Excused Absences: The Agency claims that supervisors and CICs can’t approve excused absences for any length of time or for any purpose. I have filed a grievance on behalf of NATCA regarding this ridiculous change in working conditions and contract breach. It will probably be denied and will have to be elevated to get any sort of resolution. Seems as if this is the new way of working in the FAA. No dialog, no reasonable working through the issues, just do it our way or tough beans, file a grievance, which we have the power to deny and will regardless of the merits. If you have problems getting absences excused document and we will work through the issues. I was informed today by an employee that the watch supervisor refused to forward their request. I asked that employee to get the supervisor’s refusal to forward their request to the approving official in writing if at all possible.

CRUX/ART: CRUX/ART goes live on the 19th. The intention of the Agency is to use CRUX/ART for the purposes of calculating pay and for data collection. Management claims that our problems are completely data entry related but I am aware of the TOP function that erases hours of time and that is completely a software problem. Each and every one of us needs to track our own time to make sure that what we are getting paid matches what we have actually done. I have manufactured a fill in the blanks pay grievance that will be out this week regarding CRUX screw-ups. The duty tracking firms are in the front pocket of the NATCA binder and hanging on the bulletin board. Copy them so that we don’t run out. Donna has volunteered to put together some hands on CRUX/ART training with Dave and while management has agreed with me that training needs to be done, the moment that credit hours came up as likely needed to support the mission, Susan started hedging toward just doing a CBI and calling it good. This kind of stuff makes me crazy. The lack of agency generosity or even doing the right thing by their employees is a trend that needs to be reversed. What does the agency believe that they will get in return for their stinginess?

MRI SVFR Issues/SVFR Procedures ANC/LHD: Unfortunately the Turnagin departure can’t be amended to provide separation from MRI SVFR operations regardless of MRI airspace limits according to the interpretation out of the AVN office. Apparently the Turnagin DP has always been a potential problem with MRI SVFR operations and it wasn’t noticed until now. We discussed SVFR at the 4/11 Local meeting and I agreed to look for volunteers to work on SVFR procedures for ANC/LHD and likely the MRI interactions as well. Please drop a note in my box if you would be interested in working on SVFR procedures.

Split Local Procedures: Again in accordance with our Local meeting agreements I am looking for volunteers to work on the split local proposal to look at the issues and to generate options. Drop a note in my box if interested.

Seniority List: Please return your signed OPF requests to me ASAP. The deadline is May 10. Without an OPF to verify information I will be forced to place folks that lack the OPF documentation as zero seniority at the bottom of the list in accordance with national guidance. I’d rather not do that if at all possible so get with it. I have roughly 50% of the OPF requests returned as of today.

Sleepless For Yet Another Week: Management is expected to respond to this grievance this week with the 21st as a deadline.

Radar Replay For Crew Briefings: The folks that do crew briefings are looking for some decent radar scenarios that will illustrate training from the tower’s perspective for crew briefings. The subject came up regarding the last radar replay for the crew briefings that showed Runway 24 traffic being vectored so close to the airport that we couldn’t launch a couple of departures off of Runway 14 which was stacking up. We could ill afford to lose the holes. Unfortunately that point wasn’t made nor was that discussion had in those briefings. I thought that the briefings were valuable but lacking the tower’s perspective. I spoke with Mr. Craft about this issue and he said that they would welcome some scenarios that would illustrate issues for greater efficiency for the tower. The rules are that they aren’t looking for deals but for good learning examples that could be used for crew briefings. Please let me, Curt or Don Moss know if there would be a radar scenario that would fit the bill. We will need date, time, and a brief description of the situation. I am also looking for someone that would be interested in being in those briefings to facilitate the discussion. Please let me know if interested.

Thaaats all folks. More next week.

Cathy Alcorn
ANC Local President
(h) 279-0124
NATCA ANC ATCT
P.O. Box 190541
Anchorage, AK 99519