http://www.iaa.ie/index.jsp?p=93&n=96&a=829
19 January 2010: The Irish Aviation Authority, (IAA) had no alternative today (Tuesday 19th January 2010) but to suspend Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCOs) who refuse to carry out normal assigned duties until their demands have been met.
You had the choice of not suspending the controllers and thus avoiding the dispute in full.
Since 1st January the ATCOs union, IMPACT has instructed controllers not to co-operate with a number of new technology projects unless the Authority commits to payment for these changes. However, the real agenda is:
Forcing the immediate payment of a 6% pay increase agreed as part of the last partnership agreement – Towards 2016;
No, this is not the “real agenda”. The T16 pay increases have been independently assessed and the recommendation has been the IAA can afford the increase without any need to pass this on to the airline industry. But this is not the real issue of the dispute, this issue has been ongoing for 18 months; it is complete bollix to link T16 pay increase to this dispute – there are facts and there’s spin!
Avoiding the payment of a contribution towards their pensions in line with all other public sector staff. ATCOs pay no pension contribution and the Authority pays a contribution of 30.5% of salary.
Nobody has said no to talking about making contributions to our pensions. This again is pure spin. The facts remain that illegal unilateral change will be implemented without any consultation with staff or unions. The presentation was a briefing and there have been no concessions given and not one staff member has any ability to talk to any board member or manager without a prospect of being told “that is how it is”. A contribution is only one of the changes. Two other significant elements not even discussed are the increase in retirement age and the capping on pension rises in the future at CPI or 3% which ever is the lower; potentially a significant financial penalty without any justification or direct cost savings to the employer. You also announced that no employee will be entitled to a salary increment for 2 years.
Flights at all airports are likely to be disrupted by this dispute. The IAA apologies to all members of the travelling public and to the airlines for the disruption that this action by ATCOs will cause. Passengers are advised to contact their airline before setting out.
The IAA can reverse its decision to suspend 15 controllers and return business to normal.
Pay Increase of 6%
The first issue, an increase of 6%: An increase of 6% to would cost the IAA an additional € 6 million each year. This cost would have to be passed to the airlines who fund the IAA – the Authority receives no State funding. The airlines cannot afford to pay.
This is a lie; the independent assessment has determined that the IAA can easily afford to pay the 6%, but this is not the real dispute and you know it.
“The aviation industry is on its knees at the moment,” says Liam Kavanagh, Director of Human Resources, IAA. “The ailing airlines, including Aer Lingus, Cityjet, Aer Arann – cannot afford to take on additional costs. Meeting the 6% pay demand to 300 Air Traffic Controllers would cost an additional € 6 million per year. This would have to be passed on in its entirety to the airlines since we in the IAA receive no funding from Government.”
Is 6% really €20,000 each? ie €6M divided by 300; wow didn’t realise that we averaged out at €335K each (including on costs) think I might need to check my pay-slip. The total cost to pay controllers 6% is by my calculations €2.1M, this includes all on costs. There is a massive gap between €6M and €2.1M. Who is spinning this? How much will a 4 hour stoppage cost the industry? More than the true total annual cost?
The ATCOs play a vital role in the safety of air transport and are currently highly paid, according to the IAA. No pay cuts are proposed. No job losses are envisaged in 2010.
Because you have overseas contractors here to fill holes in your rosters that your poor HR planners missed. The IAA is short of permanent ATCs there would be no way jobs could be cut without service reductions.
“ATCOs are significantly well paid compared to other public sector workers such as teachers, guards and nurses, all of whom also do essential work,” says Liam Kavanagh.
So? Nobody is saying otherwise. How does an Irish ATC compare on a global scale? What about within Europe? Would it be true that Irish ATC’s are among the lowest paid in Europe?
“The salary for an ATCO is approximately €115K. If you factor in the pension contribution and the PRSI contribution that the IAA makes for each person, their total package comes to almost €160K. They do vital work and they are very well paid for that work. This is the wrong time to be looking for a pay increase of 6%. We have told the ATCOs we will be happy to review this in 2012.”
But wait you just said above that 6% x 300 would cost €6M per annum. €160K x 6% x 300 is only €2.88M; well which is it? This also assumes everyone is on the top salary, which is clearly not the case, some controllers who rated recently are on closer to €55K.
There is no recognition that the IAA is now profitable (despite only being a cost recovery organisation) in its worst year since 2007, what will the 2010 profit be, what about 2011?
Pension Contribution
The second issue, pension contribution: The IAA provides a defined benefits scheme for ATCOs.
“A defined benefits scheme is a Rolls Royce pension, and not many people are lucky enough to have such a pension,” says Liam Kavanagh. “ATCOs make no contribution to their pension. The Authority, meanwhile, makes a contribution of 30.5% of salary for each person. We are asking them to make a contribution, in line with all of their colleagues in the public sector who now pay a pension levy. They do not want to make a contribution to their own pensions.
See above, nobody has said no to talks except the IAA; not all employees are on this “Rolls Royce” pension plan. The main points are stated above:
- Increased retirement age; without negotiation.
- Reduced pension earnings; without negotiation.
- No salary increments; without negotiation.
- Forced contribution; without negotiation.
The IAA is asking ATCOs to make this contribution in line with all other public sector staff, and because the pension fund is in deficit to a total of €234 million.
Why is deficit so large, what mistakes have management made with this fund? Has it been funded correctly in the past? Has the IAA redistributed funds to profits and capex rather than pension funds?
Need for Ongoing Change
Ongoing change is a necessity in the dynamic aviation industry.
“We need to constantly review and update our systems,” says Liam Kavanagh. “And we cannot afford to make a payment to people every time we upgrade a system. We are not talking revolutionary change – sometimes the change can be the equivalent of upgrading from Microsoft XP to Microsoft Vista. That level of ongoing change is vital to ensure that we are being effective.”
You initiated unilateral changes without negotiation, why would you not expect a fight? Controllers do little else than manage changes, formal withdrawal from the projects was a direct response to unilateral non negotiated changes imposed by the IAA, effective 1 Feb 2010.
We would ask IMPACT to desist from this action and to return to normal work. We can resolve all of these issues without having an impact on airlines and on the travelling public.
We would ask the employer to back off and come to the negotiating table without a naked flame to our pensions and pay packets and honestly lay the numbers on the table to discuss openly, without the need for media spin. We want them to talk to us directly not lie at us through the media.
Having read both sides it’s clear the ATCOs are coming off very poorly here. Bad language, unattibuted ‘independent assessment’ and the mind boggling pay & conditions do not bode well for any sympathy at this time.
Seriously you picked a bad time for a fight. You would have been better to keep your heads down and your mouths shut.
As for an IAA that can ‘easily afford’ the pay increase I’d remind you that ultimately it’s the airline passengers that pay your salary. A couple of hours up in Dublin Airport explaining your side to them would sort your attitudes out pretty sharpish.
Thanks for the feedback Joe,
The IAA suspend our colleagues, we will go back to work if they lift the suspensions; simple. You can’t keep your head down when your friends and collegaues are being suspended without pay. Who escalated this – the IAA.
The 6% pay claim is to be dealt with in the Labour Court next week; it has nothing to do with today’s action; which is totally about the suspended controllers. If this action was about the 6% we would have been at it long ago, not pursuing it through legal industrial processes. The independent assessment was by an assessor appointed by the LRC and he has reported his finding to the LRC.
It is never a good thing to disrupt traffic or passengers, not one ATCO is out there demanding unilateral strike action; we have been forced into this due to action taken by our employer.
I appreciate your candour in your response but allow me to point out one further thing.
The IAA were entirely justified in suspending your colleagues since they were refusing to do their contracted job. If this was not the case then the employees could quite simply take legal action for the suspensions.
In the absence of the above it is quite clear that the ATCOs were acting outside of their terms & conditions.
Lets be clear. IMPACT escalated this by advising its’ members to act against their contracts. The employer had little choice but to respond.
Seriously and with all due respect, take some time out and head up to the terminal to witness the anger at this action.
Debate aside it is the absolutely worst time possible for this given the state of the economy and the unemployment level.
We do not believe the IAA were justified suspending the ATCOs.
The IAA have published disciplinary procedures which clearly apply in these circumstances. The IAA has not followed it’s own rules regarding discipline and has escalated this away from discussion, away from the LRC and away from the Labour Court. We had a hearing last week about this, they refused to talk.
The IAA have deliberately set out to confuse the issue about the suspensions with a pay claim and a pension plan change; see their press releases and media statements. Those two issues are due for talks/hearings in the coming weeks. The IAA has media spin mud on it’s hands; the media is staring to notice this.
They can’t even use the truth around pay figures; which should stand up anyway.
Any action which disrupts the airline industry is abhorrent to all ATCOs; we pride ourselves on the safe, orderly and expeditious flow of traffic. The actions of the IAA to suspend ATCOs when there are other internal and industrial process that could have been followed is equally abhorrent.
We have not done this lightly, we wish the IAA had also lifted the suspensions today and we went to work normally. Unfortunately someone has to blink to get resolution to this problem, I suspect after today’s meeting it won’t be the ATCOs.
Interesting and reasoned reply Joe…. not like on some other Boards!! lol.. on an aside… my mate works in ATC and today he worked for free…. thats right … for free…. because the IAA attempted to ramp up this dispute by withdrawing all pay for today… not just during the dispute.
Whats the objection to the ‘new technology’ being introduced that it seems is at the root of this dispute?
Hi Gerry,
I know you’ll find this hard to believe but when management buys a new machine that goes ‘ping’ it often reduces our ability to maintain current capacity or margins of safety. Air traffic control technology is a global business; often the tools to provide that job are supplied by global organisations and you purchase an off the shelf product to save yourself money. You convince yourself it’s the best money can buy, because the salesman said it was. We are simply asking to be able to discuss changes proposed and examine the impact they will have on our work practices; before they happen. It’s too late once you start ‘training’ on these new systems, the cheques and timeline are already agreed and management will never delay or shelve a new system that they have already done PR on.
COOPANS, pointmerge, and Dual runway operations at Dublin are the current projects in dispute.
COOPANS is a new system which is being developed with other providers, Denmark and Sweden primarily; this will be a massive change and nobody is aware of the full impact of this. This is not simply going from Vista to Windows 7 as the IAA suggested. Coopans includes an new HMI (Human Machine Interface or computer we use) and many new features of which approximately 75% will work as designed and ‘to speck’; this means that almost 25% of the tasks will be in what we call ‘work around’ mode, this is likely to be a significant distraction to our daily work; it is extremely important to get this right and to also understand what impact this will have on staffing levels; will we need more staff after spending all that money to move as much traffic as we do now etc.
Point merge as the name suggests is where all aircraft merge at one point, that’s right we will be ‘pointing’ aircraft at each other; obviously this has safety implications. We want to fully understand the risks involved.
Dual Runway operations at Dublin will apparently improve through put at Dublin airport; the PR around this project suggest multi million dollar savings beacuse of reduced on ground delays. We are very concerned that this project may lead to in air or on ground collisions. As aircraft will be transiting from one side of the aerodrome to the other across another active runway on the ground in the air aircraft will be turning towards another active flight path either on approach or departure; then the big issue is what happens during a missed approach? We want to talk about the safety and impact of this and the other changes.
Having spent a lifetime in the aviation business I completely understand those at ‘coal face’ having a jaundiced view of ‘new technology’ being introduced. Very often it is a case of ‘one step forward two steps back’ while on the job R & D is carried out. We all try to resist change; especially if the change is not ‘sold’ to those who will be most affected.
This all strikes me as something that should have been sorted out sensibly rather than what has occurred.
I find it hard to accept that this strike is justified somehow because ATC personnel believe there are potential flight safety hazards with the proposed new systems. Concerns over flight safety are always valid, but should not be used as a weapon in industrial relations disputes.
Lets face it, the Irish FIR is not exactly busy on a global scale; controllers in Dublin are busy, but believe me, their colleagues around the London area are under a lot more pressure. In the rest of the Irish FIR in my experience ATC are not under any significant pressure; the airspace is simple & uncrowded – and getting more sparsely populated.
Sounds to me as if everyone involved (both sides) should step back and do a little more jaw jaw and less waw waw… 🙂
Thanks again Gerry,
The members balloted to not work on projects with a view to seek discussions and improvements. The IAA was aware of this ballot and it’s result in December. The advice to management was issued before Christmas. 12 ATCOs were suspended this Tuesday, we had a stop work meeting to discuss these suspension on Wednesday to find another 2 ATCOs were suspended. The Labour Court offered an informal resolution yesterday before the meeting; the IAA said no to that meeting. Today under ministerial pressure they have accepted the meeting on Friday. The could have said yes on Wednesday morning and no action would have been taken by the controllers, they could have put the ATCOs back on the payroll and no action would have been taken on Wednesday.
For the IAA to claim they have no roll in the stoppage is crazy. For them to completely muddy the waters with outrageous slurs about working conditions, pay rates, pay claims, pension assinations etc; is absolutely crushing to morale. Many ATCOs are considering their future working arrangements, there has been much discussion about vacancies in this months Flight Global; this course of action by the IAA may have a significant long term impact.
I hope that Fridays Labour Court discussions are fruitful, that the ATCOs are returned to the payroll and that work continues on the projects, and discussions about technological effects and changed work practices are open and frankly discussed.
We also look forward to the 6% T16 discussion which are scheduled for Tuesday, that hearing has been scheduled since August (or something like that).
As a frequent flier and someone who is enthusiastic about both technology and aviation(with no experiance at the coalface in either ATC or rugby:) ) I’ve 2 questions :
1) What is work around mode? Is it a simple redesign of software/GUI to suit Dublin airport or is it a lower level compatibility issue? Why won’t the IAA deploy a 100% compatible program?
2) Is Dublin Airport really busy enough to force dual runway operation? Also, would it not be prudent to keep runway 11/29 open for such reasons, expanded for heavy use?
I’m not aware of the logistical problems in extending that runway, only it makes sense to do so if that is the IAA reasoning behind this incident…
As I’ve said, I have no experience in either the running or the management of an airport, only a keen( and given that I’m a flier, a somewhat vested) interest in Dublin Airport, and hope that primarily it stays safe, and would like the bloggers to know that they have this passenger’s support 95% of the way!(please lads, don’t go for the 6% rise! not that it would ruin the place, but it would give FR a reason for another charge, and the T2 would probably need another charge too!)
Hi Simon,
A work around is where the equipment doesn’t work as designed so we get a procedure developed to compensate for the fact the equipment doesn’t work as it should. (Working around the equipment).
Rather than ‘force dual runway operations’; it is possible that there are efficiencies that can be achieved by using dual runways. The problem with this project is a lot of promises have been made that may not be technologically possible. Runway incursions are a significant safety issue, this is where a vehicle or aircraft enters an active runway without permission, the more times you force moving objects to cross an active runway the more chance there is of an incursion. In the air depending on the configuration SID/STAR (the way aircraft arrive and depart) integration with Missed Approach procedures are extremely limited and need thorough assessment. The project in itself has merit, it just needs to be done right.
I believe the current plan is to build another RWY 10/28 ( Which effectively will overlay the existing 11/29) and be much longer and wider to facilitate up to A380 ops. http://www.dublinairport.com/about-us/airport-development/Parallel_Runway.html This will also see us get a new tower much taller than the existing one. If this goes ahead then the other dual runway project will be redundant.
The 6% claim was part of the T16 process, it has been assessed and approved by the LRC appointed assessor, has nothing to do with current airways charges (which have just been raised anyway); the hearing for this is Tuesday afternoon next, as was the case for the last 3 months.
Good to see some people can see through the slanderous claims that our employer made about us over the last 4 days.
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