Another dud headline on a reasonable story.

Militants in air traffic control towers

Cameron Stewart | August 18, 2008

IT would be a nightmare for Christmas holidaymakers: an industrial brawl that grounds planes across the country over the festive season.

This is the spectre that looms for travellers as tensions escalate between air traffic controllers and their government-owned employer, Airservices Australia.

"I think we all know what's coming," one angry veteran air traffic controller from Melbourne wrote in an online forum to colleagues this month.

"It's time for all the older heads to start preparing our younger colleagues for December. Come December, you (ASA chief executive Greg Russell) will pay mate! A bloke can only take so many insults, especially when they are lies."

These militant views are not the stated position of the air traffic controllers' union, Civil Air, which promises that it will try to avoid industrial action. But they are reflective of deep passions being stirred by one of Australia's most unusual and dangerous disputes.

But Cameron, you know that the agreement expires on December 21, you also know that Civil Air is not talking about any action at this stage.  As a conservative union it is highly likely that they will dot every i and cross every t when it comes to following the appropriate laws surrounding industrial action.  This means that the earliest they could take action is well after Christmas; do you think they will target the public in such a way?

It is an issue which, if mismanaged over the coming months, has the potential to grind the country to a halt in a manner not seen since the 1989 pilots dispute in which the Hawke Labor government brought in the defence force.

Only if mismanaged on both sides.  Nobody wants for the industrial action to become industrial war. Well maybe Greg does.

Put simply, Australia's 900 or so air traffic controllers are fed up with what they see as institutional neglect of their profession over many years.

900 or so, well wrong.  There are 753 operational controllers, the others counted against the ‘numbers’ are managers who no longer control, or people on long term sick leave or on leave without pay (in other jobs elsewhere). Whatever the number, there has been clear and deliberate degrading of our profession.  They consider us to be glorified traffic cops, or similar skills to ‘data entry’ IT operators, maybe ‘call centre drones’.

They accuse ASA of chronic mismanagement, resulting in serious staff shortages, repeated demands for overtime and pay scales which have lagged behind their overseas counterparts.

"The simple fact is that the system has been unsustainable for some time," says Civil Air president Robert Mason.

The safety of the flying public is also at stake: a shortage of controllers has frequently left large chunks of Australian sky without supervision for hours on end, leaving pilots to fend for themselves to avoid mid-air collisions.

Now we are starting to get it.  TIBA is a direct result of staffing levels not abuse of sick-leave or the refusal of overtime. One group has 17 staff, and ‘requires’ almost 50 overtime shifts a month, before anyone calls in sick to meet ‘minimum staffing’.

But ASA chief Russell says the controllers themselves are part of the problem, accusing a small group of deliberately leaving the skies unmanned in order to strengthen their hand in forthcoming wage negotiations.

"It is no coincidence that these interruptions have been occurring in a time we are in a certified agreement negotiation," he tells The Australian.

"The union tells me they are not involved but I do think there are a small number of renegade controllers who are using these sorts of tactics to disrupt Australia's aviation system."

Greg, you are obviously a victim here too, you have believed what the middle management stooges have been selling you.  You want to take on the unions, but have you got the right information?  Surely you’re not stupid, you must see what you’re selling is rancid.

The issue has come to a head because ASA is now negotiating a new three-year collective agreement with Civil Air to take effect once the current agreement expires in December.

But there is a deadly sting in these discussions which has implications for all Australians. Civil Air, in its so-called vision statement for the new agreement is calling for total pay rises for air traffic controllers of between 32 and 63 per cent over the next three years.

Hardly a ‘deadly sting’.  The informal pay claim is large, but inline with the global market.  When Geoff Dixon gets a multi-million dollar salary it’s market forces, when the controllers ask that those forces apply to them they are considered greedy and unrealistic, why? The 63% applies to the training wage, we are sick of getting people straight from high school, how about a bit of maturity and life skills.

This would see the wage of senior air traffic controllers rise from $145,367 to $175,000 from January, and rising to $193,214 in 2011: a 33 per cent rise.

And yet will still be less than controller wages in Ireland, England, Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Muscat, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Mexico; all of whom have vacancies, some of those have significantly larger salaries and tax free or much less tax than Oz.

Civil Air says these large rises are justified because they bring pay scales into line with overseas controllers and are the only way to attract and retain enough air traffic controllers in Australia into the future.

The numbers are real, despite taking 100 trainees a year, (even though they have little hope of coping with that many), retirements and early resignations will exceed that number; we have a significant ‘age profile’ issue.  If we do nothing to retain staff, stop early retirements and departures to other employers there will be much more problems in 5 years than we have now.  

Then consider growth, there is no evidence of new facilities in these plans.  Parallel Runways at Brisbane and Melbourne, new airport towers at current unmanned locations etc will add significant pressure to the ‘numbers’.

But they will be unacceptable to the Rudd Government because of the precedence such large rises would create and the pressure they would put on its inflation strategy.

Yes, the ‘precedent’ would be set for all the other air traffic controllers otherwise employed in the civil world outside Airservices and residing in Australia.  Yes NONE, what inflationary effect will 0.0001 of the national workforce getting less than double "real CPI" have?

They will also be fiercely resisted by airlines which are already reeling from record fuel prices. The airlines pay the salaries of the controllers via ASA which is government-owned but industry-funded.

What are the true costs of the claim, we have had good advice that the total extra claim in the vision equates to almost $30M.  This works out to be 75 cents per passenger seat sold in Australia.  It could also be fully costed against the ASA annual profit, some $104M last year.  Both these options would have little effect on the viability of the airlines or contribute significantly to their costs.

Yet Civil Air is a union full of angry members who genuinely feel that they have been mistreated for too long. It is in no mood to back down, setting the scene for an industrial showdown with national ramifications.

Too right, controllers are really pissed off that their employer treats them like shit, totally unappreciated, totally as a detriment to their efficient business, a cost not an asset.  They are equally aggrieved that their employer pays lip service to safety and has ‘restructured’ the business to an inefficient, inflexible, over managed beast that has lost site of it’s core business, to provide the best damn air traffic service we can.  

They are also pissed off that their employer doesn’t recognise traffic growth when working out productivity.  Controllers even when fully staffed (which is rare) are working harder than ever before and the out of touch managers only see productivity when controllers trade off their conditions of employment to squeeze more blood from the stone as the only way to measure it.

Then there are the AWOTE arguments, controllers get a fair wage by Australian Standards, but by Air Traffic Controller standards we are becoming a laughing stock.  Controllers wages have reduce against AWOTE (community growth) by some 15% over the last 10 years.

So how did it come to this? The seeds of the problem were sown years ago by Airservices and by proxy, the Howard government.

Set up 13 years ago to manage Australia's air traffic control system and provide airports services such as aviation rescue and fire fighting, ASA employs about 3000 people, including about 900 air traffic controllers.

There’s that 900 number again.

But over the past eight years, management deficiencies have emerged. In the early 2000s the organisation inexplicably failed to foresee the need to sharply lift its intake of controllers in the face of a worldwide shortage, an ageing workforce and more airline traffic.

It’s failure was a deliberate act; they ‘banked’ on new technology reducing the controller positions at a greater rate than the retirement forecast.  What they missed was the ‘delays’ to technology implementation, people leaving for OS and people retiring earlier than the nominal average.  They didn’t react to the technology delays. They didn’t react to earlier retirements and they certainly haven’t reacted to OS departures. They couldn't admit that the union knew more about their business than they did.

"I was surprised by how much needed to be done," says Russell who took over as CEO in mid-2005. "There was a lack of planning for the future, the place had become distracted from its primary mission."

What is the primary mission Greg?  Selling stuff in Malaysia and Indonesia, manning towers in the pacific, consulting in the Middle East?

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese is also unusually blunt about the dysfunction within ASA which his Government has inherited.

"It is pretty clear that for a long period of time the ball was dropped," he tells The Australian. "The issue of skills in the aviation industry was on autopilot."

So what are you minister going to do about it?  Review things?  Or simply leave them on course to a disaster?  The paper BS is just that, nothing of substance will come from it with any speed.

Russell admits that in his first year as CEO he did not give immediate priority to recruiting more controllers, because he says he was busy trying to restructure a "dysfunctional" organisation.

'I don't think we fully understood the air traffic implications until later in 2006 and that's when we said 'let's fast track people'."

BULLSHIT!  Greg you were given promises by your lower sycophant managers that haven’t been delivered, you “moved on” anyone that questions the substance of the plans or the financial benefits of the plans.  In 2006 you realised that we weren’t going to have 70 people doing what 100 used to do and the wheels began falling off; you had no choice but to up the intakes.

The ALM and SDE restructures have reduced the operational efficiency of the business when it could be least afforded. You were given direct advice that it’s a bad idea, you don’t like your ideas being criticised, you said “damn the torpedo’s ramming speed”.

GREG, YOU FUCKED UP BIG TIME!

Russell has recently more than doubled planned recruitment numbers to between 80 and 100 trainees a year for the next five years, but it will not help solve the present shortage because of the lag-time of at least a year for recruits to become fully qualified.

Cameron, shame on you, no mention of their ability to train so many people.  No mention of the trainees employed in August and won’t start "real" training until January?  They’re “on the books” so they are part of the solution, right? Did someone say 'corporate fraud' and saving face?

Did anyone pay attention during the mandatory corporate governance training; how many people have reported this fraud?

As a result, both Civil Air and ASA admit there is a national shortage of controllers, although they differ on how critical this shortage is.

ASA says it has 876 controllers and is only 17 controllers short of its full complement, but Civil Air says the shortage is more like 100 because it says ASA is including managers who are qualified controllers but who, after a management restructure last year, no longer work on the consoles.

There are 753 operational controllers and a need for 807.  There are an additional 48 controllers required for training and other specialist roles that are currently vacant. They hope to reduce this number to 700 through cutting out 'archaic rules' relating to CASA regulations and worlds best practice.

Civil Air says that since June 2002 the number of air traffic controllers has fallen by 20.6 per cent while monthly aircraft movements have jumped by 25.2 per cent.

Did anyone say ‘productivity increase’? Did anyone say working much harder and under more pressure?

Either way, all parties agree that there are not enough controllers to manage the skies and the dangerous outcome is that large chunks of skies are being left unsupervised for hours at a time, a situation which pilots have likened to that of Third World African nations.

But Russell is constantly dismissing the impact of this by blaming, militants and renegades and a few people to strengthen their industrial claim.

The surge in the incidence of uncontrolled airspace - which rose by one-third between May and June alone - has put enormous pressure on ASA, embarrassed the Government and angered the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

It has also infuriated airlines which try to avoid sending their planes though uncontrolled airspace for safety reasons, causing delays, cancellations and costly diversions.

Virgin Blue chief executive Brett Godfrey has blasted ASA's management, saying the air traffic control system should not collapse just because a few people call in sick.

Godfrey is right, Sick Leave at traditional levels should not ‘cripple’ your business, even if there is a ‘spike’ which there isn’t.

CASA is also frustrated by the safety risks involved in having uncontrolled airspace. Last month, CASA boss Bruce Byron warned ASA to quickly get its house in order.

ASA knows this embarrassing situation is playing into Civil Air's hands at a time when negotiations for a new collective agreement have begun.

If Airservices was fair dinkum they would present a modest, but above average pay-rise, without wanting to denigrate further the working conditions of the controllers.  They haven’t, they won’t and they will attempt to resolve staffing crisis by making the controllers ‘more productive’ ie work them harder, thus reducing the numbers of controllers required.

Russell also smells a rat and believes that a small but militant number of controllers are trying to strengthen their negotiating position by throwing sickies and refusing to work overtime in order to close the skies and highlight staff shortages.

Russell is loose with the truth, he thinks that blaming others will remove the focus on his lack of stewardship and incompetence.  At this point in time, the only people believing Russell’s SPIN are his sycophant managers who are trawling through statistics (and manipulating them) to find links to ‘bastardry’, not to mismanagement.

The union strongly denies it is running any such campaign, but there is anecdotal evidence that some controllers are refusing to make themselves available to replace colleagues when they call in sick.

But what is the reason, because they have had enough, are sick of working OT because they work unreasonable hours, have stopped believing the ‘we’ll fix the crisis’ messages due to inaction.  Is it that the industrial issue is simply a coincidence to the greater issues.  Russell is choosing to link the events, he does so at great risk.

Last Friday, a wide area of airspace between Brisbane and Cairns was left uncontrolled between midnight and 5.30am after one controller called in sick. ASA says six other controllers declined to cover the shift while another four were uncontactable.

The big point here is 1 controller called in sick and airspace closed, did you mention mismanagement?  The statistics about controllers being ‘unavailable’ is a side show.  See this blog here for an explanation about why controllers wouldn’t come in to work a ‘doggo’; it destroys your plans, it destroys your recovery and the likelihood if they are calling you, you can expect to be at the console all night without a break, where do I sign right?

To support its claims of industrial blackmail, ASA has drawn up graphs showing that there was a similar, though much smaller, spike in uncontrolled airspace in late 2005 when the existing collective agreement was being negotiated.

We have seen those graphs too, see our editing here.

Civil Air disputes the allegations, saying the vast majority of controllers are exhausted and overworked by a system that is falling to pieces.

If Airshambles were serious about attracting staff on overtime, then surely they would simply pay more for overtime?  What about paying more for anyone exceeding a certain threshold a month, say 10 hours.  The first 10 hours normal OT rate, exceed that we’ll give you 0.7 more an hour. etc.  Their only solution appears to be, embarrass them for not coming in.

"I think there will undoubtedly be one or two (controllers) around the tracks who are not playing the game properly," says union chief Mason.

"the vast majority of controllers are exhausted and overworked by a system that is falling to pieces."

"But airspace closures are occurring because Airservices has allowed staff numbers to reduce to inadequate levels despite years of warnings from Civil Air.

"An extremely high level of overtime by Civil Air members has been required over the past two years to sustain service levels and the overtime is now unsustainable as there are too few controllers remaining to manage growing traffic levels."

Albanese is suspicious about the correlation between disruptions to air traffic control services and industrial negotiations, but he still believes that ASA carries more blame than do the controllers.

At last a sign from BIG TONY that there maybe something wrong in the AWB.

"I think the blame for disruption lies squarely at the failure to have long-term planning, not with the controllers themselves," he says.

Huzzah, there you have it.  Single staffing, teams, non core rostering all things exploited beyond a joke.

ASA's allegations have further fuelled the anger of many controllers who are offended by claims that they would make the skies less safe in order to secure greater pay rises.

In this toxic atmosphere and with little sign of flexibility or concession from either side, both Civil Air and ASA will next month try to thrash out their differences in a planned series of intense negotiating sessions.

"I don't hold any great hopes,' Mason says.

Wait until the ASA offer is tabled.  Many folk talk of the 32% as the line in the sand; but it’s the conditions which hold equal importance to most, not the cold hard cash alone.  But the progression so far is trending to worse working conditions for a less than CPI offer, why are they deliberately steering towards the iceberg? Do they want a war?  Is there a bigger strategy to crush that pesky little trumped up union?

It's a poisonous atmosphere to work in, every week another dart gets thrown in the CEOs photo, every week, the controllers become more unified in their objectives. Some are lining up to get back at the fool, the CEO from hell, the CEO that has to go.

DEAR BOARD of ASA:    

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!!!!

ASA's Russell finds himself wedged between a government master which is unlikely to accept any pay rise for controllers beyond 6 per cent a year and a union that wants twice that amount.

6%, where did you get that from? We have it from many sources that to exceed 4% the controllers will be required to sell their conditions of employment.

But despite Russell's predicament, many believe that it is Civil Air which could come off second best if they pursue a wage claim too out of kilter with the rest of the community.

How about conditions expected in a 24/7 work environment and an adjustment back to AWOTE since 1998, assessed independently.  Bring us back to community ‘kilter’.

"Air traffic controllers have a solid claim to better conditions in these negotiations but they will risk it all if they appear too greedy," says one senior aviation insider who asked not to be named.

We hope, Mr Anonymous, you are counselling the executive of Civil Air.

"If they went on strike and brought the aviation industry to a halt because they did not receive a 30 per cent-plus pay rise they would be crucified in the court of public opinion."

Most controllers care not about public opinion, the perception is that even a fair deal will be perceived as outrageous anyway.  Look at the manner in which the employer is “leaking” media stories; it’s all about the outrageous claims and the bigger than average salaries and statistics skewed to make us out as radicals out of touch.  Controllers are beyond caring about the public court, our employer is making themselves into our enemy, for what/who’s benefit?

Cool heads will be needed on all sides of the negotiating table in the coming months if Australians are to be confident of taking to the skies this Christmas.

Again talk of Christmas, this is hype to sell your story Cameron, not reality.  

PS Kick your headline writer in the head, he deserves it.