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National Association of Air Traffic Specialists
Aviation Safety is Our Business

Northwest Mountain Region

December Quarterly

16th December 2000

SEATTLE, WA         FAA Regional Office  

ATTENDEES:  McLennan, Elwood, Mounts, Deveraux, Boyle, Osterdahl, Hayes, Mawhorter, Daniels, Orr, Putz and Price.

All branches were present at the meeting.

Before beginning this meeting, knowing there would be substantial questions concerning funding issues, Osterdahl briefed us on developments within the week of the most severe funding and hiring freeze the FAA has ever seen. We agreed to hold the meeting as if this didn�t occur but with an acknowledgment from the Union that if the situation remains this dire we will subsequently engage in discussions around the reality of a stiff freeze. 
The particulars are as follows:

The Air Traffic Division is, nationally, 70 million in the red at this point. That is only the ATD, the Agency as a whole is still worse. The immediate consequences for us relate in terms of no hiring in FSS or Air Traffic at large. The ATD has always fenced their money (up to 98% of funds) but this is somewhat new to other organizations like AF. Other than this I don�t know what else I can tell you at this time. It has been bleak this last year and it seems to me that it is getting worse than you can reasonably anticipate. You will see more particulars in the text as it affects those programs we inquired about.

Scheduled Topics 

Centennial Airport Contract Weather Observations 

Hayes said, at this time, they are still looking for space.  Logistics and the DEN AFSS Manager, Randy Rogers, are assisting in trying to allocate an appropriate location.  Right now it appears it will be no sooner than at least six months before we can anticipate beginning to transition the weather observation responsibilities over to the contractor.  A more important restriction may be contained in the above message from the Administrator.  If this is seen as substituting what we do with a contractor it may be much more difficult to finally land that contract.  No one at the meeting was clear if it is these kinds of programs that are in jeopardy of losing funding , or not being funded at all. 

Familiarization Training Program

At this Quarterly meeting there were two questions concerning this program.  First, if you work an Alternate Work Schedule shift more than eight hours, and your training trip is of less duration than that normally required to avoid using annual leave, must you use one/two hours more of annual leave than an individual working a standard eight hour shift?  Secondly, if you were to be bumped on your return training flight home, and there were no additional flights that day, is your next day (the day you would actually be returning home) a "duty" day?  The answers to these questions were derived from the agreement between NATCA and the FAA.  The so-called "70+ questions and answers" document.  To the first, there is no requirement in that agreement that 9 and 10 hour personnel must use four or five hours of leave on familiarization flights of short duration.  This is very likely a requirement based on some local agreement or perhaps a misunderstanding of the requirements of the program.  As to the second, if your next day were scheduled to be a duty day then this would be your familiarization training travel day.  However, if for example, your next day is an RDO it is much less clear if that can be a duty day.  If your schedule can be rearranged it might be allowable as a travel day or you may simply be traveling on your own time.  Again, these are the agreements that must be considered and agreed to at the local level taking into consideration the facility operation and the employee�s desires.  All days must, in one way or another, be accounted for.  NAATS pointed out that management at the national level and the union are still completing an analogous document that would cover our bargaining unit members and the NATCA document is only to be used as a reference guide.  As an interesting aside it was noted that a national Familiarization Training Program "audit" team was about to go nation-wide to review the program.  It is said, there will be a NAATS member on that team. 

2000 Olympics 

Gordon Burrnett has been announced as the regional manager in charge of coordinating all of the necessary arrangements.  There is a vacancy bid currently being advertised to back-fill behind Burrnett.  The Northwest Mountain Regional Office is proceeding as if there were not a hiring freeze, but will be forced to cancel the advertisement if they are unable to locate the appropriate funding to fill the vacancy.  As of the time of this meeting the Air Traffic Division still has not received their annual regional budget from Headquarters.  Burrnett will remain in the Regional Office.  We were advised that it is still not clear if this will be more of a Regional Office operation or a Salt Lake City operation with mostly only coordination from the Regional Office.  Burrnett�s extension will remain the same 2535.  This means that NAATS must watch closely to see if we need to place a representative in the Seattle area as well as in Utah. 

OASIS

The OASIS national telecon reported that the $10 million they had for FY 2000 was for OASIS activities, not just equipment and deployment and that in actuality about $7 million was being made available for contract activity. Of that $7 million, $4 million was already "sunk" into the program (maybe deficit spending?), which left $3 million to continue development with Harris at a very reduced rate. This means it will take more money than we have to get a deployable system (getting the PTRs corrected). They said that ATP-1�s choice of alternatives as to deploy a system with the high PTRs fixed but without graphics (Seattle might stick with WSI) at a key site beginning in August of 2001. This alternative depended on the program getting a supplemental infusion of $1.5 million by the end of last week, which they did with thanks to Pike and NAATS. If they had not gotten the supplemental, the program would have slipped at least another year and maybe into complete oblivion. They expect to have full graphics and all 1,2 and 3 level PTRs fixed by early June, if all goes well. Of interest to those who are more resilient to pain than me, the question arose during the telecon if the "higher-ups" had been briefed yet? You will remember that OASIS was one of the Administrator�s pet projects at the beginning of her reign. The answer was they were trying to get on her calendar, but it is very difficult.

Also, this month, arising from developing a new technology, another issue that has to do with OASIS but on the personnel side.  At issue is the incredible slippage of the waterfall all the way, to no sooner than, August of 2001.  This effectively slows all processes in place to implement OASIS including the NAATS/FAA Partnership (did I say partnership?) FSDPS solution.  With over 18 months, for what seems to me to be a tentative implementation date, controlling "position management" is going to be a nightmare.  The NAATS organization has many good reasons to explain the slippage but we must now look to the placement of the FSDPS personnel and the negative impact it may have on them.  Staffing (as in so many other instances) is the primary concern here.  If we move persons out of the FSDPS facilities too soon we may have operational problems as well as watch schedule issues.  If we wait too long there may not be adequate time for our people to move in a reasonable fashion that allows them options as to when, where and how.  It would seem logical therefore to go back to the national oversight team to develop some answers of how best to walk this tightrope.  I will attempt to get that ball rolling.

A corollary issue developed at the Quarterly Meeting, concerning funding for the new consoles, which are supposed to be installed in Seattle by February. The answer was "funds are up in the air at ANS-400 and the HIVAC contract is in the process of being let".  Additionally, it came out there is still not an MOU in place in Seattle concerning the placement of consoles.

In this same vein Elwood asked if wheel chair ramp funding was still available as now that facility has a definite need.  As you might suspect that got a vague answer too.  A vague answer is anything other than "Yes".

OSHECOM

We presented the views of our representative to this committee Steve Barber from BOI AFSS.  Those concerned funding and management�s participation.  I asked Boyle if, traditionally, this was one of those opposite agenda type of committees.  That is, management has their agenda and the Union has theirs and the two never find any common ground.  He said he thought, historically, that was true but that of late and, on committees of this type, they have made headway to come to a more common understanding of what can, and needs to be, done. The Agency is trying to develop better relations with OSHA and with their internal workings within the committee.  However, it was clear that user forums would suffer because of budget shortfalls.  If the funding issue is not overcome and management has a legal obligation to convene this forum and meet with field representatives, the Air Traffic Division�s concern will be what can they do to still meet?  Also questioned was why management choose the people they do to sit in at meetings like this?  Often times the people attending these types of forum, on behalf of management, have no developed background in the topic area. 

Automatic Call Distributors 

A memorandum from ATP-1, Jeff Griffith, was distributed to the Regional Air Traffic Division Managers on December 9, 1999.  It said:

"The BCS ACD replacement program was the result of Y2K mandated upgrades.  Prior to the installation of the BCS replacement system, the only position equipped with monitoring capability was the supervisor�s workstation.  However, during the installation of the new system, some facilities extended the monitoring capabilities to administrative work areas.  These decisions were made locally and without negotiation with NAATS.

Air Traffic Quality Assurance Order, 7210.56 assigns the responsibility of remote monitoring an employee to the first-level supervisor as a method of assessing the employee�s technical performance.

     In an effort to ensure that monitoring responsibilities are in compliance with the existing national directive, please ensure that all monitoring is done in a confidential manner and the silent-monitoring feature is inhibited in administrative work areas that are occupied by other than first level supervisors."

I asked Boyle to send guidance out to field facilities to instruct them to adhere to the intent of the letter and Osterdahl took the IOU to make sure it happens.  Be sure and follow up on this issue.  If you have any questions call me. 

Staffing 

We developed the dialog (keeping in mind our new freeze) of our needs for the coming year.  I began with a question to Boyle of what the staffing "standards" meant to him and if he adhered to them.  He said that according to the standard itself they are to be used as guidelines.  In this region the ATD uses their Master Planning Board (MPB) for guidance on these types of questions.  This region, by their latest count has 223 FSS personnel.  It is not clear if this is only FPL�s, or all controllers.  In any event the MPB distributed our 14 supposed new hires based on percentages of work done by some convoluted, and maybe wholly erroneous, system.  It has never been explained to me in any detail, and I have never been invited to join their meeting.  We disagreed with their plan and suggested that the FSS option would be better served by the following distribution:

It is interesting to note that ANM originally had 18 people targeted as new hires.  However, because we already got four persons assigned through other means, Headquarters reduced our target for new hires by that number.  In this region�s case the four new persons came to our bargaining unit as placements under DPP MOU.  That is an agreement wholly outside the confines of our bargaining unit.  There is only so much stupidity that one individual can stand.  I contacted Pike and he said that he had the same sorry story from Southern and Great Lakes regions and was working the issue now.  He said no one is willing, at this point, to confess to being that heavy-handed.  I�ll bet.

On another note, Pike has filed a grievance against the Agency at the national level for failing to negotiate the distribution of new employees to the regions and the regional distribution of those employees.  Our right to negotiate over staffing numbers comes from our CPP MOU in Section 1.c.  You can use this same tact with your managers when negotiating a new watch schedule and wanting to build in some extra lines. 

WSI Installation Schedule

The installations have all been completed successfully.  I need feedback from FacReps, please. 

McMinnville AFSS Facility Representative 

An election was held last month to find a successor for Marty Brown.  The bargaining unit members elected Rebecca Teborek.  We welcome her to the team and will get her any necessary training as well as anything she might need in the short run.  Best wishes to Marty, we will miss him and all that he has done for us. 

Unscheduled Topics 

Supervisory Levels 

A question was raised about the high number of supervisory levels at some of the facilities.  Boyle said he would like to see it handled and agreed to at the facility level.  If however, when discussing this issue it would become necessary to impasse then he indicated he and I would have to work the issue for the facility.  We realize this is a position management issue, which may not be within our purview.  On the other hand, how it gets into a bargaining arena is because management, at some facilities, continues to back-fill behind supervisors even though they are operating with greatly reduced staffing levels.  It gets so ridiculous that you have a less than 6-to-1 ratio, of supervisors to directly supervised employees, in some cases.  I won�t mention which facility is the most insidious but Darrell did a nice job.

Grievances.  

We notified management that the one filed at BOI AFSS needs to be carefully reviewed. If sustained by management there it would be elevated for further review by NAATS.

WTO issue.  

ATP-130 Special Operations in DC communicates directly with the US Secret Service.  They then coordinate with the region that included, Flight Standards and Air Traffic.  The region failed to include anyone from FSS. 

Next Meeting

Tentatively, and for planning purposes, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 14, 2000, at MMV AFSS.  At that time the team will formally have the opportunity to meet, and get better aquatinted with, Rebecca.

 

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