX Tower Facility Rep Steve Palmer share their local updates with me, thanks. It’s vitally important that we keep our members well informed on all issues, especially during these trying times.
· NWP LR Rep/ZLA Facility Rep Garth Koleszar, Mike Hull and I work with BFL Facility Rep Derek Kooren regarding a proposed removal for a training failure. The FAA has now decided to rescind the termination and place our member back in the training program at BFL.
· ZLA Facility Rep Garth Koleszar and SCT Facility Rep Mel Davis attend the AAAE (American Association of Airport Executives) conference in Hawaii. Based on all accounts, having an Enroute and Terminal air traffic controller at the conference, who could readily answer questions for this very influential group, was a huge success.
· ZUA Facility Rep Steve Costa works with Congresswoman Bordallo’s office to highlight serious flaws with the FAA’s policies with respect to moving expenses for controllers assigned to Guam CERAP.
· Mike Hull and I work with NWP LR Rep/SBA Facility Rep Gordie Thompson regarding a wage garnishment issue related to a Government Credit card issue at his facility. Apparently, all correspondence regarding the credit card issue was sent to our members’ old address (which was updated six months earlier) and to his FAA email address which we are not required to check. As such, the FAA felt very comfortable that they gave our member plenty of notice, or so they thought, in taking care of the debt! I have elevated this issue to the national level.
· As a reminder, if you are planning to attend the Combined Regional Membership Meeting in San Diego, March 23-25, please make your room reservations ASAP. With 5 Regions attending, rooms are filling fast.
Call 1-800-HILTONS and tell them you want to book the room block code NATCA at the "San Diego Hilton Resort/Mission Bay." Room rates are $139/night. The agenda and hotel information can be found on the NWP Website at http://nwp.natca.net
· Congratulations to Oma Viles who is the new Facility Rep at SMF. I would also like to thank outgoing Facility Rep Lee Schenck for his service to his local and to NATCA. Lee will be staying on as the local Vice President.
· Congratulations to Melanie Washington who is the new facility rep at ONT. I would also like to welcome Sylvia Ramirez, ONT VP along with Niccole Castellanos, ONT Secretary-Treasurer.
· Here is a link to a news story on Air Traffic Control done by Aerochannel. It’s a pretty comprehensive piece on the state of the Air Traffic Control system.
http://www.aerochannel.com/features/10167466
· Here is an update from NATCA Safety and Tech regarding the new FAA UCR Order:
“The FAA has started briefing the new UCR (Unsatisfactory Condition Report) Order. NATCA was not involved in any discussions concerning changes made in the order. The agency felt there were no changes that required negotiations and turned away our offers to provide input for the controllers.
Once you are briefed the agency will expect you to follow the order when filing an UCR. The old carbon form will no longer be accepted after January 31st. There is a one page form that can be completed and forwarded to your supervisor for review. The supervisor will make a determination on whether the report meets the requirements to be filed. The areas of consideration have been changed and staffing is no longer an issue which can be filed.
Supervisors will expect you to enter your information into the Safety Information Management System (SIMS) but you can complete the paper form and the supervisor will enter the information. When you file a UCR please remember to fax a copy of it to us at Safety and Technology Department using the fax number 678-391-4831. This puts the fax directly into email.”
