Update for the week ending 8/26/2006

Hi Kevin and Everyone else.

Thanks for asking what we are all thinking.

First, I want everyone to understand that our atm and supes don't like this any more than we do and, where we can, the non-tract rules will be bent within "our four walls".

I received the original of the letter that you see in the R & I last night when I arrived for my mid shift. It was expected. DD had informed me of what the letter contains about a week ago and I asked her to put it in writing which is what we have now. This should come as no surprise to any of you. This is the way that we are forced to do business now that the agency's leadership has decided that we are to be "put down" and forced to comply with their imposed conditions of employment. I will present a request to negotiate the substance of the subjects listed below at the local level. My expectation is that DD will not be empowered by her "superiors" to engage in substantive bargaining. That is when we are harmed at the local level and I will file the appropriate Union Grievance.

As I have previously stated, the imposed conditions of employment are not recognised as legitimate by NATCA. That being said, the "green book" 2003 Contract remains in effect. At some point in time, the agency will have to resolve and pay, both figuratively and literally, for their current course of action. My goal is simple and absolute - to fully document every violation to the best of our ability so that, when the agency pays for their wrongs, we will have accurate records of all harmful actions by the agency so that we all may be made whole in the end. I believe we should be smart in how we file these grievances. I would like to proceed by filing one grievance per pay period for everyone once for each issue. For instance, I file one for CIC pay not being paid for every Member that worked CIC for the whole pay period, one for imposed dress code, etc. If anyone has a better idea, I am certainly open to suggestions.

As far as tracking our issues, NATCA has a new grievance tracking system, located on it's own server. It is web-based and can track ALL LMR issues including Article 7 negotiations and grievances elevated above the facility level. I have already entered the letter that I got last night into the tracking system. It has the capability of templates that we can use to produce the appropriate paperwork -- en mass if we need to.

Our 9/1 meeting will be at the tower. I would like for us to work out the details of these processes there. I know that all of you may not be able to make the meeting, but I value your input. Please send me an e-mail if you are unable to attend with any ideas that you may have and I will include them with the others.

For the remainder of this letter, let me update you on what I have been doing.

Tuesday of last week, I used a full eight hours of "NATCA Time". I started out early at 6AM and drove to San Marcos where the Western-Pacific NATCA regional office is located. I met Mickela, our Administrative Assistant and met with Bob Marks, Ham Ghaffari and Mike Hull to formulate the plan for Ham's transition into office which will happen one week from today, 9/1. I was back at the home office at 1230 and continued working issues for the local. I finished coordination for our Dish Network installation which turned out to be a bigger task then I had planned for. I had to spend a lot of time on the phone just to cancel the "Robert Jones" residential account that we were receiving before I could proceed with our new NATCA Local installation. I also began to educate myself on the NATCA Grievance Tracking System, our main LMR tool. I have a lot more work to do with this tool but we will be ready. I got caught up on e-mails, the NATCAnet BBS and put out a special update to you!

On Thursday last week, I took care of the Dish installation. I hope you like the new service. We now get a lot more channels than we did before. We got a new dish and almost all-new cabling. The old dish could only receive one satellite and our old wiring was just plain garbage - left over from the non-professional installation . . . Everything is now up to professional standards. If you have questions about the service, feel free to ask.

This week has been mostly quiet with the exception of the letter that, by now, I'm sure you've all read.

Take care and stay in touch.

JK


-----Original message-----
From: Kev
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:17:56 -0400
To: Kevin Sherwood ksherwood@natca.net
Subject: agenda items

JK,

I haven't seen any agenda items for the next meeting. I am assuming it's about the "contract" implementation. There is an R & I out saying that the following orders will be null and avoid :

BUR 3120.2A Familiarization Training
BUR 3550.2C Overtime
BUR 3600.1H Burbank Tower Regular Days Off and Annual Leave Selection
BUR 7110.4A Tower Data Link System and Pre-Departure Clearances
BUR 7210.11C Burbank Tower Reporting and Handling of Incidents

I would like to pay extra attention to some "new" articles that will be imposed.

Art 32 RDO selections (RDO selections must be made prior to October 1st)
Art 24 Leave ("vacation" time bidding time starts 90 days prior to January 1st)
Art 28 Holiday (what is our holiday staffing? Will in lieu days be "shortened" as well?)
Art 25 Sick Leave (will CICs be required to ask why and how long when someone calls in sick)
Art 69 Dress Code (what is acceptable?)

Grievances

How will we track grievances? How long do we have to file a grievance? Do we grieve every time we work CIC? Do we grieve each pay check with the absence of our FULL cip pay? What is the process to inform you of our intent of filing grievances? Will everyone file grievances (will everyone be on board)?

It's my understanding that agenda items for meetings to be posted. Is this correct?

Thanks,

EZ