August 28th Update

Hello all, hope you’re doing well. We hope you haven’t missed us too much the past couple of weeks, there just hasn’t been a whole lot to update everyone on.

Voter Registration

Just a head’s up, if you’re not registered to vote in Washington, you may be getting a call from a member of the NATCA Legislative team. This is an unbiased, non-partisan effort, they will not try to talk to you about candidates or platforms or anything like that. They only want to ensure our membership is registered to vote. If you would like to check to see if you’re registered in WA, go to: https://voter.votewa.gov/WhereToVote.aspx. Deadline to register in WA for this November’s election is October 26th.

UNUM Open Season September 1st

This is one of the most valuable perks of being a NATCA member. We all know how fragile our medical clearances are and how quickly they are put in jeopardy. This program will give you the peace of mind to take care of you and your family in the event of a medical issue. Open season starts September 1st. If you’re not signed up, PLEASE spend a couple minutes checking this out to see if it’s right for you. http://unuminfo.com/natca/overview.aspx 

Leave Donations

This year has been a crazy year for leave. Some people have been able to build up a leave balance for the first time ever. On the other side of that, there are people that have lost their medical clearance and it has decimated their balances. If you’d like to help, check out the Leave Donor list (must be done on a government computer).

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know.

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update August 7th

Good Evening All!

Really short update tonight since we sent out a midweek update and not much to add to that.

Flight Physicals

If you had a birthday in the past couple of months and were due for a physical, it may have been delayed due to COVID. Don has told his staff that he wants everyone caught up by the end of the month and that he wants them done on your EA days. If this applies to you, expect a call from Joni shortly to coordinate the EA day that works best for you. If you don’t hear from her in the next week or so, please let your rep know otherwise she’ll just pick an EA day to schedule it on.

EA Days

The memo put out in CEDAR stirred up a lot of conversations and in some cases, misinformation. Just to be very clear, being called in during your regular five days off will only be in the event of a positive COVID case. Not a normal sick hit or military mission or anything like that. If you get a call to come one on your five off and you haven’t heard from one of us first, PLEASE CONFIRM WITH YOUR REP that you aren’t dealing with an overzealous supe. This does not apply to on-call EA.

Please continue to be safe and talk to you soon!

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update July 31st

Good evening all, hope you’re all doing well. We apologize for the sporadic nature of the emails lately but it seems like every morning we get an email together and every afternoon that information has changed and we’re forced to wait for interpretations. We suppose the lesson is that the COVID schedule and everything surrounding that is still very fluid. We are trying to keep this as stable as possible for you all but there are many things that are out of our control.  

Overtime / EA

The biggest mixed message that we are getting lately has been the extra “on-call” EA that some areas have been occasionally able to assign. Now it seems that there is some amnesia at the district level and they claim they had no idea that we (among other facilities in the region) were doing that. Of course, the knee jerk reaction is to get rid of that effective immediately. This is being addressed regionally and nationally and hopefully reversed before implementation.

The second part of that is the recall time. If we are successful in keeping the on-call EA days, one thing that will more than likely change is the times we negotiated for recall. The Agency maintains that EA days are work days and therefore you are available for recall at any time during the assigned shift. Derek expressed to Don the logistical concerns we had with this and he said the supes will be told to expect a reasonable amount of turnaround time after contact is made. We understand the frustration with this but it is important to remember that the alternative will be actually being at work during those same hours. 

We have been in discussions with the front office in reference to the 10 minute OT overlaps. Management is very interested in minimizing the use of OT. Derek expressed an interest in getting more people out of the facility during slow times such as the beginning of the day and end of the swing shifts. They were able to collaborate and come up with a solution that suited both parties. Starting in about a week, we will start seeing people assigned a 0550 or a 1350 shift that will end at 1350 and 2150 respectively. In return, we will start seeing up to an hour and a half “on call EA” scheduled at the start of the day and the end of the swing shifts. These will have the same rules and limitations as our current “on call” EA days.

We realize a lot of this seems to be contradictory but the truth is that most of these items are still being ironed out but we just wanted to keep informed of the direction this may be going.

Stand Up

Last week, Derek expressed to Don our concerns with CICs attending “Stand Up” and the dangers of spreading COVID it presents. They agreed that CICs will not be required to attend. A supervisor will deliver any relevant information to the area. Due to the 7210.3 requirement for TMU Supe/CIC to brief twice a day, TMU CICs will write out the required information for the OM to brief.

Mask Mandate

On July 23rd, the Agency determined and NATCA agreed to a mask mandate that states: “FAA employees will wear cloth face coverings, surgical masks, dust masks, or N95 respirators (if medically qualified) in common areas such as elevators, hallways, and any workspaces or other locations where social distancing cannot be maintained.” NATCA and the FAA have both issued masks, if you didn’t receive one or both of these, let us know, we’ll help you out. Of course, you’re not limited to only using the issued ones, as long as it meets the requirements above. Not sure how many people are asking about whether face shields count as masks but just in case, the guidance is that they do not meet the requirements but can be used in addition to a mouth/nose covering.

Training

Live traffic training will not be resuming any time soon. Trainees not actively on a crew right now have already been in contact with the training department for virtual training. The Agency has a plan to work with partially certified controllers (those currently on a crew) on their EA days but we are still waiting to see what that will look like.  None of this includes those individuals out on high risk EA.

This will probably generate a lot of questions so please feel free to email us with those or any concerns. 

In Solidarity,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update July 17th

Most of you know we had our first positive case of COVID-19 at ZSE so we’ll just get right into that.

Last week we had an employee get tested for COVID-19 after their spouse exhibited symptoms and later tested positive. That person removed themselves from work as soon as there was a suspicion of sickness but as you know, the process of getting a test and then getting results takes time. Tech Ops was able to get a cleaning contract all lined up and ready to go as soon as results were available. Monday evening, the positive test result came in and at 1am Tuesday, ZSE went ATC-0 for a full control room decontamination. The cleaning took about an hour and a half inside the control room. They then cleaned any public areas the person was known to visit along with hallways, door handles, etc. We were under the impression that everyone working a swing on the night in question would have the contact tracing questionnaire completed but the flight surgeon has identified the specific people they wanted to hear from and all that has since been completed. As far as the FAA is concerned, this process has been completed but please let us know if you have any questions or worries.

COVID Testing

As you all have seen, this process has been changing constantly but here is what we know right now. If you get a test, it should be reported to the Flight Surgeon. They will in turn, revoke your medical at that time and report that to your facility. This happens regardless of you showing symptoms or not. What we are seeing is that if you are already on your EA week, the facility does nothing. When it gets to your work week, they are putting people on SL. What we are hearing from National is that people without symptoms that are DQ’d by the Flight Surgeon should be on EA but that message is taking a long time to trickle down on the management side. Please continue to do what’s required but just know you may be charged SL at least initially.

Training

This is the subject of most of the questions we are hearing lately. The best answer we can give you is that even at the highest levels, resuming in person training is not the highest priority right now since COVID cases are at an all time high. No agreements have been made and no plans have been announced. Basically, this means for the most part, no “official” training is to take place at all. That being said, the FAA is getting itchy about people being paid to stay home and are trying to figure out how to fix that. NATCA agrees that at some point, training must resume. Our staffing crisis will not be remedied without training but it must be done by balancing the safety of the CPCs and Staff Specialists along with ensuring a useful and quality experience for the developmentals. With all that being said, people assigned to the training department fall in a different category. The Training Department is in the process of developing virtual training for those employees. 

EA

Excused Absence was negotiated as a part of COVID scheduling to provide the FAA with an extra layer of protection should a facility have a positive case. It was meant as a means to physically separate the workforce as much as possible to limit cross contamination. We say all that to say, there may come a time when you have to do work stuff on your EA days but normally you’ll be briefed first. As always, ask a rep if something doesn’t seem right. 

Stay Safe,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update July 3rd

Where is the year going?  It’s hard to believe that it is already the Fourth of July weekend. As always, please be safe and enjoy time with your family during what will no doubt be a different Fourth experience than we are used to.

Partially Qualified Employees

Partially qualified employees have slowly been making their way in and out of the operation. We know the situation is not ideal, but please do your best with what we have to work with. We encourage you all to wear masks if you are able while we undergo this unique situation. Continue to work with your crew mates to accomplish this task and get back to our “usual” routine. Thank you for your hard work and your continued patience as we take on the additional stress that bringing more bodies into the operation presents.

Training

The suspension of training MOU is set to expire on July 15th. At this time there is no plan to extend the MOU further. There is a national work group that is set to release their plan to resume training shortly. We do not expect to see things go back to normal, but we do expect training to resume in some fashion. Once we have the details of what this looks like, we will begin working with the area reps to accomplish whatever the work group comes up with. There are some overzealous managers taking this to mean scheduling trainees starting the 16th but it’s important to remember that they don’t have any more information than we do at this point and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Backpack Program

ZSE has received 31 backpacks from NATCA Charitable Foundation and $1000 to fill them. We are looking for someone that is interested in doing some internet shopping to fill them. Amy has the information from the first couple of years so it wouldn’t be without help. These backpacks will go to Auburn Food Bank to distribute them to children in the area. Please just let us know if this interests you.

Just a reminder, this situation has created the perfect breeding grounds for rumors to grow like wildfire. Please keep this in mind when you hear new information (especially when it comes from the front of the control room). If you have concerns about things you have heard, please come to us and we can either confirm, deny or put into perspective what is floating around. 

Have a wonderful holiday weekend,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore