NCEPT debate thread

#1349 said:
So.. NCEPT was created under the pretense that it would help alleviate the pains of long, indefinite release dates, as well as somehow supposedly help with the shortage of controllers.

The possibility to transfer to another facility is based on the current and anticipated number of CPC’s. That, along with the ever-changing national average. “Too many” transfers have occurred and now too many CPC’s are in training.

The rumor above my post says that now, another acronym could be included in the process of how or when a controller can transfer. So they could now use both the number of CPC’s and CIC’s in determining how, when, and if a facility is eligible to release/accept new applicants.

My question is: Why stop there?
Why not include a multitude of other arbitrary factors into the Excel spreadsheet to expand the equation even further?

There must be 2 female controllers for every 3 male controllers. The number of warm bodies in the immediate vicinity of the facility must outweigh the number of cold bodies that left. Leap years, moon phases, religious beliefs..

To be continued.
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T

the ncept was intended to nationalize a release policy rather than have local management completely control when and who gets released. the spreadsheet you reference was basically what was going on, informally of course, management decided based on whatever factors they saw fit to their specific facility to let people go or pick people up. and clearly it wasn't working which is what lead to the ncept. but now they are realizing that while being a CIC isn't mandatory or being an ojti isn't mandatory those numbers within a facility impacts that facility's ability to train and replace controllers and their staffing overall. they are also dumping too many trainees (CPC-it and academy grads) on many facilities and those controllers are getting so few hours let alone quality hours that its slowing the system down. so I know the numbers of CPC is what is used but it clearly isn't working. look at how many facilities are staffed to target assuming some of the controllers sent wont make it, shouldn't we be assuming all controllers are successful? isn't that what the work force and management should want? no, because we have bad cultures, and people who judge immediately and dont spend the time to actually teach and train people because the trainee sucks one session. management isn't paying attention and half of them weren't good trainees or controllers anyway either. so right out the gate facilities are getting more trainees than they actually need because we assume some wont make it and also dont take into consideration how many ojti there are? then those trainees wash out and are being forced back to their facilities or are given a list of facilities that don't actually need people or don't have the right amount of OJTI to train them. Its not working, and now they are probably going to take some of those factors in place. local natca needs to sit down with management and figure out what works and how best to staff to train and staff to work the traffic. we need to stop putting up with this crap "well I want my spot leave I don't care how many hours johnny has" this coming from the same people who complain they cant get out. NAtca national should be doing what they are trying to do, I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid and saying they are handling it the best, but id much rather someone in natca be a part of these decisions than no one at all, which it was, and which has lead us here.
 
Ad1234 said:
NAtca national should be doing what they are trying to do, I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid and saying they are handling it the best, but id much rather someone in natca be a part of these decisions than no one at all, which it was, and which has lead us here.
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But at the same time, this "at least we have some representation" attitude is what led us down the road we find ourselves on. If you look at the NCEPT minutes posted on the KSN site, there are about 11 people on the NCEPT panel. NATCA has 2 members. 2. Out of 11. We are grossly underrepresented and the Agency has carte blanche to do what they wish, the hell with the union. It's this same attitude that led to the support of privatization (another argument for another day) where NATCA has ONE seat on a board of 13.

It's not simply a matter of mere representation, it boils down to do we have adequate representation and the answer is no, we do not.
 
ATC_av8er said:
It's not simply a matter of mere representation, it boils down to do we have adequate representation and the answer is no, we do not.
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I don't look at it like that at all. Think of any other job. If you worked in the public sector and applied for a position in another city with the same company (because that is basically was an ERR is) nobody besides management has any say in who is selected and when. The fact the the union has ANY input at all is above and beyond the public sector. I don't know what the fix is, but both staffing and training numbers need to be taken into account. Flooding facilities with trainees when they cannot keep up doesn't really help anyone. Yeah people get where they want to be but now we are paying them to literally do nothing while they sit around and wait for a class. They some how need to figure out a way to limit the number of trainees at a facility. The new problem is that this is a very individual facility decision. Perhaps we need to go back to the old method where a facility only pulls a list when they have room for more trainees but keep a national policy for release dates? Idk...
 
GulfBravoPapa said:
I don't look at it like that at all. Think of any other job. If you worked in the public sector and applied for a position in another city with the same company (because that is basically was an ERR is) nobody besides management has any say in who is selected and when. The fact the the union has ANY input at all is above and beyond the public sector. I don't know what the fix is, but both staffing and training numbers need to be taken into account. Flooding facilities with trainees when they cannot keep up doesn't really help anyone. Yeah people get where they want to be but now we are paying them to literally do nothing while they sit around and wait for a class. They some how need to figure out a way to limit the number of trainees at a facility. The new problem is that this is a very individual facility decision. Perhaps we need to go back to the old method where a facility only pulls a list when they have room for more trainees but keep a national policy for release dates? Idk...
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I would personally be very happy with a system like this. If I were in management (shudder) I would want a say as to who shows up at my facility. The ranking mean next to nothing. I would also like to determine when they show up, within a prescribed amount of time. While I agree that both trainees and CPCs need to be considered, I think the amount of CPC's should be the determining factor if a facility is able to let someone go, and I think the amount of trainees should determine if they can pick someone up. It's not an easy fix, but I think we are all in agreement that the current set-up of NCEPT is not working and must be fixed.
 
ATC_av8er said:
I would personally be very happy with a system like this. If I were in management (shudder) I would want a say as to who shows up at my facility. The ranking mean next to nothing. I would also like to determine when they show up, within a prescribed amount of time. While I agree that both trainees and CPCs need to be considered, I think the amount of CPC's should be the determining factor if a facility is able to let someone go, and I think the amount of trainees should determine if they can pick someone up. It's not an easy fix, but I think we are all in agreement that the current set-up of NCEPT is not working and must be fixed.
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I'm confused a little by all of your points. The ranking list is made by the ATM, so they do have a say. If they collaborate with the facrep/let them do it, that doesn't mean they don't get a say. It's their list.

They do currently get to decide when they show up, within a prescribed amount of time.

The amount of CPCs is a factor in whether they can let someone go, and the number of trainees is a factor on whether they can pick someone up. Thats what the projected number is for.

You're right, it's not an easy fix and that's why so many people have a problem with NCEPT. They're literally trying to fix all these things you said, but you have 300+ facilities and there's 0 process that pleases everyone
 
Maintainvfr said:
I'm confused a little by all of your points. The ranking list is made by the ATM, so they do have a say. If they collaborate with the facrep/let them do it, that doesn't mean they don't get a say. It's their list.

They do currently get to decide when they show up, within a prescribed amount of time.

The amount of CPCs is a factor in whether they can let someone go, and the number of trainees is a factor on whether they can pick someone up. Thats what the projected number is for.

You're right, it's not an easy fix and that's why so many people have a problem with NCEPT. They're literally trying to fix all these things you said, but you have 300+ facilities and there's 0 process that pleases everyone
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technically the list is who they would prefer. once that list gets narrowed down by releases from those same releasing facilities to higher priority facilities then their list becomes who is left. They have the ability to select that the requesting employee doesn't have enough/appropriate experience but natca certainly would have something to say if an employee from an 8 is denied a 12, just because they hear bad things about that person. I don't believe they just have the option to say, no.

While they do get to decide when they show up within the prescribed timeline, that timeline is not always appropriate for that specific facility based on when they can take those trainees during that specific timeline. This also speaks to your next point, the number of trainees impacts the projected number and its assuming not all of them will check out, according to historical data from over 3 years ago. They overload facilities with more trainees than they can handle and more actual bodies than they need creating a staffing imbalance.

why shouldn't that be taken into consideration? the problem is, not all management collaborates with the local facrep to help figure this out and not all facreps are willing to listen regardless. maybe more people would get to go in the round 2 selections because the agency doesn't overload the top facilities with trainees that wont make it and that they cant handle.

I'm not sorry saying this but the ncept is the closest thing to what movement should look like when facilities are staffed correctly. but now you've got union people blasting out errs and blocking people and playing the game for themselves, filling out bull hardships, local facreps and ATMs not holding management and their constituents accountable to provide proper training and staffing on a daily basis, you've got management screwing up staffing work book, or not understanding the rules, out of date training orders and bad SOPs, toxic cultures at many facilities all leading to a poorly educated workforce about all of this with little interest in understanding the big picture.
 
Ad1234 said:
technically the list is who they would prefer. once that list gets narrowed down by releases from those same releasing facilities to higher priority facilities then their list becomes who is left. They have the ability to select that the requesting employee doesn't have enough/appropriate experience but natca certainly would have something to say if an employee from an 8 is denied a 12, just because they hear bad things about that person. I don't believe they just have the option to say, no.

While they do get to decide when they show up within the prescribed timeline, that timeline is not always appropriate for that specific facility based on when they can take those trainees during that specific timeline. This also speaks to your next point, the number of trainees impacts the projected number and its assuming not all of them will check out, according to historical data from over 3 years ago. They overload facilities with more trainees than they can handle and more actual bodies than they need creating a staffing imbalance.

why shouldn't that be taken into consideration? the problem is, not all management collaborates with the local facrep to help figure this out and not all facreps are willing to listen regardless. maybe more people would get to go in the round 2 selections because the agency doesn't overload the top facilities with trainees that wont make it and that they cant handle.

I'm not sorry saying this but the ncept is the closest thing to what movement should look like when facilities are staffed correctly. but now you've got union people blasting out errs and blocking people and playing the game for themselves, filling out bull hardships, local facreps and ATMs not holding management and their constituents accountable to provide proper training and staffing on a daily basis, you've got management screwing up staffing work book, or not understanding the rules, out of date training orders and bad SOPs, toxic cultures at many facilities all leading to a poorly educated workforce about all of this with little interest in understanding the big picture.
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Nailed it. The manager ranking is simply that-a preference. If a candidate is ranked #24 out of 24 people, but that facility is the only one that can lose a body, the #24 person will get that spot.

In an ideal world, the CAT 1 and 2 release dates would provide a lot more flexibility to give the receiving facility a chance to clear the training backlog. I am experiencing this right now at my current facility. A number of us showed up at around the same time, and we are all fighting for training time. Couple that with barely enough CPCs on any given day to cover the shift and several days will do by before ANY of us can get any sort of training. We have almost as many trainees as we do CPC's because of how the NCEPT MOU is worded.

If all facilities were properly staffed, this would be a great process. Unfortunately, we won't see that anytime soon and the Agency is showing very little progress or even interest to boost up the numbers. This is part of the reason the NCEPT is failing.

All of the issues you highlighted above are issues that both sides know about, but are not doing anything to fix them. If they are, they are doing a piss-poor job of communicating these changes to us.
 
They intended not to interrupt the quarterly panels, it's been worded that way at least. So September is logical if they do one. It's the last stop fiscally.
 
Ad1234 said:
I'm not sorry saying this but the ncept is the closest thing to what movement should look like when facilities are staffed correctly
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I completely disagree. NCEPT ignores the most important thing that should dictate releases in my opinion, and that's time spent at the facility. I don't care if you're a dirtbag or a lousy controller - if you've done your time somewhere you should be given the opportunity to try and succeed where you'd like to move. Guess what? If you're a piece of shit when you get there your ass is getting washed out anyway. The very reason that certain people become so toxic is that they feel the transfer process screws them over and always will. Allowing managers OR facreps to not give people a chance to certify because they dislike them personally is completely insane.

When you take a tower that only gets 1 or 2 transfers a year and you award those transfers to brand new controllers in front of people who have been trying to get out for years and years you're doing substantial damage to the faith people have in the union. That shouldn't happen, even if those new CPC's are willing to go to N90. They need to wait their turn. They need to train their replacements and put their time in to where they're trying to leave. And if they do these things, they need to be rewarded for it with career progression. That's always been the mindset of both NATCA and the FAA until very recently.

I worry that this practice of awarding transfers to the "lowest bidder" is causing an extreme amount of frustration at hard to staff towers and that we might see decent sized exoduses of controllers quitting. I know of a few smaller scale ones that have already occurred and I know that theres many facilities where the desire to move has turned into an arms race of hardships and supervisor deviations. If you just give people a good faith assurance that their time spend staffing the NAS with CPCs (by training new ones) they will be much happier.
 
Fiore said:
I completely disagree. NCEPT ignores the most important thing that should dictate releases in my opinion, and that's time spent at the facility. I don't care if you're a dirtbag or a lousy controller - if you've done your time somewhere you should be given the opportunity to try and succeed where you'd like to move. Guess what? If you're a piece of shit when you get there your ass is getting washed out anyway. The very reason that certain people become so toxic is that they feel the transfer process screws them over and always will. Allowing managers OR facreps to not give people a chance to certify because they dislike them personally is completely insane.

When you take a tower that only gets 1 or 2 transfers a year and you award those transfers to brand new controllers in front of people who have been trying to get out for years and years you're doing substantial damage to the faith people have in the union. That shouldn't happen, even if those new CPC's are willing to go to N90. They need to wait their turn. They need to train their replacements and put their time in to where they're trying to leave. And if they do these things, they need to be rewarded for it with career progression. That's always been the mindset of both NATCA and the FAA until very recently.

I worry that this practice of awarding transfers to the "lowest bidder" is causing an extreme amount of frustration at hard to staff towers and that we might see decent sized exoduses of controllers quitting. I know of a few smaller scale ones that have already occurred and I know that theres many facilities where the desire to move has turned into an arms race of hardships and supervisor deviations. If you just give people a good faith assurance that their time spend staffing the NAS with CPCs (by training new ones) they will be much happier.
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If you're a selecting facility you want control over who you get and for it to be based on what you want it to be based on. You're never gonna get them to buy off of the mentality that the piece of shit employee that no one wants should get release priority for time served.
 
Fiore said:
I completely disagree. NCEPT ignores the most important thing that should dictate releases in my opinion, and that's time spent at the facility. I don't care if you're a dirtbag or a lousy controller - if you've done your time somewhere you should be given the opportunity to try and succeed where you'd like to move. Guess what? If you're a piece of shit when you get there your ass is getting washed out anyway. The very reason that certain people become so toxic is that they feel the transfer process screws them over and always will. Allowing managers OR facreps to not give people a chance to certify because they dislike them personally is completely insane.

When you take a tower that only gets 1 or 2 transfers a year and you award those transfers to brand new controllers in front of people who have been trying to get out for years and years you're doing substantial damage to the faith people have in the union. That shouldn't happen, even if those new CPC's are willing to go to N90. They need to wait their turn. They need to train their replacements and put their time in to where they're trying to leave. And if they do these things, they need to be rewarded for it with career progression. That's always been the mindset of both NATCA and the FAA until very recently.

I worry that this practice of awarding transfers to the "lowest bidder" is causing an extreme amount of frustration at hard to staff towers and that we might see decent sized exoduses of controllers quitting. I know of a few smaller scale ones that have already occurred and I know that theres many facilities where the desire to move has turned into an arms race of hardships and supervisor deviations. If you just give people a good faith assurance that their time spend staffing the NAS with CPCs (by training new ones) they will be much happier.
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Yep.

Saw this today. Going Down the Pipes If you ignore the plot for pushing tin and pay attention to the parts where they talk about staffing, training, transfers, and all the other problems, you would think it was written last week and not 20 years ago. Nothing changes.
 
Even before NCEPT transferring has been location location location. The people willing to go to the N90s and ZOAs have always been able to leave quicker then the people wanting TPA and DEN. Staffing is the BIGGEST problem in the FAA. So low staffed facilities will ALWAYS be priority. So people willing to go to them will ALWAYS be priority. No matter how long or short they've been an employee
 
ATCNOMAD said:
Even before NCEPT transferring has been location location location. The people willing to go to the N90s and ZOAs have always been able to leave quicker then the people wanting TPA and DEN. Staffing is the BIGGEST problem in the FAA. So low staffed facilities will ALWAYS be priority. So people willing to go to them will ALWAYS be priority. No matter how long or short they've been an employee
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They've been able to leave faster but the TPA's and the DEN's have been able to leave eventually. I know its anecdotal but many of my friends left hard to staff towers for well staffed ones with 18 month-ish release dates. They understood the reason for the lengthy waits and were grateful to be able to eventually transfer. Now those transfers are impossible. Theres a huge difference between having to wait a year or two and being stuck forever
 
is Article 60 - Facility of Preference (gives priority to CPCs certified a minimum of 8 years for ingrade/downgrade bargaining unit positions) totally obsolete now? Does it co-exist and work w NCEPT at all? I mean... does Article 60 still get someone to the top of a facilities ranking list? I have rarely heard it ever mentioned in conjunction with or since, NCEPT.
 

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