Towerboss Future Former Controller Houston, Texas

# 1

(sampled from another site)

Note: The intent of this post is to offer those who seek FAA employment a basic understanding of shift work and schedules at MOST ATC facilities. The shift work and schedules described below are commonplace at all ARTCC facilities. Most of the variation within the FAA occurs at the Terminal level, especially facilities ATC-10 and below. If you have a question about a specific Terminal facility, then post a question on this forum asking for an opinion from someone that works there. If you want to contribute to this post by describing your facilities unique shift work or schedule, then you are welcome to do so. Please do not flame my post if you disagree or wish to make corrections. Give me the courtesy and respect that I would extend to you by sending me a personal message to express your disagreements, corrections, additions, or compliments. As always if you find this post useful, please rate it accordingly.

So you want to be an Air Traffic Controller for the FAA, but you’ve heard a lot of horror stories about shifts and scheduling and you want to know more (hopefully you do, otherwise I’ve wasted my time).

RDO’s (Regular Days Off): Aircraft fly seven days a week, 365 days a year. Someone has to provide separation, issue safety alerts, and expedite the flow of traffic. If you’re an air traffic controller, then that someone is you. The moment you sign up for this job, you agree to abandon the standard Monday through Friday work week that you’ve grown accustomed to. The same work week that starts every morning around 8:00am and ends around 5:00pm. Your weekends will never be the same again…literally. In fact, your weekend will even have a new name, RDO (Regular Days Off). Your favorite Saturday/Sunday weekend will become a Monday/Tuesday RDO, or Wednesday/Thursday RDO. The possibilities are endless…well…not quite…there are seven RDO possibilities. So how do know or choose which RDO you will have at your new facility? Read on…

LEAVE (a.k.a. paid-time-off): Leave falls into three categories; annual leave, sick leave, and leave-without-pay. Annual and sick leave are earned every two weeks. As a new hire without military or government work experience you will earn 4 hours of annual leave and 4 hours of sick leave every two weeks. If you do have military or government work experience of three years or more, then you will earn 6 hours of annual leave every two weeks. 3 years of government work (FAA, military, DoD, etc.) will allow you to earn 6 hours of annual leave every two weeks. 15 years of government work will allow you to earn 8 hours of annual leave every two weeks. Sick leave can only be accrued at 4 hours every two weeks. Leave-without-pay is self-explanatory. You either use it when you exhaust your accrued leave under special circumstances, you’ve received disciplinary action, or you’re absent without leave (AWOL) and you do not value your job. So how easy is it to use leave, and how does seniority affect leave? Keep reading…

SENIORITY: Seniority determines who gets first pick at RDO’s, scheduled annual leave (a.k.a. vacation time), overtime, and other perks of the job. Your starting day of seniority begins on your FIRST day at your facility…AFTER you graduate the academy…WHEN you arrive at your facility for work. I emphasize this because so many people misunderstand this concept. If you arrive at your facility on the same day as another person and you are both assigned to the same area of work, then you will “flip-a-coin” for seniority during the fiscal year. This will happen EVERY year for as long as you both continue to work in the same area. If you are ex-military and you arrive under the same circumstance, then you will automatically be senior to the other person…forever.

BIDDING FOR RDO’S & SCHEDULED ANNUAL LEAVE: At the start of every fiscal year (Oct 1st) each controller will be given the opportunity to choose RDO’s and scheduled annual leave (a.k.a. vacation time) that will begin at the start of and last through the upcoming calendar year (Jan 1st – Dec 31st). Each controller picks his/her RDO’s and 2 weeks of vacation. Bidding on 2 weeks of scheduled annual leave or vacation time doesn’t guarantee its approval for use. It can be taken away under extreme circumstances like sudden under-staffing. First choice will go the most senior then it will be passed down to the least senior. Certified controllers will bid against one another, as will trainees. They are both handled separately. This is the reason why as a trainee it is possible to have the RDO’s and vacation time that you desire while you are in training.

SHIFT WORK: Shift work consists of Day shifts (that vary between 6am and 5pm), Night shifts (that vary between 12pm and 11pm), and Midnight shifts (that vary between 10pm and 8am). Each shift lasts a minimum of 8 hours and cannot last longer than 10 hours. The most common shift work schedule consists of working 2 night shifts, 2 day shifts, and one midnight shift each week. Trainees will not normally work midnight shifts unless required for training, so the last day of work will usually consist of a third day shift. This is consistent among the ARTCCs. Some Terminal facilities aren’t open 24 hours a day, nor are they open 7 days a week. Some are open on holidays and some are not. Some have shifts that operate on a full week of days, then a full week of nights, and so on (I worked this type of shift in the military and the DoD, and hated it. Your body never gets used to it, and the week of straight nights hits your home and social life hard). The shift variations at Terminal facilities are many, and are more flexible than those at ARTCCs. Breaks during shift vary between 15 minutes and 45 minutes. Lunch breaks are the longest and everyone gets just one. You will not be allowed to leave the facility for lunch without taking annual leave. Some facilities have cafeterias and most do not. You should plan to pack a lunch or dinner and snacks for work. Controllers take turns going on break. Supervisors set the length of breaks based on staffing for that day. The more people there are to work the longer the break and the more frequent they become. The fewer there are to work the shorter the break and the less frequent they become. The FAA has required that supervisors avoid allowing controllers to work more than 2 consistent hours on a position without a break. Sometimes it is possible to relieve a controller before they work 2 consistent hours and sometimes it is not. This will become harder to accomplish as staffing levels continue to decrease in the future.

ANNUAL/SICK LEAVE & SHIFT SWAPS: You will be able to request the use of annual and sick leave at any time throughout the year even if it falls on days that you did not bid on the year prior. Its approval will be subject to a first-come, first-serve basis in order of seniority with your peers, and staffing levels for the requested day/s off. It is also possible to swap shifts with another controller when you cannot get a particular day off. It is also possible to work for another controller or have them work for you to accrue credit hours (a.k.a. earned time off). Sick leave is only authorized for use in relation to illness, doctor appointments, etc. It can be used for ill family members or other circumstances like the birth of a child. Sick leave abuse is a problem in the FAA the agency is serious about finding and punishing those that abuse its use.

REALITY CHECK: Now that you have good knowledge of shift work and schedules in the FAA what should you expect as a new hire? You should expect that each facility is different. Don’t let seniority worry you to the point of exhaustion. Everyone has different tastes and needs. Everyone constantly tells people that the most senior have the best days off. This isn’t always the case, they simply get first choice at picking the days off that they want or need. Some people love Tuesday/Wednesday RDOs. Some people don’t want to lose the extra pay that working on a Sunday provides. It really falls on your luck at a given facility. As a new hire and a trainee you won’t have earned enough leave to take long vacations anyway. While you’re training, you won’t want to take leave since your raises are based on your progression. Now is a great time to start working for the FAA in relation to seniority because it’s the beginning of building a new work force. Your progression up the ladder of seniority will happen quickly until all those eligible to retire have done so. During my first year as a trainee, I had Thursday/Friday RDO’s, and during my second year I had Friday/Saturday RDO’s. I can only recall a few circumstances in which my requests for a few days off here and there were not approved.

zabnut Senior Member Albuquerque

# 2

SENIORITY

"If you are ex-military and you arrive under the same circumstance, then you will automatically be senior to the other person…forever."

Not true, the rules have changed, Military time is not the tie breaker anymore. Time on details (Such as QA or training dept) is subtracted from your controller time, then if that does not break the tie(s) you flip a coin.....nothing is forever. (The time subtracted from your controller time only breaks the tie, people junior to you will not jump ahead because of a detail, this is different from "Bad" time such as temp supe jobs)

Breaks at ZAB are pretty much the same in every area. 30 minutes for a regular break and 40 for lunch.

meatasaurusx Senior Member Chi-town

# 3

I have a couple questions that I hope someone can clarify.

First, do your RDO's have to be consecutive? Do people ever have a monday/thursday or something like that?

Second, is the annual leave that you earn every two weeks the same as your vacation time? basically, is annual leave the same as scheduled annual leave? do trainees get two weeks of vacation their first year? (i'm guessing not, but just want to be sure)

ATC@ZID Junior Member Indiana

# 4

Ummmmm ZABnut it is the tie breaker.

zabnut Senior Member Albuquerque

# 5

LOL, no its not.

Read it and weep. It is A tie breaker, it is not the first one like it used to be.

Below is an explanation of the current NATCA Seniority Policy, which must be used by all locals in determining seniority.

To review, here is the order in which seniority is assigned, per the current NATCA
Seniority Policy:

1. Cumulative NATCA Bargaining Unit Time
2. First Tie Breaker NATCA Bargaining Unit Time
3. Second Tie Breaker EOD FAA
4. Third Tie Breaker SCD
5. Fourth Tie Breaker Lottery (lottery shall be determined at the local level)

First tie breaker is NATCA bargaining unit time. DUTIES other than in the bargaining unit such as DETAILS and TEMP supe position SUBTRACT from your total time.

Military time (EOD+military time=SCD) is the THIRD tie breaker.

Just google NATCA seniority policy and you will find several links to the information above.

mjohn47 Senior Member Holbrook, NY

# 6

TowerBoss - Thank you! Really appreciate the explanation.

Towerboss Future Former Controller Houston, Texas

# 7

The answer to your first question is... I've never heard of it being done.
The answer to your second question is... Yes annual and vacation is the same you earn leave at a rate of 4 hrs/ every 2 weeks till 3 years in. Then you earn leave at 6 hrs/ every 2 weeks. After I think 10-15 years in it goes up to 8 hrs/ every 2 weeks.

~~~~~~~~~

If someone comes in with retired military service the same day as someone who is just a vet with say 4 years military time. The person with just the 4 years military time will be senior because the retired military guy can't count his military time towards the SCD.

~~~~~~~~~

No problem!

zabnut Senior Member Albuquerque

# 8

Not true read it here, the guidance is crystal clear and is not up to local interpretation.

http://nsw.natca.net/docs/seniorityguidance.pdf

Q: What is SCD (service computation date)?

A: It is a date assigned by the government that is used for benefit (leave,
retirement) determinations and is based on how long a person has been in the federal service. This can include active military time or service with another federal agency. This date is found on an employee’s SF-50.

Retired or not it says active duty time. What are you reading that tells you anything different? I am looking at NATCA documentation (The only true guidance on seniority) It may have been the way you are saying before Oct 1st 2004 when this changed. It sounds to me that was the information you where giving out before when the first tie breaker used to be in fact Military time. In a small facility you might only have one or two with this problem and they might always use SCD, they just have to understand they lose their spot and use a different tie breaker if they leave the bargaining unit for any reason.

Roddy_Piper Resident Knucklehead SW Vegas

# 9

Very well thought out and easy to understand Towerboss. Good Job!

Seniority

For those of you that are prior FCT, be sure to see if your tower was a NATCA tower. You don't have to have been a member of NATCA while at your FCT. You just have to had been at a tower that was covered by NATCA. I know this because the FCT I was at fell into that category. I got my 2 years of FCT/NATCA time to count towards seniority. It would fall under the 1st category (total NATCA time). So the first day I stepped into my facility I was already ahead of anyone that was at the facility for less than 2 years.

I know this to be fact because it happened to me and at least 5 others that I know of for sure. You'll have to talk to your NATCA rep to see which FCT towers are NATCA towers. They should have a list. The ZOA NATCA rep had it and I've seen it.

Dale Senior Member Uniondale, Indiana

# 10

The active word in the answer is "can". That does not mean "will" or "shall".

If an individual accepts retirement from one federal agency (DOD or other), they cannot then use the same time to qualify for another annuity. From what you are saying, an individual could retire from the military with 20 years service, then apply that to an ATCS retirement at 25 years (just 5 years later) and collect 2 pensions. That is incorrect.

Tower Boss was correct in saying that a military retiree cannot use their time for SCD computation.