Non Prime Time Update

I just want to clarify a few things for Non Prime Time Leave.

1) Prime Time will be round 1, where you get to bid up to two weeks (consecutive or non) of guaranteed leave.  

2) Non Prime time is rounds 2 and on, where you only get to bid up to a week.

All Prime and Non Prime Time leave is guaranteed.

If you elect to make your WMT leave request into Non Prime Time between January 10th and March 5th, that opportunity will count against your bid leave for the year.  For example:

I earn 20 days a year, and I elect to change 3 days in February from WMT leave to NPT (guaranteed), Then I will be able to bid 17 days of leave when the bidding process begins.  You still get to bid up to 2 weeks of Prime in your first round and up to 5 days in subsequent round until you've exhausted your accrued leave.

We are currently working on PP03, PP04 & PP05 on NPT, and we're hoping to get the leave approved (in the 3 slots) once everyone has responded.

Just a reminder that we will have our members only meeting on Monday the 11th at the Spunky Monkey at 3pm.  This will be the only opportunity to get a briefing on the bidding process, there will not be any briefings at work...also, bring a coat, it may be a little cold in their basement.  :-)

March IST Cadre Solicitation

We wanted to give the local a friendly reminder that we are still looking for 4 volunteers for the next round of IST training. 

Those volunteering must attend the cadre training which is Tuesday and Wednesday, March 1-2.  If needed, a cadre prep day to talk through the course would be on Friday March 4.  The actual workforce training will occur March 6 thru 19—usually with an 0800 class and a 1330 class each day.

Please let your Area Reps, other E Board members, or reply to this notice if you are interested.  We will close volunteer solicitation COB this Friday (Jan 8th).  Thanks for your time.

OJTI Refresher Cadre

We have finalized the selections for the OJTI Refresher cadre and they are (in no particular order) Clarence Courtney, Chris Johnson, Ligaya Andrews, Danny Pace, and Garret Wilkerson.  Thanks to those that were selected but, most importantly, all those that volunteered.  Don't be discouraged if you weren't selected this time.  Plenty more opportunities in the near future.

Bidding update

We're pretty close to having everything done so hopefully we can begin bidding early next week, but there are a few things to cover first.

The current schedule is published out to 2/6.

On 1/8, the schedule would then be published to 2/20.

If we start bidding on 1/11, we could be done by 1/30 (meanwhile the schedule would be published to 3/5).

Therefore we are targeting March 6th as the schedule changeover to 2016.

The MOU is in effect on January 10 (where the agency is providing 3 slots per day) and since we are still on the 2015 schedule, we don't have a "bidding" process to get people their leave, therefore we will be doing leave in 2 phases.

Between 1/10 and 3/5, we will ask BUE's that didn't get leave approved (that is within the imaginary 3 slots) if they want to use their NPT for that day, then it would count against them in the 2016 leave bidding process.  Now if you are #1 for leave where the schedule isn't yet published, yet prior to March 6th, you could pass on using your NPT thinking that you should get it off.  However if there are at least 3 people behind you, they could invoke their NPT and you would lose out on the leave opportunity.

On MONDAY, January 11th we will be having our All members meeting, 3pm at the Spunky Monkey in Auburn, were we will cover the MOU's and the bidding procedures.  Of course we will answer any questions you have.

Here are the leave bidding procedures.

Each area controller in a duty status will be given official notification by a NATCA Rep or designee of their turn to bid their prime time and/or non-prime time annual leave.  Once notified, each bid opportunity must be completed within a one-hour period.  To the extent that staffing and workload permit, 30 minutes of the one-hour period will be away from the operational area. 

Should an employee not complete their bid(s) within the allotted time or request to delay their turn; their opportunity to bid is passed and notification to the next senior employee will be made.

Employees scheduled to be away from the Area/Facility have the option of providing their bid requests via written proxy to the NATCA designated representative for submission.  Employees are responsible to ensure that their request contains sufficient prime time options to complete their bid. 

Delays to this process are undesirable; therefore employees that are away from the Facility/Area for more two days and that opted not to provide a written proxy will be passed in the process and notification to the next senior employee will be made.  Employees that are passed in the process may bid after the person currently eligible to bid completes his/her turn.

There will be 6 rounds for bidding leave.

Round 1 - up to 2 weeks, consecutive or non-consecutive

Round 2 through 5 - up to 1 week

Round 6 - First come, first serve.

The bid book will remain open until one of the following:

1. All leave slots (first 3 slots per day) are filled.
2. All accrued leave has been exhausted.

Definition of a week

1)  Five days of accrued leave.

2)  Days contained within a week.  

3)  You may bid leave around your RDO’s.

Other notables:

•  Employees may cancel/change their bid leave after round 5.
•  If a BUE elects to temporarily pass, they must wait until the completion of the next BUE’s bid prior to select their leave.
• BUE’s on the same crew are allowed to bid the same day(s).
• Thanksgiving, 12/25 and 1/1 will have an additional 6 leave opportunities.  Approval/disapproval will be based on staffing requirements at the time the schedule is published. 
• Any NPT used between 1/10 & 3/5 will be counted against their accrued leave for 2016.
• Any PT or NPT leave bid on a holiday, will not count towards your accrued leave for bidding.  

So for now, if you have leave requested (in WMT) between January 10th and March 5th please send me a private email (louhoozer@hotmail.com) that you would like to make that a NPT bid.  By doing that, it will guarantee you the leave for that day, however it will count against your NPT bid leave for 2016.   If there is more than one requests in a given day, then priority will go to the request that was made first, up to three.  If your leave has already been approved in PP03 or PP04, you do not need to make it NPT.   

Schedule update

MOU Impasse update

RVP Doug Pincock is meeting with Western Service Area Director Kim Stover on Tuesday to discuss our MOU impasse.  Doug speculates that he will not be able to resolve our issues at this level therefore he anticipates elevating it to National.

In the meantime here is an idea on what we are looking at for when we do transition into next years schedule.  Now remember, this is all HYPOTHETICAL.  

Say an agreement comes down this Friday (December 11).

We would meet with management on 12/14 to hammer out the details, meanwhile the admin office will need the rest of the week and possibly then next to put together the bid books, verify schedules and seniority.  I know one could say "why do they need a week or two for this when they've had two months to do this?", well what they (admin office) currently have (leave books) will probably be very different once the decision comes down from National.  Additionally we may need to re-work the language in the MOU's.

From there we would then begin our bidding on or about the 28th (Monday), where it would take each area about 2-3 weeks to bid their RDO's and leave.

This puts us at January 18th, where the schedule office would then work on a schedule for PP06, which would show us transitioning to the 2016 schedule during the week of February 21st.

Hopefully this hypothetical schedule gives you an idea where we are at and how far out you may need to put in for web schedule leave.