NATCA response to overtime question

towerflower Junior Member Palm Coast, FL

You copied the answers but not the question. The question was from a newbie who wasn't sure if they were entitled to OT after working 6 days in a row but within the 40 hr work week. It wasn't a matter of requesting but one of entitlement. Doug is not a working controller and does not know all the answers so he took the newbie's question from this site and put it on the union site to get answers from those who may have dealt with the issue. What you highlighted came from another person. The OT system can be a complicated issue with both OPM rules and the contract coming into play. The FACREPs duty is to defend his members, it is not their duty to pick and choose what they feel is right or wrong. If it was your grievance and you were convinced you were right you would want the rep to defend you to the best of his ability. The rep did his job. We don't know the facts behind the bold statements of the rep, we don't really know if the grievances held any weight or not so to condemn the whole without knowing all the facts is not logical or ethical. I have seen times when a rep didn't think a grievance held any weight but when argued with all concerned it took on a different light. Our job is filled with "entitlements" most of which are governed by OPM rules. One job of the union is to ensure that each person receives what they are entitled to.

You have stated that you are a person of ethics: A principle of right or good behavior and Ethical: Conforming to accepted principles of right and wrong that govern a profession. Yet you haven't even stepped foot into a facility to see for yourself the ethics that govern our profession. You will see both sides of the coin then, but to decide which side is more ethical based on comments made of this forum is wrong. You are going into the wrong profession in working for the government if you are looking for a totally ethical environment. You will find that at times either side could have an agenda. From my many years in, I have found that most times it was management that had an agenda and not the union.

ZBWer Rookie

So, RdRunnr12, you don't have a class date yet huh? Well then, it may interest you to know of the rumors all over NatcaNet about a hiring freeze until next fiscal year (That's Oct. of 2010.) Who did this? The FAA. Who is fighting it? NATCA. So, basically, people that have quit their jobs and re-arranged their lives thinking they had a class date around the corner, have been left high and dry by the agency. This is what they do kid. You have no clue about ethics and morals if you think that NATCA is less ethical or moral than the idiots running this agency. If you want to think that it's immoral for a rep to win a grievance on a technicality feel free. As a former rep I have to tell you that those are cases that you hold your nose and fight. The reason is the next time it happens, you have to have preserved the right to fight it.

Just so you are perfectly clear, the agency that you are striving to be part of is run by a bunch of slimeballs whose sole purpose is to break the system so that it can be privatized and "fixed" by a private contractor. That means no union, no pension, no job security, much lower pay, and humongous pay for the guys at the top that are running things. Coincidentally, those guys used to be supervisors and managers at the very agency that they broke. Who's leading the fight against privatization? You guessed it...NATCA.

You're naive. That's fine, you don't know any better. You're anti-union already. Whatever, that's your perogative. But there is some serious irony here when you are looking for reasons not to join the only organization that cares about you as a controller...assuming you ever get hired. Don't pretend that this is any more complicated than asking yourself the following question:

Do I want to stand in solidarity with my fellow controllers to preserve and protect our profession? Or do I want to leech off of those that are committing time and money, or just money, to this effort?

RdRunnr12 Site Editor

If I do choose to not join the union it will not be because I'm trying to leach of anyone. It will be because I don't believe in unions. Well, right now I don't.

ZBWer Rookie

Well, don't worry. If the FAA freezes hiring again, like they did for 9 years before this push, you'll probably get to experience the joys of working in a non-union job. Your pay, benefits and work rules will probably suck, but at least you won't have to compromise your beliefs.

Radium Epic Member SoCal Tracon

sidenote: RDRunner, dude, EVERY part of the govt leaches of the govt/american people. 2 real life instances:
USAF: We had xxxx$ left in our budget, money that we did not need to spend what so ever, because it was allotted to our facility but we had everything covered (ie computers/desks and so on). Well... if we didnt spend the xthousand $'s, it wont be in the budget next year... so my facility bought NEW CHAIRS every year... for like 4 years in a row, so many chairs that we had a room of only chairs.
USCoastGuard: Same example; They call my folks dotCom, said they have 12g's they NEED to spend on whatever.... so they want new GPS's in their trucks... so they bought 12 of em.

The govt is a huge money pit dude, welcome to the govt, military, faa, dod, everything... right or wrong, the 100$ this dude got in overtime is a drop in the biggest bucket you have ever seen.

towerflower Junior Member Palm Coast, FL

When I was hired into the FAA there was no union. I never had any dealings with a union before. I never had a choice. Previous jobs were all minimum wage with no union or the military. I worked under the FAA's management rule and if you had any complaint your only recourse was through filing an EEO complaint--a process that would label you for years to come. I would witness some issues in which the person needed to have help/representation and instead they were left to deal with it on their own and unless they had the resources to fight they normally lost or were left to the whim of the manager in charge.

So when people started to send notices about a possible new union, I was curious. I wanted to know what a union could do, how they could help. I attended the meetings, I listened to what they had to say. I asked questions. I had people come up to me asking me if I was worried that the ATM would find out that I was there--very anti-union person. I went anyway. When the time came I voted for the union as did many of my co-workers who were afraid to come to the meetings. That should speak volumes, who should anyone be afraid to attend a meeting, why should anyone be afraid to ask questions, why should anyone be afraid to speak up for what is right and why should anyone be afraid to stand up against management gone rogue?

My activities within the union has stayed mainly with my own local, although I did get involved in some issues I thought where important as a whole. One of which was the removal of the weather radios from facilites. The tower I worked at was almost hit by a tornado and it did millions of dollars in damage to the airport's aircraft/buildings. It might have taken out a passenger jet but call it what you want--fate or an act of God--a frequency outage at the right time caused the plane to go through the localizer and miss the tornado. The FAA did not want to do the ethical thing and allow these radios to be present in the tower--they removed them days prior. They were exercising their new found control over the workforce. Through myself and other NATCA members we were able to get these radios put back into the facilities. It was a group effort to make a change for the better. That is what the union is about.....making a change for the better.

The FAA didn't care about the safety of their employees but the union did. The union is much more than getting deserved OT pay for an entitled employee. It is about protecting you and your rights. They have fought hard for this and will continue to do so.

I don't expect to change your mind, but I do ask you to go in with an open mind and not a closed one.

GLF5 Senior Member

Jeez. I asked the original question about this. I'm not sure where the whole "newbie" part came from, if that's how you see it then great job, you're wrong.

Anyways, it was asked because management is NOT providing OT pay for this scenario, after multiple attempts. It was asked to get more than 3 opinions...2 being management, that's what's great about the internet. It's not as straight forward as it appears if you read the last part of the question. OT pay was requested multiple times before this question was put for everyone else to chime in on. Case building maybe? It wouldn't have been asked if management did the right thing...when everyone was looking.

towerflower Junior Member Palm Coast, FL

GLF5,

I made the "newbie" assumption. I know what they say about assuming...my bad. I figured a "veteran" would not have posted on Ask NATCA part of this forum but on the union site directly.

Mr.Texas Mod

RdRunner,
It seems as though you are laying the foundation to not join the union. "If hired", it will be your choice to join or not to join. Keep in mind, the RedBook and GreenBook both had raises and better working rules for "all" controllers. This was nothing the FAA wanted to give us. NATCA fought for it! Everyone reeps the benefits of it. Would it be great if only NATCA members got the awards won and non supporters/believers kept the whitebook rules? This wouldn't be right....right? Yet you wouldn't mind reeping the benefits of NATCA's hard work and the members union dues allowing the hard work to be done. These are the people that have no voice to me, sit back and shut the **** up is my attitude towards these people!

ATC_MacGyver MacGyver with the bears.

could you please go more in depth with this? What are you suggesting?