You may have noticed a memo from Glenn Wood posted by the ART computer. Additionally, a list of people and dates in which your shift has been moved to a 16NF. First and foremost, NATCA is filing a grievance on this matter and my hope is that the front office will intervene and reverse these shift changes before the first one takes place. This change is a clear violation of Article 7. Here is a paragraph I had originally written at the end of last week…
I met with Glenn recently to discuss the traffic we are seeing on the swing to mid shift transition. If you staff based on ESIS numbers, there are often red sectors from 2330 to 0000. If all the 16s have gone home at 2330, we are looking at a holdover OT situation if the lows are not combined. Obviously, management would like to avoid assigning any OT, EVER. With that in mind, Glenn thinks it would be a good idea to have 16NF shift that rotate through so that we have three people here till midnight. My immediate reaction was that it would be unpopular with all of you and that the 16NF would not be needed half the time. Additionally, I wanted the opportunity to brainstorm other potential issues. I told Glenn the best practice for my mid is to get the Sectors all together at 2300 and have a D/R team work through the push. My thinking is that having the two people work together combined is more efficient that having an R side on low doing nothing and a D side on high doing next to nothing while the High R side works the push. That being said, I really only see one of seven mid shifts per week so I would like for all of you to give feedback/opinions in the comments section of this post.
I initially wrote the paragraph above to start to responsibly gather data on the situation. For whatever reason Glenn decided to move forward on his own without any collaboration what so ever. I will be updating you on our grievance next week. Its possible the holiday weekend could slow things down, but Troy will be pushing this up the chain a quickly as possible. It is my intention to do a full Article 48 Workgroup on this under the time lines laid out in the contract. What the means is, if my grievance is upheld then we wont be seeing any 16NFs (other than Sat) this year. However it may be a point of discussion for next years schedule. However, this time all of you will be considered….
Please leave ANY concerns, comments to opinions in comments below.