Summer traffic is building and so is my workload going into the summer and negotiating next years schedule. Damien and I will be meeting with Todd and Kevin to discuss our guides going into next year. If you have any input on things you would like to see please send me an email. As those who work around me have seen, I keep a spreadsheet of every time someone works over 3 hours. It has exposed a need to change our hourly guides at a minimum. I’m also going to work hard to bring up our Saturday night guides in the winter-that will include the rest of this year.
SCHEDULE
A few items for the schedule. 1st is round 6 bid leave that may be converted into credit. If you have leave that was bid in round 6 that can be converted to credit hours, the notes in web scheduler (under your leave) will read BID ROUND 6 LEAVE. If you don’t remember what leave you bid in round 6, navigate to the bid info page of our local website and round 6 picks are noted in red.
Thank you to everyone, again, going through these next couple weeks. The 2 shortest staffed areas in the building have been most impacted by the back to back mandatory training requirements we are required to do each year. This week we have annual area refresher training. We get a week break before we send new OJTIs and CICs to their respective classes and then we have mandatory OJTI and CIC refresher classes. We will then be back to normal ops until the end of summer. OT assignments will not drop back to winter levels but most likely will not be as high as they have been recently.
Last item is the building of next years schedule. It is very important for me to get feedback from you as I will not be bidding a line next year. I will take schedule submissions for next year. We have a few factors that may impact next years schedule. I believe we will start the year with 33 CPCs but we will lose Dave in the middle of summer as he enjoys retirement. With that I’m planning a schedule with 32 CPCs and doubling up whatever line Dave bids. Some other factors that play into this is the possible lose of Derek as the facrep if he wins the next election. We also have a few CPCs looking at career progression that may impact our numbers. If you would like to build a schedule consider that we may need options for 31, 32, or 33 CPCs. Next years summer guides will most likely remain the same as this year. Build a schedule to summer guides. If you would like a copy of the excel spreadsheet I use to build the schedule, I’m willing to send it out with some basic instructions on how to use it.
TRAINING
Thank you to everyone who volunteered for this summer’s article 5 detail. Bid leave played into our selection but there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future. There will be at least 1 more opportunity this fall and possibly a second by the end of the year.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been many inconsistencies in training hours. The r-sides have been used in staffing and some d-sides have received as little as 4 hours of training for the entire week. After talking with management, the expectation going forward is a minimum of 10 hours a week for trainees. To help mitigate this, I’m asking everyone to go to a trainees sup (not the sup who’s shift the request is on) when considering a trainee to work in staffing for your leave. The trainee’s sup is going to have the best idea on how many hours a week they are training and if they can be spared a day to cover leave.
LSC REQUEST
The LSC is requesting any questions or feedback you my have for TMU. Please keep the feedback civil. If you believe something can be done better please provide the feedback. Please keep questions regarding TMU operations strictly to the operations. Examples can be why does the C area have a meter time for an aircraft that departed GEG but the A area doesn’t have a time until they are 10 miles over the C area border? Please direct questions/feedback to my email or to the LSC suggestion box at the watch desk. Ideally I would like everything sent to me via email so the LSC can identify area specific questions that may be reoccurring.
NATCA SWAG
We have new lanyards for all members. You can stop by the union office to receive one or wait for your refresher day. Area refresher starts Monday and I will see everyone. If you haven’t received a lanyard prior to your refresher day I will have 1 for you.
Local Meeting
Our next local meeting is June 13, 2:30pm at the Rainbow Cafe. We have some local constitution amendments to vote on so please join us if you are available. We will also be discussing MOUs for next year.
Brooke Dawson
brooked85@Hotmail.com
440.227.5591