I hope everyone has had a great week. I have spent much of my week working in the A area. After barely getting my time last month, I decided to get ahead of the game and get some hours in. I’ve always loved our profession and I truly enjoy spending time on the floor.
I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is where are we at with the Article 46 solicitation. On Tuesday I met with Don to discuss the letter I sent to him last Friday. He made it very clear that management was going to push forward with the solicitation. I then started diving into what some of the repercussions would be if NATCA stood their ground and forced management to follow the timelines covered in the CBA rather than mutually agree to the solicitation. There were a laundry list of negative impacts and almost all of them surrounded our schedule and leave bidding. It is because of this, and through conversations with the rest of the Eboard, that I chose to agree to the solicitation being implemented early and we are going to delay the BWS and AL bidding until the solicitation is complete. Management also wanted to only pull one person from the C and D areas, but this violated the contract in several ways, so I insisted that they solicit from all of the areas. I want to reiterate that the Eboard felt there were other ways to help the B area and their staffing crisis besides an Article 46, but if management was going to insist on going forward with the solicitation, it was in our best interest to be involved to help mitigate additional damages that would have occurred. NATCA did not co-sponsor this solicitation, but we did agree to early implementation and provided our input to make the outcome closer to what we want it to be. I am sure there are many opinions one way or another on this and I am fully open to critiques and concerns so feel free to share them with me.
An additional note on the solicitation is that it says they will select up to two employees. The caveat to that is Don has proposed a six month detail to the B area beginning sometime in the spring. If that detail is negotiated between NATCA and management, there will only be one employee selected through the Article 46 solicitation. Prior to negotiations, I would like to get a feel for how many people, if any, are interested in such a detail because it will help shape the way we move forward. If that is something you are interested in, please let me know via text or email.
I know this has been a weird couple of weeks and I appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through the next couple. I assure you that anything I or the Eboard does is intended to be in the best interest of our members and this facility. Thank you all for your support and your feedback.
In Solidarity,
Derek Adams