All,
I hope everyone is enjoying this awesome weather and having a good week. First off I want to remind you about the upcoming members meeting:
Members Meeting on June 13th @ 2:30pm. Rainbow Cafe in Auburn. We will be voting on proposed changes to the ZSE Local Constitution. Proposed changes can be found HERE.
Also my annual Half Christmas Cookout is on June 24th so make sure you RSVP to that at the end of this email. Alright, on to the update.
DYSIM Instructor Needed
We are currently soliciting for an upcoming Article 5 detail to be a lab instructor. The dates of the detail are 8/26-10/11. Please volunteer to me, Angie, or your supervisor by 6/28 if interested.
Sector 35 Growing Pains
I have heard a few issues that are arising from the new sector 35 procedures. One being confusion over whether or not our high altitude sectors are required to force RDM landers to 15,000 and hand them off to 35. I think in a perfect world all aircraft would be pointed out to 5 and handed off to 35. However, traffic flow doesn’t always make that the most expedient thing to do. For example, when aircraft are transitioning from ZLC into 13 and then 05 and 35, 13 should not be required to force that aircraft down and point it out to 5. The current wording leaves a lot open to interpretation and that was by design. Now that we have seen how it works a little on the floor, please feel free to submit suggested wording changes to the current SOP. Currently under the heading of B and D area procedures it says “Aircraft at or above 15,000ft, landing in the RDM area, must be descending to 15,000, except those maintaining VFR-ON-TOP.” It does not say that the D area is solely responsible for that directive. I think the biggest goal with that was to prevent 05 from having to do unnecessary work. For example if 13 pointed a RDM lander out to 10 and handed them off to 05 descending to FL200. That is the type of thing we were trying to avoid. So again, any suggestions on wording that captures what works best on the floor would be appreciated.
Things to Watch for on the Schedule
With our staffing getting steadily worse and OT going way up, there are more ways for the agency to screw up the schedule after Angie builds it. One example I have seen of this on multiple occasions now is assignment of OT to a shift that someone is requesting to get to. Example: Person on a 1600 wants a 1500. OT is necessary on the swing. The OT should be added as a 1600 and the person requesting a 1500 should have their request approved. Instead, mgmt just likes to just add the OT on a 1500 shift. Keep an eye out for stuff like this so I can get it addressed.
Another thing that is happening is that when someone turns in leave, mgmt is not going back in and looking to see if other leave could now be approved. We can help ourselves a little here by looking to see who is next up to get the leave we are turning in and letting them know. However, we shouldn’t have to do that, mgmt should be looking at that already. Article 24 Section 14 of the CBA addresses this. If they miss one, please let me know. It has already happened at least once.
Also, thanks again for bringing to my attention things you notice on the schedule. Last Thursday was the day they were planning to run the day shift with 7 people so that could have their all supes “meeting” and if we hadn’t brought that to their attention and convinced them to add OT that would have gone really bad. We spent most of the day with 7 people plugged in. Just another example of us bailing them out. Keep letting me know about those issues. There is currently one coming up on 6/19 where we are 2 under with night flying. We will see what they intend to do to fix that. Just keep in mind that the agency has the right to staff the area as they see fit. All we can do is try to convince them how bad of an idea it is to leave us that short and when it happens, file an ATSAP.
In Solidarity,
Drew