DoD OJTI Pay, what justification and who has it?

GulfCharlie

Comrade Commissar
FAA
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True to the spirit of wanting to improve my facility and being a Capitalist, I have reviewed:

5 U.S. Code § 5546a - Differential pay for certain employees of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense​


Paragraph (d)

(1)The Administrator or the Secretary may pay premium pay to any air traffic controller of the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Defense who is assigned by the Administrator or the Secretary to provide on-the-job training to another air traffic controller while such other air traffic controller is directly involved in the separation and control of live air traffic.

(2)Premium pay paid under paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be paid at the rate of 10 per centum of the applicable hourly rate of basic pay times the number of hours and portion of an hour during which the air traffic controller of the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Defense provides on-the-job training.

My facility is currently not authorised OJTI pay (ironic since we train constantly in a high local), MCAS Cherry Point (to my knowledge) has OJTI pay, while they are also NATCA members I would like to know how they got it to be authorised. If anyone: knows anything, has a contact at MCAS Cherry Point, speak up as I am working to try to get our facility OJTI pay and am curious what justification they used or why the SECDEV approved it.

There are people here for years who have trained new Navy controllers and I feel that it warrants compensation, even if back pay is not given at least a token going forward would be appreciated by them.
Cheers all.
 
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True to the spirit of wanting to improve my facility and being a Capitalist, I have reviewed:

5 U.S. Code § 5546a - Differential pay for certain employees of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense​


Paragraph (d)

(1)The Administrator or the Secretary may pay premium pay to any air traffic controller of the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Defense who is assigned by the Administrator or the Secretary to provide on-the-job training to another air traffic controller while such other air traffic controller is directly involved in the separation and control of live air traffic.

(2)Premium pay paid under paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be paid at the rate of 10 per centum of the applicable hourly rate of basic pay times the number of hours and portion of an hour during which the air traffic controller of the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Defense provides on-the-job training.

My facility is currently not authorised OJTI pay (ironic since we train constantly in a high local), MCAS Cherry Point (to my knowledge) has OJTI pay, while they are also NATCA members I would like to know how they got it to be authorised. If anyone: knows anything, has a contact at MCAS Cherry Point, speak up as I am working to try to get our facility OJTI pay and am curious what justification they used or why the SECDEV approved it.

There are people here for years who have trained new Navy controllers and I feel that it warrants compensation, even if back pay is not given at least a token going forward would be appreciated by them.
Cheers all.
Yep, I’ve seen this as well. As you said they may pay premium pay. I’m not sure how to get it approved. MCAS Cherry Point probably had NATCA to thank on that one. I’ve been at and trained at several USMC and USAF facilities with/as DoD controllers, and have never seen it. All DoD controllers I’ve worked with throughout the years have never seen it approved either. I don’t have any contacts that were DoD at KNKT. Sorry I’m no help on that one.
 
Let's say I was, as a civilian, a very senior member of management at a DoD ATC facility. While there, I made attempts to get premium pay for both OJTI and CIC for my employees. I even had support from the first general/flag officer in my chain-of-command. After that level it was always kicked back without justification.

In the grand scheme of things it wasn't a lot of money - less than $50,000 on an annual basis - but it was always kicked back. Finally, after about the fourth or fifth time asking, the justification provided was that the pay was discretionary and not mandatory. And that's fair because may and shall are not the same. Quite simply, unless required by bargaining agreement, we were never going to get these two premium pays.

But the constant churn of civilians coming-and-going in DoD facilities still occurs because everyone in the chain-of-command above the installation level thinks they can find a better use for the extra $3-6 per hour per year needed. It was - and still is - penny wise, pound foolish.

The DoD has discretion to pay these two premium pays. And this discretion (and collective bargaining) is why NKT gets 10% for OJTI and 1 hour TOA for each 8 hours worked as CIC per their contract, whereas the controllers at JRF and SLI contracts do not (at least that I can presently see).
 
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