It is finally here! The new mask policy has been signed and will take effect tomorrow, March 4th. Basically it states that if you are in a low-medium transmission county then you are not required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. The entire MOU is located HERE and the CDC community transmission level website is located HERE.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Amy Sizemore
Good afternoon all, I know it’s been a little while since I’ve sent out an email but there really wasn’t any new information to pass on. But we just got the word that as of immediately, all training can resume! You all must have a training team meeting to start and will all need Article 67 time but this is an exciting developement!
All Members Meeting
Our all members meeting is coming up 2 weeks from now on March 16th. It’ll be 11am-1pm in the East West conference room and lunch will be provided. Please continue to send us agenda items that you’d like brought up at the meeting but right now we’ve got:
New WiFi Protocol
2023 Bidding
Vision for ZSE: We want to know what you would like to see happen with our local, what kind of solidarity events, general goals or changes you’d like to see us pursue.
Article 18 Discussion (CIC Panel)
Also, if you’ve noticed, we’ve scheduled all the meetings for the year. It’s posted on the bulletin board.
Thank you all for your patience during this training stoppage,
Amy Sizemore
First and foremost, we are able to train R sides again! Please continue to keep the footprint in the control room to a minimum, we need to keep our case number low so we can get back to full training as soon as possible.
Covid Positive CA-1 Claim
If anyone filed a CA-1 after testing positive and got a letter from the FAA that indicates they are denying your claim, please don’t worry. The FAA is not the deciding factor for OWCP claims. The other part to remember is that the DOL requires a “third party” test. Basically that means that at home tests aren’t going to be enough. It doesn’t need to be a PCR test, it just needs to be administered by a professional.
All Members Meeting
The next all members meeting will be 11am-1pm Wednesday, March 16th in the East West Conference Room. Lunch will be provided.
Agenda items:
New WiFi access protocols
2023 BWS Bidding
There is interest in discussing a move from a “free for all” bid process into a structured “bid window.” This will take time and a lot of discussion so we definitely need your input.
If you have something you’d like added to the agenda for this meeting, please let us know.
Amy Sizemore
The lighting test went off without a hitch. It was quite dark in there but most people seemed to like it. We did have suggestions for lamps at the supe, sign in and CEDAR computers but if you have any other input or suggestions, please let us know.
DataComm
The FAA has pushed out all travel for this program 60 days. That would mean the earliest start time for training the workforce would be May. We just cannot support building wide training through the summer so we have agreed with management to research dates in either fall or January of 2023 but need to coordinate with the national program office to ensure our calendars line up.
NiW and LAT class
As you might know, the relationships we foster with our elected officials are very important. Our job is way too complicated and nuanced for anyone outside of this job to “get us” and understand fully what bills would help us or hurt us. That is why the face to face interactions during NATCA in Washington are so vital. We need people to go to these events and help build these relationships. This year, NiW is March 28-29, the website is HERE for more details and to sign up to go. No experience necessary but if you would like to learn more, there are so many Legislative Activism Training classes on the NATCA portal but if you can get the time off, there’s one coming up February 8-9. It’s not on the portal anymore but if you let me know and I can try and get you in the class. If none of this works for your schedule but you still have an interest in the legislative world also let me know. We can find a spot for you!
NATCA Classes
While we’re on the subject of that, the 2022 class list is out and available for you to sign up. It’s been a while since class was in session and we’re really hoping to get people out and educated. It’s also an excellent opportunity to meet controllers from across the country and network. I cannot recommend these enough, they’re amazing. You will have to use your own leave but everything else is covered and we set a higher education budget this year so that as many people as possible can go. Click on the link above and login (if you need your member number, just let us know, we can look it up). Click on events and go to list of events. You should see 2022 NATCA Academy and off to the right it will say Register or Update my Registration. After clicking on that, fill out the forms, select any of the classes you’re interested in. If there are multiple dates for a singular class that work for you, it’s ok to select as many as you like.
As always, if you have any questions, let us know.
Amy Sizemore
We are still working through this covid surge. The FAA re-evaluates the training stoppage on Tuesdays but I don’t hold up much hope for a change this week, we still have a lot of cases at ZSE. It’s not much different across the country, Don posted the National Training Initiative numbers on the wall across from the OM desk and out of 21 centers, only 8 are allowed to train right now.
Covid Testing
The website covidtests.gov opened a day early. This is the website to sign up to have 4 free tests per household sent to your home. While the flight surgeon doesn’t generally accept home tests, it might not be a bad idea to have some on hand. I did it this morning and it takes less than a minute, you don’t need to sign in/up for anything, it only needs your name and address then click order.
Control Room Lighting Test
If you remember a couple months ago, they shut off the lights in the control room for about 15-20 minutes to conduct a test. Long story short, the lighting system needs to be replaced and we need to see what the control room looks like without the hanging lights to see what mitigations need to be in place before they start. We wanted to conduct this test one more time to hopefully catch some different people for different input and it will be accomplished next Wednesday, January 26th between 9-10am. Please be sure to give any feedback to us or the supe so we can ensure your concerns are heard.
Have a great day,
Amy Sizemore
