Monday, September 03, 2007

 

Bad memories

John Carr left the FAA after losing his bid to keeping his job as NATCA president. Taking his bat and ball and going home? Did he forget how to actually control traffic while acting as President and couldn’t face the scope again? Hard to say…

But his bluster continues on his blog and there seems to be no change to the self-serving, self-delusional reading of his tenure as NATCA president. In this post he attempts to remind people of “…the lengths to which NATCA went to try and get the Flight Service folks transferred into Centers, Towers and TRACONS.”

As Flight Service controllers who lived through the A-76 outsourcing to Lockheed Martin, this caused us to laugh out loud. John Carr and NATCA did nothing of substance to assist us in 2004-2005, or anytime since. Oh, there may have been some pretty statements and a few crocodile tears but there was never anything approaching “lengths” to come to the aid of his AFSS controlling brethren.

Really, though, NATCA has long looked at Flight Service in the same manner the FAA did…second class controllers (at best), red-headed step-child, etc. etc. It used to be common for FSS controllers to ‘cross options’ and move into a tower or even center. But NATCA pushed for a job bid form that punishes FSS controllers by deducting ‘bid points’ for each year they did not work in a tower or center. This effectively removed many previously eligible FSS controllers from consideration for tower and center positions.

Then there was the ‘seniority rule’ that NATCA adopted a few conventions ago. Seniority used to be based on ‘2152’ time, which included FSS controllers. But NATCA changed that, sending multi-decade controllers to the bottom of the seniority list at towers and centers.

The only “lengths” Mr. Carr goes to involves spin of the most extreme sort.


Comments:
NATCA = Never Again Trust Carrs Agenda.

You said it, spinning then....spinning now.
 
Some people in NATCA say that Carr didn't want the problems that our numbers and seniority might do to NATCA. Also, if they picked up the majority of AFSS people, then that would've hurt his argument about lack of staffing. The guy talks out both sides of his mouth! In some ways I'm glad to see the FAA treat the arrogant B-stards like we were treated. Unfortunately some good people also are being treated like crap.
 
Whether you guys know it or not, John Carr DID try and get you into the ATCS workforce. He didn't make it public at the time for a simple reason- it wasn't politically popular within NATCA.

And complaining about the seniority issue... that's not fair to lay at Carr's feet, because that policy was driven by the NATCA membership as a whole, not Carr as President.

Carr did go to the FAA's leaders and specifically try to get them to allow all FSS employees who didn't want to go to Lockheed to stay in the FAA at other ATCS jobs. The FAA refused.

You got screwed, but it sure wasn't by John Carr. Yeah, he talks- a lot. Yeah, he blusters and brags. But he also tried to do the right thing by y'all.
 
Aw yes, dear old NATCA. If only the FAA hadn't surrendered the seniority policy to them in the 90's. Every two years the monkeys gather together to see who they can screw over with a new seniority policy, with the rule of law being that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Letting the inmates run the asylum is never a good idea.
 
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