en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/592243 Comments by Paul Cox http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1437#IDComment32065518 I disagree with this reading of the ground rules. I think that the arbitrators could go ahead and set up a group of other arbitrators to rule on grievances and the like. In reality, that's more or less what they did with the document explaining their decision. Their point in saying "This Panel has the sole power to decide" doesn't preclude that panel from delegating their power to other arbitrators if the caseload gets to be too big. Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:34:51 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1437#IDComment32065518 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1432#IDComment31035033 This is why I didn't really want to get into the whole money thing. The Panel made some choices that are plainly driven by political considerations and real-world expediencies, and there's just no way around it. Yeah, we're going to wind up with a situation where some people with as much as 4 or 5 years in are making the same amount of money as those newly signed off. Yeah, that seems unfair- but it's a HECK of a lot better than them making considerably more on a pay scale that's more than 30% less than the people that were signed off prior to September of 2006. But the bigger point is this: The FAA's actions, and the political ideology that lie behind those actions, have been exposed as a fraud and a failure. What they did was flat-out WRONG and to call the White Book any kind of "contract" or "agreement" is plainly a lie. About damn time someone with some common sense got a hold of this whole thing. Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:12:13 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1432#IDComment31035033 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1430#IDComment30689152 Well, don't get me wrong- I'm still liable to have some dissent. :) It wouldn't surprise me a bit to see the proposed contract fail to ratify due to anger over the lack of any "make-whole". The panel's language seems to reject "looking back" and instead looks to the future, but I think a lot of people are still pretty bent out of shape over the whole thing. I'm not urging people to focus on the past with my post, but I am definitely telling them to REMEMBER that past and remember how their employer (dis)respected them in this whole matter. Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:43:31 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1430#IDComment30689152 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1430#IDComment30688982 I hope my brethren in the AF field, and indeed throughout the FAA, get a fair process. There's a lot of people at work right now who are NOT particularly happy with how this turned out. Many are not fully understanding that this isn't something we get a say in or a vote on at this point. I am trying to remind them all, though, that this is what we've asked for the entire time- a reasonably fair process that, if we can't come to agreement, puts it into the hands of a fair panel that will make the decision. You guys in PASS deserve nothing less than this same process, and indeed even the FAA's own propaganda (as opposed to the fine propaganda we have here at the Follies!) indicates that this process will be used in the future for union matters in the agency. Of course, if/when Congress passes the FAA reauthorization bill, it will cement this type of process into the law; right now the FAA's promise to use this process can change based on who's in charge of the agency. Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:41:31 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1430#IDComment30688982 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1417#IDComment30116216 Train... I think it depends on where you worked and who you worked with. I know that the ex-PATCO guy that worked in my area was a dedicated NATCA member who didn't hold any hard feelings towards any of the post-strike hires. Now, the guys who were hired pre-strike and still working when he got rehired? Them, he hated. With good reason, if you think about it. If more of them had gone out, it might have worked. Of course, the vast majority of pre-strike hires that were still working in the FAA over the past 5 to 10 years were (by this time) supervisors and managers. Sun, 9 Aug 2009 05:41:54 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1417#IDComment30116216 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1411#IDComment29323370 Write something! Whaddya got for news? The NATCA election... not really interested in covering that for the Follies, myself. Oh, I'll write another endorsement of Ruth. I don't know either of the Central guys well enough to endorse there (and what a tight race that is!) I think NATCA's in a bit of a holding pattern right now, waiting for the pay arbitration thing to be announced... we'll see some stuff around the election runoff... but then there'll be a bit of a break as we gather together and move forward. Locally, we're having an election too, and that's taking up more than a bit of my time since I'm running for FacRep. Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:23:30 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1411#IDComment29323370 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1413#IDComment29322658 Sorry this was late- I screwed up in setting the time/date stamp for posting. Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:15:02 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1413#IDComment29322658 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1409#IDComment28526143 Actually, I think the idea is that the contract will wind up being cancelled entirely. We'll see. One thing that I don't think the FAA considered, or that is considered very much, is that when you contract out a service like this, if you don't have incredibly strong controls to ensure that the service level is maintained or greater, the you're building in a situation where the contractor actually has an incentive to do a LOUSY job. See, say you're a giant corporation that makes all its money via government contracts. A governmental agency decides to contract out a service that they spend $1 billion a year doing. You bid for it at $750 million a year. The service consists of doing something for free that people could also do for themselves, but when the government staffers do it, they do a pretty good job, so people choose to have the staffer do it instead of doing it themselves. (Either way, it's free to them.) Now, if you keep doing the same quality job that the government is doing, then people will likely keep using your service. But your incentive is to NOT have people do your service. In fact, the more people choose to do it for themselves via the free option, the less money you have to spend providing the service, and the more PROFIT you make. So from your company's point of view, you kind of WANT your people to do a crappy job. When they do, they drive customers away, and you make more money. That's the situation we have right now with FSS. What the FAA should have done is instead of setting up a fixed-price contract (which is still better than cost-plus, where the corporation has no incentive to control costs AND wants to get as many customers as possible) is set up a hybrid contract where there's a cap on what the government will pay- set the cap at, say, 85% of the old total costs- but it's also got a firm per-task price built in. So if it used to cost the government 1 dollar per time they provided the service, the corporation can only get 85 cents per time they provide the service. This way, the corporation's motivation will be to both give the service as much as possible so they maximize profit (meaning they want to do a good job to keep those customers coming to them) AND if the corporation does a lousy job, there's no payoff for them (fewer customers = less profit). The situation we have now, Lockheed makes the most money by doing such a terrible job that nobody wants briefings anymore, so they quit doing it with FSS. Note that this doesn't mean that the actual staffers DOING the briefings are necessarily doing a crappy job. They might want to do a really good job (and I think that most of the FSS folks DO want to do a great job). But the corporation sets them up into situations where as a company, they'll fail. There's not enough staff. The equipment they use doesn't work well. They don't train as much as they could. They don't staff properly for busy times. Stuff like that... and stuff that we're seeing with Lockheed doing the flight service contract. Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:54:01 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1409#IDComment28526143 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1402#IDComment27792457 Hmmm... well, we're lucky in that regard at ZSE. Our CICs regularly approve leave if it's within the guidelines. (Which is probably the key- if our CICs were regularly shorting shifts, they'd put an end to allowing us to approve leave.) In fact, often the CICs are the only ones who are actively looking at the schedule over the next several days and ensuring that every leave request that COULD be approved is actually granted. I know that whenever I get the desk (yeah, I do CIC duties if asked/assigned) I will go through and frequently find spots where someone should have gotten their leave. I make the phone calls, let people know they can have the shift off after all, make shift changes as people request it, etc. If, in the order, a CIC is allowed to approve leave, then they should exercise that right/ability to the maximum they can while still being responsible about it. That doesn't mean we should go hogwild and take a shift down to well below the guidelines, but it does mean we should ensure that it's done properly. And if they try to punish you for it, call 'em out on it. Likewise, if you know a controller is abusing it when they're CIC, call THEM out for it, too. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:18:07 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1402#IDComment27792457 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1402#IDComment27792076 I didn't say it was more DIFFICULT. I said it has greater responsibility. In theory, anyway, the FAA treats the "IC" position (whether it's a CIC, or a FLMIC) as having more responsibility. They look at it as though the CIC/FLMIC is "in charge" of the entire area or tower cab or tracon. If an error occurs on any ONE of the control positions that the CIC/FLMIC is responsible for, the IC person is supposedly responsible for it, and has to answer for it. We all know the reality- FLMs are almost never seriously cited on error reports as being contributory factors and certainly not as causal factors. They're also not held responsible for it in term of disciplinary issues. We had an error some years back at ZSE where we had an OM who was basically the supe-in-charge for a shift. He left to take a leak, then swung by the vending machines to grab a sandwich to bring back. They had a deal while he was gone... and he hadn't left anyone in charge. Didn't tell anyone where he was going, either- just took a PIREP up to the desk and didn't come back for a while. When the snitch went off, phone rang and rang and finally the OM comes down and yeah, we had one, and where the hell is the supe? End result? Absolutely nothing happened to the guy, not mentioned in the deal report, no internal consequences. I totally agree that the vast majority of the time, the mediocre and bad supes are doing little more than just sitting there answering the phone and surfing the web and chit-chatting with people. The reality is that the FAA doesn't take the responsibility of the IC position seriously. But the FAA's position is hypocritical; they declare that they MUST have FLMs in that role as much as possible, yet they don't pay CICs any differential when they're in charge. If it truly doesn't have any extra responsibility, why not dump about 40% or 50% of the staffing levels of the FLMs, increase the staffing guidelines and levels of the controllers, leave CICs all the time, and just let the FLMs handle signoffs, tape talks, and that paperwork crap? Answer: The FAA is totally hypocritical about the actual requirements of the position. They always want it both ways- added "responsibility" (in theory, anyway) and therefore required additional management staffing, yet no additional pay for controllers. FLMs get way better leave availabililty than controllers, but controllers are required to cover for those absences. (We get into that in tomorrow's post.) Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:13:28 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1402#IDComment27792076 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27326205 Well, I know that locally at ZSE at least one technical type (I heard it was someone in AOS) expressed concerns over the fact that ERAM's hardware was all going into the same room. Since computers have gotten so much smaller, he said, and since the ERAM hardware's physical requirements are very lightweight compared with the older systems (power/environment/etc), why not put the hardware for one channel into one room and the hardware for the other channel into the other room? After all, if some freak thing happened... like, I dunno, a meteorite smacking into that room or something- at least we'd have the "B" channel's hardware in another room and it would still be up and running. It would have only added a little bit of cost to ERAM but vastly increased the physical safety aspect of it. Put it onto a separate power grid and man, then you'd really really have something in terms of defeating your "single point of failure" problems. Of course, his suggestion was rejected. "What could happen to the room where the hardware is in?" was basically the answer. That's exactly the point- it's not the stuff we can imagine right now and plan for that will get us. We've covered those possibilities. It's the stuff that we HAVEN'T thought of that'll get us. Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:47:32 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27326205 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27325841 Well, I think that's Don's point. With the older systems, we had a fallback that could provide our accepted level of safety, albeit at a reduced level of efficiency and throughput. With ERAM, once it's on full time and we've dropped HOST, we have no backup. As pointed out here, if ERAM takes a big crap, the entire thing goes down the tubes- so the software can't be only "good enough". It's got to be as close to PERFECT as we can possibly make it- and right now it's a long, long way from being perfect. That's why it's so disappointing to see the dishonesty going on in the FAA about ERAM. We're lying to ourselves and each other. We've got happy-sounding stories on the FAA's internal communications site talking about how well things went in a test, but leave out that the test was months behind schedule and that we had to waive some requirements in terms of known issues/problems to even turn it on. Knowing the FAA's history, that scares me, because it suggests that we're doing this out of political expediency and buckling under pressure. Once you start giving in on your basic rules, it's a lot easier to keep doing it. Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:40:55 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27325841 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27325605 I dunno about that. ERAM is a hellaciously big program, as is HOST. There's a lot of stuff in there and unlike a lot of software, we expect it all to work perfectly, every time. Don't get me wrong- I'm not excusing it being flawed- but I'm saying that it's not as simple as just turning it over to a bunch of college kids. I think, though, that a lot of the problems with ERAM do have to do with the base architecture. Since it's an entirely new deal, from scratch, they junked a lot of things that work just fine in today's enroute systems and tried to reinvent the wheel. Well, that's fine, as long as your new wheel works better than the old one... but if it doesn't, you've got some problems. I have heard that ERAM's development team didn't include enough controller types, and people have said in the past that it's far easier to take controllers and teach them enough about software development that they can help build a software package than it is to take software developers and teach them ATC. Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:36:32 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27325605 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27230995 People are bagging on FAAGuy here and unfairly, I think. His point is valid; systems are developed over time and sometimes they don't work as well as we'd like at the beginning. However, Don's point is also a good one. Before, we used to have a real backup. Now, we've got diddly in terms of paper backup; if we lose all power, for example, we've got absolutely nothing. And back when the FAA was starting into the Big Blue era, with the 9020s, things were different. A sector was frequently worked with three people- an R-side, a D-side, and a tracker. A-sides delivered strips. The controllers could hold a much higher percentage of the total information about a/c in the sector in their heads, because they didn't have as many a/c in the sector at a time as we do today. We also accepted much more lax safety margins. Aircraft crashed a lot more often, percentage-wise. Now, we're not as willing to accept that kind of error rate; we expect things to be tested better. We didn't have the ability to test, either. We couldn't use computer simulations the way we can today. Most importantly, the system we were using prior to that wasn't nearly as reliable and efficient as we have today, so a system failure of the "new" 9020s was an improvement. Now, though, we've got an awfully reliable system, which requires the argument for moving away from it be very strong and the new system be a significant improvement. Will ERAM get there? Yes. It must. But should we, on live traffic, test and develop a system we know is screwed up and has some major issues (BUGS) to be worked out still? Of course not. We have no business running ERAM on real airplanes just yet. We know we're not going to leave it on after the ZLC IOC. That was a dog and pony show; it didn't tell us anything new and we've still got pre-existing problems to fix before we should have even tried it out. Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:31:45 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1371#IDComment27230995 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26898388 I love, Love, LOVE the people who read blogs or whatnot and then post comments bitching about the OTHER people who're reading the blog and posting comments. The hypocrisy just slays me every time. Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:51:56 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26898388 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26797993 I think the problem has more to do with the rules that the Congress has established for itself. In the Senate, it effectively takes 60 votes to accomplish anything of note, and single Senators have tremendous amounts of power. In the House, the committee chairs have too much power, and the majority party's leadership can crush any dissent so people tend to march in lockstep unless they can form a large enough coalition to interject themselves INTO that leadership. And of course the stink of big money hangs over everyone, in both parties. To me, the greatest thing about the 2008 election, the most notable thing, wasn't the fact that we elected a black guy (named "Obama", no less!) to be President. It was that so many individuals contributed money (in small amounts compared to the past) to Obama's campaign, and felt like they actually had a voice and a stake in what was going on. We need that to continue. We need people-powered movements. We need to keep it going, to build on it. The healthcare issue is, to me, the perfect testing ground for this; over 70% of the American public wants some form of a true "public option", but the powers that be are backing away from it. Can we force the issue? Can we demand that they listen to us? Can we organize and build our voices loud enough that they follow our wishes? We're getting to where we have the tools to reach out to one another and connect, and take more effective action. Let's get it done. Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:54:04 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26797993 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26797530 Dave... that perception- that Garvey sucked up to the controllers at the expense of the rest of the agency- has been proven wrong over the past few years. Or so I thought, anyway. See, with Garvey in there, the non-AT portion of the FAA was going downhill. Less money, less support, too many clueless nimrods promoted into positions of power, etc. The blame game was played, with the nimrods promoting the idea in the FAA that it was all NATCA/controllers' fault. "We'd have more travel money, but the controller contract was too expensive. We'd have more money for training, but the controllers took it all. We'd have more support for newer, better programs, but those damn controllers- Garvey gave them all the cash. We would keep the AF techs staffing at the negotiated levels, but we just can't afford it- no money because those greedy bastard controllers took it all." Then Garvey left, Blakey came in, the controllers took a 30 to 40% pay cut, and guess what? Still no money for travel, training, better programs, etc. Same tools still in charge. Same stupidity going on- look at ERAM, or how they're financing ADS-B, or fix-on-fail instead of preventative maintenance, or AF technicians staffing levels... As far as Geraldo Lavey- he has great gobs of man-love for anyone that's his boss. He could be working for Idi Amin and would claim that "hey, the guy is just misunderstood, he's working really hard for the FAA, and he agonizes over which people to slaughter every week! I'm a neutral-leans-Democrat, it has nothing to do with politics!" (I actually believe him on that last one. His suckup abilities have nothing to do with politics.) I think the single biggest thing the FAA needs to do over the next several years, and this might sound surprising coming from a union believer, but the biggest thing the agency needs to do is find a lot of mid- and upper-level managers who are good, solid people. The morons and madmen they have in charge right now THINK they're a bunch of brave leaders, but there's not enough spine or guts among the lot of them. That, to me, is the biggest spot that Garvey screwed up. She didn't get enough good people installed into the decision-making slots, and now we've got morons like Ducharme getting named VPs of whatever he's the VP of (they reorganize so often I can't keep up with the new titles.) Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:46:51 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1369#IDComment26797530 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1367#IDComment26039647 Well, one argument that's been made in favor of Pat's actions is that he WAS listening to the will of the whole; most people didn't like the NEB's resolution. But the counter argument to that is that the NATCA constitution doesn't task the President with correcting the NEB members if they are in the wrong; the NATCA constitution gives that right to the MEMBERSHIP. If they don't like a vote that their RVP makes in an NEB meeting, they have the right and responsibility to vote that RVP out of office. Pat placed himself above the membership, above the NEB, and above the NATCA constitution with his information release. What he should have done, if he really disagreed with the policy, was marshalled support amongst the membership and led them to demand their RVPs change the policy. Believe me, if the NEB had heard from enough people, they would have rethunk their vote. Wed, 1 Jul 2009 16:43:54 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1367#IDComment26039647 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1367#IDComment26039455 Maybe they did take the position only to screw Pat. So what? That doesn't justify what Pat did; the reality is that the NATCA constitution gives the NEB the power to do what they did. Pat ignoring their policy is against the bylaws and against the policy, and frankly it wouldn't surprise me that if he manages to win the election if they impeach him for it. I would. I'd say "sorry, you've done a lot of great work for the union, but you can't be violating the bylaws like that." Pat didn't need to release the information to get a deal. It has nothing at all to do with getting a deal done; it has everything to do with his re-election campaign. Wed, 1 Jul 2009 16:40:41 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1367#IDComment26039455 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1362#IDComment26038854 An excellent point, lowskillset. Let's say that Brown had been right and the guy hadn't been wearing a seat belt. What difference does that make in terms of avoiding something falling onto him from above? None, of course. So not only did she apparently lie (and lie about lying!) but the lie she told didn't even make any sense or difference! If you're going to lie about something, you might as well have it make some sense. It's pretty bad when you're not only a liar, but an incompetent one! Wed, 1 Jul 2009 16:31:06 +0000 http://www.faafollies.com/?p=1362#IDComment26038854