Facility Update May 31st

All Members Meeting

Our next All Members meeting is on Monday, June 5th, in the East/West Conference room. Lunch will be provided at 12:30, and the meeting will start at 1 p.m. Agenda items include FAA Reauthorization, upcoming events, the NATCA National Election, area training reps, and possible effects of the fatigue mitigation on 2025 schedule bidding. If you would like to attend virtually, the link is HERE.

Control Room Lighting Project

It was put off for years due to budget constraints, but they are going forward with the lighting project in the control room. No light fixtures will be changed, it is just the panel that controls all of them. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying it because it will take them a month to complete this. We will do a final test of the supplemental lighting on Monday, and as long as that goes well, the project will commence. Please immediately report any outages of the strip lights built into the console so they can be replaced.

Parking Lot Construction

They are nearly done with the part of the lot that has been closed for the past couple of months. They are slated to finish it, strip it, and open it next week. Then, they will close the northeast lot and the remainder of the unfinished spots to pave those as well. Please use caution. The next project is the creation of an ADA-compliant ramp that connects to the door up front by the lockers and should start soon after the parking lot is complete.

Enjoy our little bit of sunshine,

Amy

**Reminder** CHA Wednesday and Thursday this week

Reminder from last week’s email:

Collaborative Health Assessment (CHA) (this does not have anything to do with the flight surgeon)

Quick background: each facility has two Collaboration Facilitators (CFs), one management and one NATCA. Their primary focus is on the relationship between the FacRep and the ATM and how effective they are as a pair. Normally, the interaction between the FacRep/ATM and their CFs is pretty informal, mostly just a call/text to see how things are going. Every couple of years though, they come to the facility and conduct a CHA. This has nothing to do with the Flight Surgeon or anything like that, it is a short survey on the state of collaboration in the facility. Then, at the end, they compile the de-identified data and provide the ATM and FacRep with what could be described as a report card. They will be here May 22-23 and will be interviewing as many people as possible. While not required, it is strongly encouraged and will be on duty time, you do not have to use your break time. More information HERE. If you will not be here those days but would still like to be interviewed, please contact Marilou Scherer at scherermadness@gmail.com.

Thank you for your participation,

Amy

2538806414

Facility Update May 13th

Buckle in, lengthy update ahead, but I’ll try to be a succinct as possible. Just let me know if you have any questions or anything.

Facility Visit

Nick Daniels and Jamaal Haltom, running for NATCA President and Executive VP respectively will be in the facility on Wednesday the 15th from 1pm-3:30 and then returning after a meeting, sometime after 6pm.

Events Committee

Lots to go over here. 

• We have the winners for the ZSE step challenge random raffle: Travis Beus, $50 gift certificate; Jessie Dias, $35 gift certificate; and Chico, $15 gift certificate. Please contact Lisa Marshall, email: lisabrookemarshall@gmail.com, text: (775) 247-4123 to let her know whether you would like that for Costco or REI. 

• In celebration of NATCA’s 37th birthday, the Events Committee is going to be throwing a BBQ. It will be on June 18th and will be held up front near the grills. 

• The Events Committee would value your input on what events you would like to see so they know how best to plan. Please fill out THIS short survey so they know what you are interested in. 

Collaborative Health Assessment (CHA)

Quick background: each facility has two Collaboration Facilitators (CFs), one management and one NATCA. Their primary focus is on the relationship between the FacRep and the ATM and how effective they are as a pair. Normally, the interaction between the FacRep/ATM and their CFs is pretty informal, mostly just a call/text to see how things are going. Every couple of years though, they come to the facility and conduct a CHA. This has nothing to do with the Flight Surgeon or anything like that, it is a short survey on the state of collaboration in the facility. Then, at the end, they compile the de-identified data and provide the ATM and FacRep with what could be described as a report card. They will be here May 22-23 and will be interviewing as many people as possible. While not required, it is strongly encouraged and will be on duty time, you do not have to use your break time. More information HERE. If you will not be here those days but would still like to be interviewed, please contact Marilou Scherer at scherermadness@gmail.com.

Childcare Survey

A couple of weeks ago, Drew sent out a survey link. It’s really important that we get as many people to fill this out as possible so we can try to get childcare in the area again. Here is the information again:

Linked below is a survey created by Jen Teshima to help us try to get childcare in the area. We have no guarantee that this will move the needle at all but we need maximum participation in this to be able to have a shot at getting childcare back in the area.

This is for people who currently need child care OR THINK YOU MIGHT IN THE FUTURE!!

Survey:  Childcare Survey

Thank you in advance for your help!

Drew

Contact Your Representative

We are so close to the FAA Reauthorization being voted into law and then we don’t have to talk about that for another 5 years. The Senate passed it, and it is in the hands of the House right now, but as you know, not a lot of things are moving quickly these days. You probably received an email from NATCA National today asking you to contact your representative to pass the FAA Reauthorization Act now. It is super simple and will take less than a minute, you don’t need to think of words to say or who your representative even is, the form does it for you. If you can’t find the email, the link it HERE.

I know this was a lot. Thank you for making it to the end. Enjoy the sun while we have it for the next week or so.

Amy

Childcare Needs Assessment Survey

All,

Linked below is a survey created by Jen Teshima to help us try to get childcare in the area. We have no guarantee that this will move the needle at all but we need maximum participation in this to be able to have a shot at getting childcare back in the area.

This is for people who currently need child care OR THINK YOU MIGHT IN THE FUTURE!!

Survey: https://forms.gle/DFvLMTtG1nVpUoaA7

Thank you in advance for your help!

Drew

Fatigue Mitigation Changes

You've likely seen the FAA Administrator's announcement concerning the fatigue mitigation changes. While not inherently negative, the issue lies in the unilateral nature of the announcement, which lacks collaboration. The Administrator views himself as a "regulator," asserting the authority to enact this change independently.

We had a regional telcon this evening to discuss this announcement and here are a couple of key points:

RVPs learned about this this morning and got notified of a call at 9PDT along with a 114-page fatigue study. Medical personnel and FAA officials were on the call. They talked about a controller questionnaire that was against the rattler. They asked for the questionnaire but most of the report was lost on 9/11. This questionnaire was done in 1999.

Fatigue mitigation has never been in the top 5 of focus items in the FAA. The FAA Adminstrator and Dean Iacopelli were in the meetings. The Adminstrator is adamant about using his authority to impose this on us. He was reminded of the contract in place and said he would try and do it anyway. He was reminded that summer traffic is coming, and he said this is happening regardless. The Agency is convinced they can just unilaterally use Article 7. 

There were a couple of people on the call also:

Joel Ortiz, Western Pacific RVP:

Last summer showed a rash of NTSB investigations. The common theme was staffing and fatigue. The FAA did a fatigue study that did not include controllers. NATCA told the FAA that, obviously, the rattler is not desirable but don’t have a lot of choices given the staffing levels. The FAA did all of this without collaboration and without debriefing NATCA afterward. They released everything 7 minutes before the national email blast. Collaboration has taken a massive hit over the last two years. This was under a union-endorsed administrator in a union-friendly administration.

Josh Waggener, Northwest Mountain ARVP:

They are still researching as to whether this is something they can even do. If so, the impact and implementation need to be worked out, too. It might be carried out in 90 days or it might be for next year’s schedule. There is also the possibility that the managers “won’t have the authority” to negotiate MOUs if this gets drawn out too long.

Eddie DeLisle, P80 FacRep:

Management can try to do whatever they want, but it is important to remember that it does not supersede the contract. Industry will be on our side because they are concerned about their bottom line. Collaboration is not dead. We decide when it’s dead.

Basically, nothing should be currently happening at the facility level. Our agreed-upon schedules are protected, and our bid leave is guaranteed. If you hear anything about a manager requiring schedule changes or anything of that nature, please let us know right away, and we will address it.

Amy