Covid Procedures
It’s been a while and covid is ramping up again so I think it’s time to review covid procedures. First of all, if you are sick, do not come in the building. It doesn’t matter if you have a mid shift or 6 or whatever. Don Hill and I have spoken about the importance of this and OT/TMIs will be utilized if it comes down to that. Please help us keep the facility healthy.It is a requirement to review the Wellness Checklist HERE everyday before entering the facility. Call the OM if you answer yes to any of the questions or if anything is unclear.
EA for testing
The Memo defining this is HERE, it says it is expired but it still applies. This has been extremely confusing and changes constantly but here is the gist of it:
If you have symptoms consistent with covid-19 and are seeking a test or awaiting test results, you should be on EA for up to 3 days. If it is taking longer than 3 days, contact your supervisor and they should be in contact with the flight surgeon to see what the next steps will be.
If you are contact traced and have been identified by a Regional Flight Surgeon as a close contact during a work-related contact tracing, you may request to schedule a test between the third and fifth day of exposure.
If you test positive for covid, please file a CA-1. Here is a recap from our region’s OWCP Rep:
If someone has tested positive in the past 30 days follow this process:
If you test positive for covid-19 now or in the future, you should go to ecomp.dol.gov and fill out an OSHA-301 and Form CA-1 within 30 days of your test result. If you are experiencing symptoms, we recommend that you get tested for covid-19 by a healthcare professional instead of an at-home/DIY covid-19 test, both for accuracy and reducing the possibility of your claim being challenged by DOL.
If you file a CA-1 within 30 days, you get as many as 45 days of continuation of pay from the time of your test result to the time that you are cleared to return to work by your physician and the Regional Flight Surgeon. Continuation of pay means that the FAA will pay you normally, instead of forcing you to take your own leave for your recovery.
If you don't file a CA-1 within 30 days, you can convert your sick leave to LWOP and get partial repayment for it as a wage loss claim once your Form CA-1 has been accepted.
100% of your base pay up front or a lot of steps to get 50-70% of your sick leave's value as a lump sum later. Contact your Regional OWCP Representative (http://www.natca.org/committees/owcp) if you have any questions.
Quick guide to ECOMP
1. Get the .gov email address of your supervisor of record and let a manager know that you intend to file a Form CA-1 for covid-19. While they should know to do this regardless, it’s probably a good idea to remind them to show you on continuation of pay instead of sick leave for at least the next 10 calendar days.
2. Go to ECOMP.dol.gov in your Web browser.
3. Register for an account using a personal email address and verify your registration in the follow-up email. (Skip if you already have an account.)
4. Sign in with the username and password you created during the registration process.
5. Create an OSHA-301, which notifies OSHA of an injury in a federal workplace. As of this moment, DOL’s workflow forces us to file an OSHA-301 before we can file a CA-1.
6. Create a CA-1. DOL has created a special CA-1 for covid-19 cases, so use that. For grade and step, enter what you see under “Pay Plan” and “Grade” found on your LES (e.g., grade “AT,” step “LH” for a CPC at an ATC-12 facility). The date of injury will be your last duty day before your positive covid-19 test. The nature of injury is “covid-19 infection,” and the cause of injury is “exposure to covid-19 at work.” Select “Continuation of pay” on the last page where you are given the option to sign and file your CA-1 electronically, if you are filing within 30 days of your positive test result.
7. During the process of filing or after filing your claim, upload a copy of your positive test result for covid-19.
8. Check your claim status in ECOMP at least once a day, until you see that (a) your supervisor has submitted his part to agency review, and (b) DOL has created a case file for it. If your supervisor wants you to correct something in your CA-1, your supervisor can send it back to you for correction and resubmission.
9. Check your mail regularly for correspondence from DOL. If your claim is not accepted or if you have questions regardless, please contact your Regional OWCP Representative or the National OWCP Representative.
If anyone has any questions or needs help, let me know.
Stephanie Winder
ZLC NATCA President/NNM OWCP Rep
http://www.natca.org/committees/owcp
8016337479
FTR Facility Tech Rep
Please don’t forget to let us know if you’re interested in the FTR position. You’ll have to maintain a M-F day shift schedule, expected to maintain currency and your medical. Expect around two weeks of travel per month. If you have questions or are interested in this, please reply to this email. We will discuss the candidates as an e-board on January 20th. Here’s the remainder of the description from last week:
FTR (Facility Tech Rep) Solicitation
We would like to start soliciting interest for the FTR position that will be opening up in the spring. The FTR is the voice of the facility nationally as it pertains to new tech and also NATCA’s voice on many other details. Those of you that were around for the white book/implementation of ERAM understand the value of our voice and what happens when we are not a part of these decisions. Those of you that did not experience this, I assure you that when controllers are not part of this process the end result is undesirable and likely dangerous. I have asked our current ETR, Frank Champaco to help by describing the job in a little more detail:
“As the FTR you have two main responsibilities, one local and one national.
On the local level you are responsible for protecting your facility by ensuring that the technical side of things (ERAM, TTL, Data Comm) is working as designed. You are responsible for reviewing every AIMS issue with Airspace and Procedures and the FAST team. You are responsible for ensuring programs like TR2 and Data Comm are implemented efficiently with the least amount of negative impact. All of this requires you to develop solid working relationships with NATCA, Airspace, FAST, Tech Ops, and all of management - especially training. I cannot stress this enough and a perfect example of solid working relationships was seen with TR2. That program would've been an absolute disaster if my NATCA brothers and sisters didn't step up big time. My relationship with Don Amundson also helped.
On the national level you will be testing the ERAM updates at the Tech Center in Atlantic City. This will be the bulk of your travel. You will also be asked to travel to the other Centers whenever there is a need for support like TR2 or Data Comm implementation. The NextGen User Team (NUT) also meets every quarter for three days with Leidos (the engineers that fix ERAM bugs), SLE (Second Level Engineering) and our management counterparts.. We discuss everything from enhancement requests (displaying the Broadcast FLID for VFRs to help Area B is one of them) to critical issues affecting the NAS. So expect to travel two weeks out of every month and no, they don't have to be consecutive. This is why no one ever sees me.
FTRs are also assigned to random Task Teams to tackle big projects. I am currently on the Offshore Automation, ERAM Training, 811 Controller Card, and a few other Teams but dont remember the titles.
I'm sure I'm missing a ton...oh yeah, did I mention how much I love telcons? Expect to be on one or more every day. So that, in short, will be your duties as the ZSE FTR. Feel free to stop by my office if you want to learn more.”
NCEPT
The deadlines for this quarter’s NCEPT are coming up. We are still not in a great position to be letting anyone go but if you want to get paperwork in anyway 1/18/22 is the ERR Submission Deadline.
I know this was a long email but it’s all very important information. If you made it this far, thank you.
Amy Sizemore