Facility Update February 5th

Good Evening All!

Covid Vaccine

Most of you saw the new guidance in CEDAR for getting the vaccine. Basically it boils down to EA is only allowed if it’s pre coordinated, otherwise it’s sick leave. All vaccines need to be reported to the flight surgeon still. We have contacted the King County Public Health Department to inquire whether they have plans to place Air Traffic Controllers any higher in the phase program but we have not received a response yet.

Local Training Order

Recently, the national 3120.4 Air Traffic Technical Training Order was fully rewritten. Because of that, we need to bring our local order up to date and now have a chance to make some changes. If you have any suggested improvements or changes you’d like to see, please email Drew Stewart at drew.s.stewart@gmail.com.

On-call EA

With some of the areas going back to BWS and some other changes, management will no longer be scheduling “on call” EA. We are still collaborating on how exactly this will look, but don’t expect to know whether you have an EA day any earlier than the night before. While we are on the subject, EA is still a duty day. You must remain available, in the area, and responsive to phone calls. We are in danger of losing all EA if these conditions are not met. 

Have a great week,

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Facility Update January 22nd

Good Evening All!

BWS

We will be meeting with management in the near future to discuss a plan of action to return to BWS. This is only an initial collaboration meeting but we’ll be sure to tell you all as soon as anything is set in stone. Our primary goal is still to stay on 5/5 as long as feasible but we need to honor leave, conduct OJTI and to keep the NAS safe and efficient. Our secondary goal is to keep as many crews/areas separated as possible. While not optimal, this may present itself as different areas transitioning sooner than others. In a perfect world, we could all stay on this until the pandemic is contained but since traffic, training and leave obligations vary from area to area, we’ll settle for some protection is better than none.

COVID Vaccine

Some of you may have noticed a letter in CEDAR stating, “Employees that receive a vaccination without prior coordination and approval will be charged Sick Leave.” Our understanding of the guidance that was sent out leads us to believe this is incorrect. That being said, it will cause mass chaos if we don’t try and coordinate this a little. We know that the availability of vaccination is sporadic at best but please try to do this on your EA days if you can. 

Thank you all for your continued patience while we work out the specifics of these two topics. As always, please let us know of any questions you may have or topics you’d like addressed.

Facility Update January 8th

We hope you all had nice, low-key, uneventful holidays this year. It feels weird to wish boring on people but after the last year, boring is good. 

Charity

At our last all members meeting, we discussed the excess budget we had since there wasn’t any travel for events, training or meetings this year. We presented a motion to donate a portion of that to charity. After discussion, the members in attendance voted to make the donation at $10,000! Five thousand of that has been donated to NATCA Charitable Foundation and we need your help dispersing the other five thousand. Please send us your suggestions for local charities. They must be “official” (501c3 registered) charities. You guys are amazing and we are so proud to work for you. 

BWS

We are continuing to keep an eye on each area and check in every other week with the reps to see when/if we need to transition back to normal schedules. We are still trying to stay on covid scheduling as long as possible but at some point training, leave or traffic will force our hand. This is a fluid situation and information changes quickly but we assure you that the final decision still needs to be made collaboratively by NATCA and management. The E-board will continue to keep you informed of any changes. Thank you all for being so flexible during all this. 

COVID Vaccinations

NATCA and the pilot’s union are still working on getting us all put in higher in the priority list due to the nature of our work. As it stands, the Washington State timeline puts most of us in the April-May categories. If you are able to get in to take the vaccine, please remember that it will dq you for 48 hours and please try not to put your crew-mates in a bind. 

The updates have been sporadic lately partially due to the holidays but mostly due to the lack of topics to report on. It seems like there’s everything yet nothing going on. If there’s ever anything that you’d like more information on or think we should talk about, please let us know!

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Facility Update December 11th

Hello all. We hope you are having a good December so far. This year sure seems like it has flown by.

We wanted to remind you one last time of the all member’s meeting tomorrow, (Saturday, December 12th) at 4pm. We will be conducting the meeting via Microsoft Teams. No sign up is necessary. You can use any browser except for Safari. We will be voting on next years budget, so please be sure to show up to have your voice heard. We are also interested in any other topics you would like to discuss.

Meeting link: Saturday, December 12th at 4pm

Here’s the link to the Microsoft Teams download.

Another topic that will be discussed tomorrow is the future transition to BWS. We know this is on the back of everyones’ mind so we will be sure to discuss it further and follow up with more information and speculation in next weeks update. We hope to see you all tomorrow.

In solidarity, 

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore

Facility Update December 4th

Good Evening All,

We don’t have much to update you on right now but wanted to remind you of the all member’s meeting next Saturday, December 12th at 4pm via Microsoft Teams. Just as a reminder, you do not need to sign up for anything to make this work. You can just use it in any browser except for Safari. Since we will be voting on next year’s budget, all of Robert’s Rules (old school parliamentary procedures that all official meetings use) will apply. Please bring any concerns you may have and you are guaranteed time to speak.

Meeting link: Saturday, December 12th at 4pm

If you want, here’s the link to the Microsoft Teams download.

We will be sure to send out a mid-week update if anything new comes out.

Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore