Facility Update July 9th

I’m back in the building now after a very relaxing two weeks off. I feel revitalized and ready to get back to it. There are a lot of subjects in this email, but I will keep it as brief as possible.

All Members

Our All Members meeting is scheduled for July 24th in the East/West Conference room. Lunch at 1230, meeting at 1. Agenda items: 2026 MOUs/schedules, Local Elections, Holiday Party idea pitch.

Local Elections

You should’ve all received the notice of elections and a nomination form in the mail. If you didn’t, please let us know, and we’ll get you set up. If you are interested in running or know someone who you think would be a good fit for a position on our local e-board, please fill out the nomination form and place it in the black lock box located on the wall outside the control room. Additional forms are available there too.

Timeline:

• Nominations Due: 7/11 at noon

• Nomination Acceptance Forms Due: 7/18 at noon

• Campaign Period: 7/18-8/8

• Ballots Mailed: 8/8

• Ballots Due: 8/29 at noon

Cambridge Financial

Anthony Lee, a financial advisor who works in partnership with NATCA, will be visiting on Friday, July 25. This is a different service from the recent financial visitor who focused on life insurance. Anthony specializes in retirement planning and can provide you with projected retirement numbers, along with detailed, personalized information. This is an excellent opportunity to get valuable insight into your financial future. I’ll share the exact times as soon as they’re confirmed.

Pool Table

I’m working with the Employees’ Association to have the pool table relocated to the cafeteria, where it can be used freely without disrupting anyone’s recuperative break. I’ve also been advocating for the agency to replace the couches in that room for several years, but budget constraints have continually gotten in the way. I’ll continue to push for that upgrade.

T-shirt Raffle

I forgot to pull the names before I left on leave but June’s winners were Matt Dippe and Patrick Beerman. Don’t forget to wear your shirt on the 15th of every month for your chance to win a $25 gift card to Bigfoot Java, The Rock, or McLendon’s. (Next Tuesday is the 15th)

Member in Need

Please consider donating, ZOA NATCA is raising funds for one of their members and his family. Matt Prinzi, a developmental controller at Oakland Center since 2021 was recently diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer. Matt is having to travel to get specialized treatment, and the FAA denied a hardship transfer. ZOA NATCA is all in on grieving that and getting him closer to his life-saving treatment, but in the meantime, any little bit helps. He is also listed on the Voluntary Leave Transfer Program. Let me know if you’re interested in that; I can point you in the right direction.

CFS

Registration is now open for Communicating for Safety 2025, the aviation safety event of the year. HERE is the website for information. If you are interested and think you will be able to actually attend, please let us know PRIOR to purchasing tickets.

Timeline:

• May 2: Registration Opens with Early Bird Pricing

• July 23: Excused Absence List deadline

• August 16: Archie League Banquet ticket price increase

• August 16: Refunds will no longer be provided for registration fees or Archie League Banquet tickets.

• August 16: Hotel rooms in NATCA’s room block are no longer guaranteed and are subject to availability.

• September 15-17, 2025 – Communicating for Safety (CFS) 2025

If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read to the end. Have a great week!

Amy

NCEPT Briefing today at 3pm

Quick reminder that the ZSE NCEPT briefing is today at 3pm.

LINK HERE

Another VP Update

Sup everybody,

Lots going on around here, lots to keep you updated on. Special shout out to the D area for holding it down while I’m acting (like a) FACREP in Amy’s absence. I know it sucks to pull one more person off the schedule and I appreciate your understanding. Also, D area is now more than 100% NATCA because good ole OTH Tower is officially chartered as a NATCA Local.

Nick Daniels Visit

Several of you saw that Nick Daniels made a quick, impromptu visit to the facility yesterday. I’m glad many had the chance to speak with him and ask questions. He spent time talking with folks about pay and other topics, and mentioned how much he appreciates being able to connect directly. He enjoyed the visit enough that he’d like to return for a longer session with more time for discussion.

I’m planning to schedule two meetings a few months from now, one onsite and one offsite, to reach as many people as possible. If you have suggestions for how this should be structured or want to make sure you’re able to attend, let me know. I’ll do my best to accommodate requests. If anyone is interested in helping with planning, I’d appreciate the support.

Fatigue Rules

I think everyone knows the deal with how to sign in properly without violating the new (7 months old now) fatigue rules. With the previous rules, you would get a little red warning if you were about to sign in too early, that is no longer the case, you gotta keep track of the math yourself. The dumbest one of these violations is if you were on leave the swing shift before and flex the next day, it’ll flag as a violation if it’s 9.5 hours instead of 10. Please keep this in mind and have the supe edit your shifts if need be. The Agency has referred many of these issues to ProStan but I would not expect that to continue so please be cognizant of the fatigue rules when signing in.

RATS!

We have hired a falconer to come out and have the rats hunted. This should solve the problem relatively soon. Jkjk, but I did hear that idea and I think it is a good one. Maybe if Tech Ops doesn’t get it handled with pest control, we can pitch that idea. Please keep reporting the rats as you see them to mgmt or us, I can add them to the Unsafe Conditions Report (UCR) that I already filed. Tech Ops is said to be actively working on this issue.

Landscaping Update

As I previously updated, the Agency has hilariously signed a contract to begin in October for landscaping services. In the meantime, they are trying to patch together some landscaping and mowing until then. Apparently, we have to borrow S46’s mower, so if you see someone with an FAA badge riding a mower down I-5 give them some space and assume it’s for a good cause.

Real ID, Real Problems

Our trashman didn’t have Real ID so you might’ve seen the dumpster filling up a little. Apparently, this has also been corrected. The guards will be riding with the trashman back to the dumpster. Cool!

MOU Negotiations

We are still waiting to hear if the 6 hour shift is sticking around before we begin negotiations for 2026 MOUs. I am open to any ideas you have for changes you would like to see as well. Please share those with me or with your reps.

NCEPT Brief

Don’t forget about the NCEPT Briefing on 7/8 at 3pm. LINK HERE.

Grievances!

No new updates on the ones I previously mentioned, other than the Pickleball one is on its way to PAR. I’ll be headed to LA to tell a neutral that painting an already existing pickleball court is not defacing government property. Fun! I also filed 2 grievances today on messed up pay. Apparently, the DOI is struggling these days.

Have a good Fourth! Try to keep all of your fingers intact!

That’s it for now,

Drew

How the $&@! does NCEPT Work?? (Come find out)

Sup everybody,

Last week there was a regional briefing on NCEPT and I think that there were some challenges in getting onto that call and, of course, many of you that wanted to ask questions were plugged in. So I wanted to try to set something up for ZSE specifically. I have asked around and it seems like those of you with questions would most likely be able to join a briefing on a Tuesday in the afternoon. I have scheduled a ZSE specific one with our regional NCEPT Lead, Ryan O’Hare (ZDV), for Tuesday, July 8th at 3pm. Link below.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help accommodate getting you to this call. If you miss this one I will try to get Ryan to do some one on ones for people who still have outstanding questions.

Tuesday July 8 @ 3pm

Using Teams for a briefing to people who do not use teams daily be a bit fraught but we are gonna go for it anyway. We can try to pivot to zoom or some other means if we run into issues. I would just recommend signing on a few minutes early to make sure you can get in.

LINK

Let me know if you have any questions about this or anything else.

Drew

VP Update

Sup everybody,

Just wanted to give you a quick update on what I am working on this week while Amy is on leave.

Grievances

Right now we have grievances in 2 spots, we have Step 2 and PAR. Step 2 is the facility level where we file the grievances to the ATM and make our case here in hopes of explaining to them why the decision that was made was wrong and then they rule on their on ruling and decide whether or not to overturn or mitigate their previous action (spoiler alert: the almost never do)

The step beyond that is PAR or Pre-Arbitration Review. I will be arguing the grievances at this level in person when we hold PAR in early August (likely in LA for some odd reason). The outcome of that will depend on the feeling of a neutral third party, they will issue a decision saying “if this were to go to full arbitration, this is likely how it would go.” Then both parties (Union and Agency) can choose whether or not to accept that or elevate to true arbitration with attorneys and all that.

So, at Step 2 right now is a grievance regarding a controller receiving discipline for painting a pickleball court. I am sure you have all heard of this one and agree that discipline for something like this is pretty absurd. I am hoping we can make that case at Step 2 but if not, we will absolutely take that one to PAR.

At PAR level right now we a few things. First a grievance regarding discipline issued for a conversation that an OM and controller had that didn’t go the way the OM wanted it to. We plan to argue at PAR that grown ups occasionally have tense conversations and that doesn’t always need to result in discipline.

Also at PAR (when I last updated you it was at Step 2) is a grievance where the agency skipped someone for OT by assigning the OT to someone who was ineligible to work the OT. It went like this: call an eligible person, eligible person doesn’t pick up, assign to an ineligible person, the eligible person calls back and gets told no because the agency assigned it to someone who was ineligible. Which, to any logical person, would mean they skipped the eligible person. We will make this argument to a neutral in August.

Another one at PAR is regarding the Agency’s inability to properly respond to a grievance. I have mentioned this one before but just to reiterate, they have a history of just answering just one thing in a grievance containing multiple violations. Since I filed that grievance, the Agency has decided to start reading the entire thing and replying to all of it but they still need to be held accountable for the ones they did not do that with. Looking forward to seeing what a neutral says there.

RATS!

I have received several reports of rats scurrying around our lovely building. This probably has something to do with the unkempt landscaping. Anyone remember when the building used to be taken care of? I ‘member. Anyway, I have filed a UCR (Unsatisfactory Conditions Report) regarding this. Hopefully we get someone to trim the weeds and get the rats to move on (or offer them jobs, we are pretty short staffed).

MOU Season

As I am sure you are all aware, MOU season is fast approaching. I am working on putting together a team to help negotiate the 2026 BWS/AL/OT MOUs. If you have ideas for these MOUs, please be thinking about them and we will begin soliciting for feedback on how to handle those soon.

NEB Meeting

I will be out of the building Monday and Tuesday of next week attending the NEB meeting in Seattle. I have received several responses from you guys on things you would like for me to bring up to them and I intend to do that and report back. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you thing of other things you would like for me to say. Reminder: there is a meet and greet Monday night, June 30, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Rhein Haus in Seattle (912 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122). Families are welcome. Flyer here. RSVP HERE!

elections

Angie McMahon will be mailing the notice of elections on Friday 6/27 and the nomination period will open on that day, 6/27 at 12pm and end on 7/11 at 12pm. Nomination forms will be placed on top of the black box outside the ready room. Once filled out, just place the form in the black box. Deadline for accepting is 7/18 at 12pm. Ballots will be mailed August 8th. Ballots are due August 29th. At 12pm on August 29th, the election committee will pull the ballots from the box and count them and send out the results ASAP. This year we will be using a ballot box and ONLY a ballot box. There is no mail in option. That means the only way to vote is to drop your ballot in the black box outside the ready room.

All positions are open for election for 2 year terms. This is your best chance to get involved, don’t wait until you feel “ready” or you never will, just go for it!

Big thanks to everyone who stopped by to hang out and have a burger last Friday at the cookout. I recently saw that ZOA has something similar, except they make breakfast for everyone. Is this something you all would be interested in doing as well? Please let me know if you want to help do that for the facility.

Ok have a great rest of your week everyone, try to enjoy some sun on your RDO!

Drew