Well, round three of our Dynamic Schedule is officially underway and things seem to still be going well. Air carrier traffic is still down significantly, but the military and GA seem to have ramped up just a bit.
Dynamic Scheduling
We know the rumors have already been flying around about updating the dynamic schedule to reflect five-on and five-off to accommodate traffic levels, the new requirement for either the A or B area to CIC due to supervisors not having direct line-of-sight of both areas and leave season. The Eboard met virtually last night in order to discuss if and when we want to start making this transition. We brainstormed many ideas to help mitigate the need to alter our schedule to five-on and five-off and have determined that we will not be changing our schedule for pay period thirteen. Instead we will publish as we have been and continue to monitor all factors that may necessitate a change to our current schedule. Please be aware that our first priority is balancing our members' health with safe and reasonable working conditions. Please be mindful that a change to the published schedules may be required at some point, but we will be delaying this until the Eboard agrees that it is a necessity. Please also note that when the time comes to change, we will be doing it as a facility despite some areas potentially needing it more than others. This conversation about adjustments to the schedule is only taking place on the NATCA side to ensure we are ready for any needed changes. We have not engaged management in these conversations other than to let them know that we are monitoring the situation very closely. Don has not indicated that he is under any direction to start altering our schedule and seems to be awaiting word from NATCA that we believe it is needed. If any more information comes out on a schedule change, you can expect a special update from us immediately. Thanks for your continued patience as we navigate this strange and sometimes difficult time.
GA Traffic
Along the same line of our reduced staffing and upticks in GA traffic, please remember that flight following is on a workload permitting basis. We are not advocating that you do not provide services, but simply reiterating that our expectation is not for our members to allow themselves to get into an unmanageable situation while trying to provide additional services. Look out for yourself and your coworkers as we continue to work traffic with a reduced amount of staffing and resources.
Charity
As you all remember, communities across the nation stepped up to help us out during the shutdown. We think that most people would like the opportunity to give back, so we will start collecting money to donate lunches, gift cards and whatever else might be helpful for our neighbors. We hope to find a way to make a separate account altogether for our donations but for right now it will have to go to Amy’s Venmo. (I will be as transparent as possible with all records for anyone interested -Amy) We have had suggestions to support the Auburn Hospital, Auburn Food Bank and the Puyallup Food Bank but if you have any other suggestions or would like to help out in some way, please let us know.
Please donate to Venmo account: @Amanda-Sizemore1 with the subject line ZSE. This will make it easy to keep separate. Any amount helps and we will fill you in on the donations made in future updates. Thank you!
With that, we will sign off for this week. We hope you are all staying safe, healthy and enjoying your time away from the facility as much as this pandemic allows. Thank you for all you do and all you sacrifice to make ZSE a great place to work. We could not be more proud to serve the membership at this facility.
In Solidarity,
Derek Adams and Amy Sizemore