All,
Hope everyone is having a good week. The days are getting shorter and football is almost back so enjoy what’s left of the summer! As many of you already know, Miles Hamper has resigned from the agency and headed back home. I wish him the best in all his future endeavors. I will be advocating heavily for us to get the next possible person we can to replace him in our pipeline.
Tracker on 13
The current idea on the table is to remove the overhead VSCS from Sector 10 and place it above sector 13 to more easily accommodate a tracker position. Does anyone have any issues with this? I had Sentry Eagle concerns but as far as I have found out, no one knows if they are doing that any time soon. Also, I don’t think we even used a tracker on 10 during the last one anyway. Let me know your thoughts on this.
OT CEDAR Notifications
As per the OT MOU, mgmt is only required to notify you about overtime assignment or cancellation via one of the following methods:
In Person
In Writing
Via telephone conversation on a recorded line
CEDAR
Any one of those options is acceptable. I am personally not a fan of them canceling an OT 3 days out and only putting the notification in CEDAR, but they have met their requirement to notify you if they do that. If you do not check your CEDAR to see it then there is nothing I can do about it. Back on 5/5 I sent an email showing how to turn on CEDAR notifications that are sent to your personal email and I have attached the same screen grabs to the bottom of this email as well. That being said, I do not believe that notifications were made in CEDAR (or any other approved method) for OT assignments on PP19. I have brought this to mgmt and as far as I know they have not addressed it. If this does not get fixed soon, I will be filing a grievance to address it.
As for the cancellation of OT inside of 7 days, Article 38 Section 9 states:
Overtime shall not normally be canceled without seven (7) days notice.
I believe that someone turning in bid annual leave is a normal situation and does not meet the abnormal threshold set by Article 38 Section 9 and thus should not be given as a reason for cancelling inside of 7 days. The agency, however, has taken the position that they can cancel the OT inside 7 days if the reason is “outside of their control.” Meaning that they have no control over whether or not someone turns in annual so they are clean to cancel the OT inside 7 days. I have been told by management that this was a decision made by the ETR (regional big whig) and is a settled matter. I have asked for this in writing and if I can’t get that then I will likely file a grievance to address it.
NCEPT Update
You may have already read this from the National Office but here is the latest on NCEPT:
NCEPT Process Update
The Parties at the national level recently met to review the NCEPT process. The review included the number of CPC’s actually on board and the number of trainees (CPC-ITs and developmentals) presently in the system. We also discussed the joint goal of increasing CPC certifications to improve facility staffing.
As a result of these discussions, we modified the Decision Lens tool which assists in prioritizing facility rankings for the NCEPT process. We put extra weight onto the staffing health of each facility, and lowered weight of criticality to the NAS. The goal of this was to bring the lower staffed facilities up to the top of the ranking list, regardless of their affiliation (Core30, Enroute, mid-level, etc). Facilities that normally do not see the top 30 rankings because of their size or type facility, yet still are very low staffed, should now move higher up on the facility priority list.
We also agreed to the temporary modifications to the NCEPT process below which are intended to help increase in the number of CPCs in our facilities.
Temporary NCEPT Changes:
1. Apply ERR MOU Section 12 A. Category 2 as follows:
Category 2: CPC Current and Projected AOB >85%. Release dates shall be within twelve (12) months of selection.
2. Apply NCEPT SOP paragraph 3.5.5 as follows:
Consideration of ERR requests will generally occur up to a projected CPC to target of at or below 85%. ERR requests above 85% of projected CPC to target will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Requests for transfer to Facility Pay Level (FPL) 9 and below facilities up to 100% of the projected CPC to target percentage will only be considered for extenuating circumstances after all other ERR requests have been reviewed. The NCEPT panel may expand consideration up to 100% to include additional FPL facilities. A facility will normally not be considered to receive employees if the ratio of CPC-IT/DEV to total number of controllers is at or above 30%.
We conducted a simulated NCEPT on the above changes and based on the results, agreed to move forward with scheduling the NCEPT on Sept. 30, 2019. The next ERR submission deadline is Aug. 29, 2019. You can find more information on the members side of the natca.org website.
Thats all for now.
In Solidarity,
Drew