Weekly Update May 28

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I know many of you eagerly await my weekly updates on Mondays at 6PM, so I apologize for the update being a day late, but I chose to take some HL to spend time with my wife and kiddos.

This week you should be getting a CEDAR update about some upcoming asbestos removal in the basement that will be taking place over the next few weeks. If there are any concerns you have in regards to this please feel free to contact me or Glenn Wood. Glenn is the management POC on this project.

The PDX metering CWG is all set to go and the first meeting with all the parties will take place on June 10. If you have any questions, concerns or things you’d like considered for your area, please let your area rep know and they can get you in contact with your areas designee on the workgroup. 

A thank you again to those who attended NATCA in Washington on our behalf, and thank you to those that held down the fort here while they were away. Here is a write up and a few photos from Devin Carlisto:

Last week, ZSE sent 7 Members to NATCA in Washington to speak with Legislators about our ongoing funding issues including the effects of the recent 35 day shutdown. We were asking for support on HR1108, a bill that would keep the whole FAA running in the event of another partial government shutdown. This would be made possible by allowing the FAA to use funds from the Aviation Trust Fund where we get 95% of our funding. As of May 10th, NATCA had unanimous support of the aviation community and a letter with over 40 trade organizations in support of the Legislation. Additionally, we had bipartisan support of 160 members of the House of Representatives co-sponsoring the bill. Our purpose this year was to convince more Members to sign on to the bill. Air travel is so important to the American people that disruptions to service are the most obvious effect of a shutdown. Some Members of Congress are reluctant to lose that leverage if our bill were to become law. As such, the House leaders have not scheduled the bill for a vote, even though it has been passed out of Committee. If we can get 218 Members of the house to co-sponsor the bill it would automatically be voted on, that is our goal. Before NIW our State had 3 House members co-sponsoring the bill, as of Wednesday we had a commitment from 2 more and laid the groundwork for more. All this is possible due to the fantastic work of our Members who volunteered to give up their leave and RDOs to spend very long days learning and advocating for our great Union. If you see one of them, please thank them for their activism.

-- 

Devin Carlisto

That’s all I have for this week. Please remember that your Eboard is here to serve you. We will continue to strive every day to make ZSE a great place to work.

In Solidarity,

Derek Adams

Weekly Update May 20

Memorial Day weekend is nearly upon us and that brings up a couple things.

First and foremost, for those of you who have plans with friends and family, please be safe. Remember that a fifty dollar Uber/Lyft ride is a lot cheaper than any of the repercussions that come from a DUI. If you find yourself in a tight spot, please contact me or any member of the Eboard directly and we help you.

This also means the official start to “summertime traffic.” With that comes an increase in workload, sector splits, and a general feeling of exhaustion after a hard days work. Please be mindful of yourself and those around you. As professionals, it is incumbent on us to take care of our own. If you need help, call for it. If you see someone else who needs help, jump in there. If you know the area is running short, shave just a couple minutes off your break. I never suggest relying on management to provide the help we need. We should always rely on each other.

A reminder that our next All Members Meeting will be June 13, 1430 at the Rainbow Cafe. A couple important items of discussion will be upcoming MOU negotiations, proposed Local Constitution amendments, the holiday party and any other agenda items you would like to discuss. Please forward agenda items to any member of the Eboard. For the proposed Local Constitution amendments please go here: 

http://www.natca-zse.com/constitution-changes. 

Remember this is OUR Local. Although the Eboard is in place to work on your behalf, we want the voice of the membership to be heard.

Thank you and have a safe holiday.

In Solidarity,

Derek Adams

CWGs, NIW and Metering vs. MIT

This week the Eboard is pushing forward with two CWGs that seem pretty pressing at the moment. The first will be dealing with PDX metering. The area reps are just finalizing their participants and we will get that CWG rolling. The second only applies to the A and C areas and TMU, and deals with NAS NUW airspace scheduling and activation. I had mentioned this one in a previous update and indicated it would encompass the entire facility, but as we moved forward, it became clear that the issues with NUW need to be addressed prior to involving the other areas. More to come on both these subjects as the workgroups get put together and start coming up with plans for each. Thank you to those that came forward to work on these important issues.

NATCA in Washington (NiW) is coming up next week and I just want to take a moment to say thank you to those who have volunteered their time to help better our great profession. As you may or may not know, these folks use their personal time, wether it be annual leave or RDOs, to go to Capital Hill to advocate to members of congress on our behalf. Although the Local often gives each a stipend to help offset the high cost of a trip to Washington DC, it is often not enough to cover the entirety of the trip and they end up spending out of pocket as well. Again, I’d like to commend them on their dedication to the Air Traffic Control profession and their willingness to sacrifice their time and money on our behalf.

Numerous discussions have been swirling around metering and MIT as they are used to feed aircraft to Seattle Approach. It has been determined that the two cannot be intermixed. The issue of MIT comes up for the HAWKZ arrival when SEA is in a north flow. When metering is in place, that is what will be used. When metering is not being used a MIT initiative may be put in place. As the traffic levels continue to pick up, please keep your area reps apprised of any issues that arise during either of these TMU initiatives.

I will be out of town beginning Wednesday afternoon through Friday evening (5/15-5/17). As always, I will be available via cell phone, but I will be leaving my computer at home. Any pressing issues can be run through your area reps or any other Eboard member.

In Solidarity

Derek Adams

Weekly Update May 6

Anybody tired of my updates yet?

It’s training season, so a lot is going on with that. IST is wrapping up this week. Sector 35 training for the B-area will begin next week as well as Refresher Training for the A, C and D areas. I appreciate all of your patience with this as the schedule tends to get a little tight during this time of year. I have received very few complaints from you or management during this period, so I commend you on your professionalism.

Speaking of professionalism, a few things have come up recently and I'd like to address them before anything gets out of hand. Please remember that we are all professionals and should treat each other as such. Air Traffic Control has a long history of taking care of our own. And within that, we are all NATCA brothers and sisters. Sometimes this gets lost when dealing with fellow employees, especially when it’s “across the aisle.” I don’t think that we maliciously try to call attention to another controllers mistakes or possible mistakes, but some things just don’t need to go through management at the first sight of trouble. We have a number of resources at our disposal to get answers that don’t initially involve management, including peer to peer discussion, conversations with the other controller, ATSAP and Professional Standards. Please remember that we are all on the same team, and let’s give each other the courtesy and respect that we, as professionals, deserve.

This week a group of folks from national (FAA and NATCA (including Jim Ullmann)) will be in town to discuss TBFM, PAE issues and S46 airspace. Amy, Trevor, Drew, JRod, Evan, Brooke, Eric Tanberg and myself will attend a dinner with the NATCA side along with Eboard members from S46, SEA, BFI and PAE to discuss this more in depth. Although these conversations will be casual in nature, we will learn much more about TBFM and the impacts on the system from commercial flights in and out of PAE.

My week is pretty booked due to our guests visiting the facility on Tuesday and our meeting Wednesday, but please feel free to call, text or email me with anything you have.

In Solidarity

Derek Adams

Weekly Update April 29

NCEPT, CFS and Staffing…Oh My!

Last week I told you that I would be working to further my knowledge of NCEPT and the NCEPT process. My opportunity came quickly as Amy, Drew, Jrod and I were able to attend a crash course briefing on NCEPT, the NEST and the Priority Placement Tool last Thursday. The biggest thing I can tell you is that there are a lot of moving parts to the whole process. The good news is that the four of us at least understand these moving parts a bit better than we did a week ago. If anyone has specific questions about their particular case, please reach out to those officers in attendance and we will do our best to answer your questions.

CFS registration is open and everything you need to know to get registered and request excused absence to attend are located here: https://www.natca.org/index.php/cfs-member-registration. It has been quite a few years since I’ve attended CFS and I am really looking forward to all the new information that is out there pertaining to our great profession.

A common theme amongst management lately is allowing our staffing to go well below guides (two or more) and not calling in overtime. I have a real problem with this. We do not always staff to the everyday, routine traffic. We staff to protect from things that can and will come up (weather, military operations, excessive delays, etc.) My request of you, is please help us hold management accountable for their poor judgement or lack of action. If you borderline need a D-side, ask for one. If a sector may need to be split, split it. We need to show management that these guidelines have a real purpose and we need to keep our staffing as close to the guidelines as possible. Going one under to accommodate leave or other unique situations, in most cases, is acceptable, but more than that seems like mismanagement to me. It may not be the heat of summertime traffic yet, but it’s right around the corner. Be sure that we are taking care of ourselves, because they certainly don’t seem interested.

That’s all I have for the moment. As always, the honor is mine to work on your behalf.

In Solidarity,

Derek Adams