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Original article here

Up in the air

Tony Wright

January 23, 2009

AS PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd set off on his latest round of continuous campaigning — this time flying around the nation to promote Australia Day — his chant was about trying to keep people in jobs.

"We are all in this together: business, unions, governments, the community sector — and every nation in the world," he said. "In these times, employers must do their utmost to protect their workers from dismissal, knowing that these workers will serve them well when times turn good again. Workers, too, must restrain any wage claims."

Not much later, he was mounting the steps of his jet to take the message across the land. Soon after, the headlines were all about thousands of jobs being lost, miners in Western Australia offering to forgo pay rises for a year in a desperate attempt to keep working and predictions that a quarter of a million jobs were at risk.

Across the Pacific, where the current rot began, one of President Barack Obama's first moves was to freeze White House staff wages as an example to his nation. Back in Canberra, the Rudd Government is considering a second year of no pay increases for politicians.

But as Rudd was flying between capitals, a long-bubbling dispute over pay and conditions between the two bodies that keep planes in the air was reaching the point where air travellers are likely to find themselves grounded next month. The government-owned Airservices Australia and the union representing Australia's 900-odd air traffic controllers, Civil Air, have been a stand-off since the middle of last year. The reason: wage restraint, or the lack of it.

Restraint, oh please you biased prick!  This “dispute” has been ongoing for some 10 months, but has roots much further back than that, think 2001, when the controllers showed extreme restraint when Ansett fell over and the industry was in significant trouble.

With the controllers out of contract since December 21 and discussions about a new agreement all but broken down, there's virtually no goodwill in the air. This week the air controllers got permission from the Industrial Relations Commission to hold a ballot on whether they should hold stopwork meetings that could range from two to 24 hours. The betting is that stopworks will be given the thumbs up, meaning we will have to rethink air-travel plans from about February 21.

Controllers have showed restraint, we could have walked out over Christmas.  The lack of goodwill has festered from the mouth of the CEO, who has promised much and under-delivered on everything, from Business Reform, to Growing the Business, to Service Delivery Environment, to improved communication through revised supervisor structures, or moving Supervisors to AWAs.  

All this in a climate of extreme lack of operational ATCs. Controllers are working on more days per annum than ever, have been working harder due to massive increases in traffic and huge reductions in headset wearing controllers.

Controllers are leaving, not to go somewhere, just to get away; such is the contempt for senior management and lack of faith in where the company is headed.

This week, domestic airline executives were tramping around Canberra trying to get a handle on the esoteric details behind the row and urging anyone who would listen that they "just want to get this thing fixed".

First you must recongnise the true problem, is it this trumped up false industrial campaign or is it really a poorly managed business fundamentally under staffed?

"It's hard enough getting bums on seats without having to worry about whether we're going to get planes into the air," one of the harried airline executives told The Age as he wandered the corridors of Parliament House.

Amen brother, fix the problem.  But if you gave the controllers everything they are requesting will the problem evaporate?  Hell no, the real problem is not enough Bums on Scopes.

And what's at issue? The air traffic controllers want to keep the right of unlimited sick leave (yes, that's 365 days a year), they have on the table a "vision statement" demanding pay rises of between 18 per cent and more than 60 per cent (although the union says, vaguely, it is willing to modify this to somewhere around 7 per cent) and they don't want a bar of a new rostering system designed to ensure that controllers will be endorsed to step in to oversee air routes that are left unwatched when colleagues are ill.

What a lot of shit, did you get paid to write that?  Fuck us, you should be sacked.  What is the current average leave, despite the fact leave is unlimited? What happens to the average when you exclude long term illnesses such as cancer/depression etc.? You do understand that whilst it is sick leave as required, any more than a single day off sick needs the support of a Doctor?

The new ‘rostering system’ is nothing of the sort.  It’s an attempt to make all controllers work whenever and wherever the employer wants.  This isn’t part of the ‘pay claim’ it’s a total side issue.  SDE has failed, will fail further and repeat, isn’t about the pay claim.

Airservices, which gets its income from airlines to employ air traffic controllers, admits that previous administrations failed to plan adequately, leaving the current management playing catch-up.

How many of the current management crop are included in the previous administration, how many years (4 and counting) does Greg Russell get to blame the previous mob?

It insists that sick leave be reduced to a standard 15 days a year, just as it was up to the 1990s, and is offering the balance of unused sick leave (based on the new rate) for all workers, leaving some of them with accrued leave of up to 200 hours.

What problem are they trying to solve?  The average is less than 15 now.

Airservices is also offering 4 per cent annual pay rises plus various bonuses over the next three years and wants to reduce dramatically the number of endorsements over the nation's air routes.

The bonuses are BS and won’t count for Diddly Squat.  The 4% is an insult; the conditions of work being sort for surrender are worth 16% (calculated conservatively).

Bear with us here, because this is about the air space your passenger jet may be flying through. Currently, each air traffic controller is endorsed to control just a few routes, leading to 144 separate such endorsements. If the person controlling the space your plane is going through is not available, that leaves the pilot essentially flying blind. Airservices want to reduce these 144 endorsements to just seven, so if a controller goes absent for any reason, another controller on duty would be qualified to take over their routes.

Again, this isn’t the industrial battle, this is PR.  The endorsements are a total side issue, if ASA could train us to this level of expertise then we say, go ahead, do it.  Controllers who work ELW/BLA or KAT/BTH have no issue in working elsewhere, just give us the farken training, not just say go do it.  After all it’s just a minor issue like people in aluminum coffins heading at each other right.  Tony you are a tosser!

Over the past nine months, the system has become increasingly chaotic. Since May, when air space closures suddenly leapt to about 60 for the month, the number of such closures has climbed inexorably. Last month, they peaked at about 110. In short, no one was in control of often-busy air corridors on 110 occasions. Domestic airlines won't fly through such areas, meaning scheduled flights have to travel around these "black" areas, often consuming tonnes of extra fuel. International airlines, however, often have no choice because they are already en route, and their pilots have to keep their planes apart by talking to each other over the airwaves.

Again, why, are you truly swallowing the BS that Greg and Co. are pushing?  Or perhaps deep down is there a problem?  How many shifts of OT are being worked, on average?  How many should be normal?  What is the historical data relating to Sick leave and Overtime?

The Civil Air union says these unfortunate occurrences are caused by a serious shortage of air traffic controllers, for which it blames Airservices. The union says the already stressful job is made all the more stressful because their people are constantly being called to do overtime, and many are sick of it.

Amen, and the longer it continues, the more controllers will depart for jobs overseas, in Ireland, Germany, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Hong Kong, South Africa and New Zealand; or simply quit the career.

Airservices — and government figures all the way up to Transport Minister Anthony Albanese — suggest something darker. Mr Albanese and Airservices chief executive Greg Russell said publicly last year that it appeared a small number of controllers were taking "sickies" and some of their colleagues were playing along by refusing to answer the phone when replacements were being sought. The union and many of the controllers reacted with outrage to such allegations.

I am the Lindbergh Baby!!!  You’re a fucken idiot Tony; how can you write such BS.  If it were true in anyway, where are the controllers on a first second or third warning?  Where are the sackings for illegal industrial action, where are the law suits?  The truth is that it is convenient to attempt link these two events, the CA and the short staffing crisis as a single event; the reality, is the more you try the more you isolate the staff.

The fact remains, however, that the spike in air-space closures mirrors the situation that preceded the previous contract agreement for the air traffic controllers three years ago.

BS, how many closures happened in 2005? How many are happening now?  That little graph was wrong when it was made, it’s even worse now that managers protest it’s a fact.

It seems Mr Rudd can call for restraint and declare "we're all in this together" until he is blue in the face. In this dispute, it might appear some are in it for themselves.

That’s right, guilt us into accepting a shit deal, why the fark would we stay working for this pack of assholes, if we had a choice to work elsewhere in Oz, ASA would solve all it’s problems they would no longer employ ATCs; the international options are getting more and more Ozzies apply everyday; keep it up Greg, you’ve a chance to lose us all yet. And Tossers like Tony Wright who regurgitate the clap trap do nothing to advance the cause.