Facility Update November 27th

We hope you all had a wonderful, socially distanced Thanksgiving. This has all been so weird, it’ll be great when it’s safe to get together again. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

All Members Meeting

There will be an All Members virtual meeting December 12th at 4pm. 

So far, the only agenda item is to vote on next year’s budget but we will for sure have an update to anything that’s going on and answer any questions you might have.

Here’s the link for that.

Volunteer Leave Transfer Program

With the end of the year approaching and a lot of people with a use or lose balance, we just wanted to talk about the VLTP program one more time. You can donate Annual or Sick leave through this program. This has to be done on an FAA computer but I (Amy) just did it and it’s pretty easy. You can click on this link or go to the FAA home website, just search VLTP. It’ll have you choose the region where the person that you would like to donate to currently works. Then it’ll come up with a list that includes all FAA employees approved to be on this program and how many hours they’re looking for. If you’d like to see a list of fellow NATCA members to donate to, here’s the link. 

BUE Recall Notice

As with everything else, information seems to be changing daily. There was an email sent out from NATCA recently reference a recall. Basically, everyone with at least one certification will be recalled to the facility. If the gating criteria does not allow the facility to train, they will just be staffing. Since this all is changing fairly quickly, we’re just working with the individuals affected directly but if you have any questions, let us know. The short of it is, lots of new people in the facility, some training, some not. Wear your mask.

Please continue to stay safe and sane. Find a small business to support tomorrow for Small Business Saturday (online if able). 

Thank you for allowing us to serve as your representatives,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Facility Update November 13th

Another week is in the books, hope you’re all healthy. As of today, we’re still in the yellow category but the case data is still trending up but there’s a good chance that will change to orange soon. If that happens, trainees in the building will continue training but no more will be brought in.

Volunteer Leave Bank MOU

Some of you may be finding yourself in the “use or lose” category for leave. If you don’t have a plan to use it all, please consider donating it to someone in need. Last week, NATCA and the FAA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning the creation, implementation, and administration of a new Voluntary Leave Bank (VLB) Program. If you are interested in donating leave, contact any one of the Eboard members and we’ll walk you through it. 

Mask Mandate

With the rising case numbers and constant facility level 3 cleaning costs across the nation, the FAA is cracking down on mask usage. You probably had to do the new mask eLMS and if not, you will soon. Northwest Mountain ARVP and Labor Relations lead, Josh Waggener made a good video explaining the dangers involved with not following the MOU. Give it a watch here.

Open Season

Health benefits open season started November 9th and will go until December 14th. If you need to make changes to your plan, now is the time. Here’s the link to the OPM website to make changes or compare plans. Also, the UNUM open season is still going until November 30th. This is an amazing NATCA benefit that you should definitely look into, especially if you’re the primary income earner for your family. The link for that is here.

Please continue to stay safe and stay home,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Facility Update November 6th

We haven’t had much to update lately, bidding has been going on relatively hitch free so that’s good.

Fitness Center

Fitness Centers across the nation have started to open up but only after a cleaning and distancing plan has been submitted. While Tech Ops and the Employee’s Association “own” the gym, Patrick Long has been working with them as one of our Northwest Mountain Region OSHA reps as well. Hopefully it will be approved soon and we’ll make sure to let you all know.

Veteran’s Day

NATCA would love for you to send in your pictures and we would love to see a strong Seattle Center presence. Feel free to send them directly to the communications team (comms@natca.org) with years in service and any other info you’d like to share. For instance, a memory, places you were stationed, job assignment, etc. Or, if you like, just reply to this email with you picture and info, we’ll forward it on.

Training

A lot of people have been paying attention to the website (Harvard Global Health Institute) that the FAA pulls covid case data from and have noticed occasionally that our numbers have gone into the orange level and are wondering how that affects training. We were told the FAA and NATCA will look at these numbers on a consistent basis and will notify the facility if they’ve met the criteria to be downgraded to orange or red. At that time, all personnel not already in the facility will not be allowed in. So, if you’re in, you’re in and will continue to train. If you’re out, then you will not be allowed in until we’ve been upgraded to yellow or green.

RED: 25 or more cases per 100,000 people

ORANGE: 10-24 cases per 100,000 people

YELLOW: 1-9 cases per 100,000 people

GREEN: less than 1 case per 100,000 people

In Solidarity,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update October 17th

Thanks to those that were able to make it to one of the two town hall meetings this last week. It was a pleasure getting to catch up and discuss bidding as well as other issues that have come up in the recent weeks and months. 

Bidding

We are hoping to begin bidding on Monday, October 19th. We are still ironing out the last bit of the schedule negotiations, but Monday is still our target to get the bid underway. If you haven’t already, please take a moment to look at the PowerPoint slides and video to refamiliarize yourself with the MOUs and BidATC. Ensure your password works. If not, there is a forgot password link on the login screen. Once you are able to log in, please double check that your contact information is up to date and if you are able to receive text notifications, please be sure you select this option to expedite the bidding process. If you have any trouble, please contact any of the reps and we’ll get it sorted out.

ZSE NATCA Website - this link has the MOUs and the bidATC video/PowerPoint.

bidATC - please log in to ensure your information and contact method is up to date.

Training

Our training plan was approved by the district. Now we start working on a plan to get the developmentals back into the building as safe and efficient as possible. This has been an unprecedented event, so we are learning as we go the best way to start training after having a 7 month lapse. All trainees are entitled to Article 67, also known as spool up time, which allows the trainee time to return to the knowledge/skill level they were at when the break in training began. The training department is working on a plan to help the operation by bringing in a couple of developmentals at a time, evaluating them on sector knowledge, running scenarios on the simulator, generally getting them to a point where OJTI will be more useful and not too overwhelming before going to work on a crew with live traffic. Please be patient with them when they get back, ATC is not really a skill that can be practiced outside of work and it will take time and effort to help them work past this hurdle.

Masks

With the imminent introduction of new people into the building and with flu season upon us, we wanted to stress the importance of mask usage. We know this subject seems to continue to come up, but it is very important that we stay vigilant in keeping ourselves and our coworkers safe. Please take special care during relief briefings, training and as you traverse the area and the building. It has not been a problem up to this point with management and we want to keep it that way.

We hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and healthy. As always, we are here if you need us. Here’s to another successful year of bidding. Thanks for all your hard work, professionalism and patience. 

In solidarity,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Weekly Update October 9th

Good Evening all!

Bidding Soon!

The 2021 MOUs are signed and we’re ready to go. There was a national mandate that all MOUs get rolled over so the only things we were allowed to change is if something was in last year’s MOU that would 100% not work in this year’s. For us that means that some of the areas had to tweak the lines to accurately reflect our CPC/trainee staffing. Everything else is the same. Click HERE for the PowerPoint presentation to refamiliarize yourself with the MOU and BidATC. You will also have access to it in CEDAR. We will be having two virtual town hall meetings on October 14th to answer any questions you may have as well. We will plan on starting bidding the week of October 18th. If you will not be able to be near a computer anytime in the next month or so, we suggest you get your proxy together. Remember, EA days are duty days and you will be expected to bid on them should you become eligible.

Virtual Town Hall links/times:

Wednesday October 14th, 11am - Click HERE

Wednesday October 14th, 5pm - Click HERE

Training Resumption

You may have heard that more trainees are coming back to work. Jointly, at the national level, they have come up with a tracking tool to try to only allow training when the covid numbers for the county where the facility is located in is below a certain amount. They have four levels (green, yellow, orange and red) and training is required to resume if the facility is green or yellow. ZSE is yellow. So we have submitted our plan to management to start bringing in developmentals. It still needs to be approved by the district and is subject to change so we’ll brief the details as soon as it is returned.

This has been a crazy busy week for both of us so we’ll cut off at two subjects this week but as always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore