Slate Book extended until July 2026

[echster]

Anyone know what they are trying to change in the purple book?

Several things to this question.

1. Not a good way to start but..... the details on this are slim. My understanding is one or both parties (Agency/NATCA) would like to combine the members under the purple and light blue books into one contract (a single book). I believe it's the Agency that wants to do this but I have never heard of NATCA's reply or thoughts. NATCA might actually agree to this and I'm not sure there is a downside. The three main contracts are similar and use similar verbiage but the Articles are numbered differently and the variances are minor. Cleaning-up some of the minor issues like that would be nice.

2. The FAA asked NATCA for a "limited" opening of the contracts. Of course, NATCA understood that opening the contracts opened everything even if one side wants negotiations to be "limited." And, once opened, the Agency and NATCA could negotiate any Article. The request was for two reasons.....

3. First, money. A full negotiation over the entirety of two contracts (purple and light blue) is expensive and the Agency would like to save money by agreeing as to which Articles would be rolled-over into a new contract (or contracts) and which would be open for negotiation. And, as noted in #1 above, combining two contracts into one contract would theoretically lower the Agency's LR expenses.

4. Second, already partial agreement. There are Articles both sides want to keep so negotiating those would be a waste of resources.

5. So..... why no word about what is to be bargained? Or..... what Articles would be under negotiation? Simple.... the FAA has not provided NATCA with a list of the Articles that they would like to carry-over into a new contract (or contracts) and the Articles they would like to bargain over under the "limited" opening of the contracts.

6. Not knowing (yet) what Articles the FAA wants to bargain limits NATCA's ability to respond with their own list of Articles in-kind.

7. Without knowing what Articles the Agency wants to open for bargaining limits the ability of NATCA Reps to advise members of what changes the Agency is seeking.

 

[the inquirer]

Several things to this question.

1. Not a good way to start but..... the details on this are slim. My understanding is one or both parties (Agency/NATCA) would like to combine the members under the purple and light blue books into one contract (a single book). I believe it's the Agency that wants to do this but I have never heard of NATCA's reply or thoughts. NATCA might actually agree to this and I'm not sure there is a downside. The three main contracts are similar and use similar verbiage but the Articles are numbered differently and the variances are minor. Cleaning-up some of the minor issues like that would be nice.

Imagine if they took the slate book and lumped it in this year with the other two. Just make one CBA for everyone that natca represents. Give everyone big pay raises and more leave accrual. Now that’s an idea to really think about Santa, if you’re on here.

 

[32andBelow]

Imagine if they took the slate book and lumped it in this year with the other two. Just make one CBA for everyone that natca represents. Give everyone big pay raises and more leave accrual. Now that’s an idea to really think about Santa, if you’re on here.

It would be pretty clown car if the controller contract isn’t the leading contract. You’d think the other contracts would be catching up with the controller contract not the other way around.

Nick supporters would say he’s tampering with the election by getting us a raise

 

[Logical_Mongoose]

It would be pretty clown car if the controller contract isn’t the leading contract. You’d think the other contracts would be catching up with the controller contract not the other way around.

32andBelow : misunderstanding reality since 2017.

Several things to this question.

1. Not a good way to start but..... the details on this are slim. My understanding is one or both parties (Agency/NATCA) would like to combine the members under the purple and light blue books into one contract (a single book). I believe it's the Agency that wants to do this but I have never heard of NATCA's reply or thoughts. NATCA might actually agree to this and I'm not sure there is a downside. The three main contracts are similar and use similar verbiage but the Articles are numbered differently and the variances are minor. Cleaning-up some of the minor issues like that would be nice.

2. The FAA asked NATCA for a "limited" opening of the contracts. Of course, NATCA understood that opening the contracts opened everything even if one side wants negotiations to be "limited." And, once opened, the Agency and NATCA could negotiate any Article. The request was for two reasons.....

3. First, money. A full negotiation over the entirety of two contracts (purple and light blue) is expensive and the Agency would like to save money by agreeing as to which Articles would be rolled-over into a new contract (or contracts) and which would be open for negotiation. And, as noted in #1 above, combining two contracts into one contract would theoretically lower the Agency's LR expenses.

4. Second, already partial agreement. There are Articles both sides want to keep so negotiating those would be a waste of resources.

5. So..... why no word about what is to be bargained? Or..... what Articles would be under negotiation? Simple.... the FAA has not provided NATCA with a list of the Articles that they would like to carry-over into a new contract (or contracts) and the Articles they would like to bargain over under the "limited" opening of the contracts.

6. Not knowing (yet) what Articles the FAA wants to bargain limits NATCA's ability to respond with their own list of Articles in-kind.

7. Without knowing what Articles the Agency wants to open for bargaining limits the ability of NATCA Reps to advise members of what changes the Agency is seeking.

I just skimmed back over the Purple Book: 122 articles and 11 Appendices. Hard to guess what the FAA would want to try and negotiate concessions/changes out of, but potential guesses might be:

Article 5 (Agency Rights)
Article 7 (Mid-Term Bargaining)
Article 18 (Office/Cubicle Space)
Article 68 (Telework)
Article 69 (Dress Code)
Article 81 (Hazardous Duty Pay)

A lot of the Articles seem to be either copy & paste or Cliff Notes versions of OPM items so it is hard to imagine the FAA trying to curtail what are universal federal employee benefits/standards.

My interesting thought for the NATCA side that I haven't thought of before is: how negotiable are the Appendices? Appendix I is the MSS Pay Band table for Support Specialists and I wonder if the table itself is a negotiable item? If NATCA could theoretically negotiate moving ATC Levels to different Codes in the table? ATC Levels 4 & 5 could be moved and consolidated to code Fx and ATC Level 6 could be moved and consolidated with ATC Level 7 to code Gx? I understand the FAA would probably be a resounding "hell no," but is it technically possible? That could be a theoretical quick fix for pay for most low-level facilities and could be easily replicated for the CPC bands in 2026.



Outside of that extremely unlikely possibility, I would hope that NATCA's primary goals for people under the Purple (and Light Blue) Books would be Articles 68 (Telework: maximize its availability for those that qualify for it) and 108 (Pay) and not giving up much of anything anywhere else. Like I said before, anything that doesn't address the 1.6% June raise is ultimately a failure for us as BUEs and a failure for NATCA as an organization and for Santa politically. I mean, if, in order to grease the wheels of negotiation, NATCA "conceded" a new section addition to Article 69 (Dress Code) that stipulated your body odor shouldn't be detectable from 10 feet downwind, I would be okay with that too.

Imagine if they took the slate book and lumped it in this year with the other two. Just make one CBA for everyone that natca represents. Give everyone big pay raises and more leave accrual. Now that’s an idea to really think about Santa, if you’re on here.

It would be nice to have one unified book for all BUEs. In a perfect fantasy-world it would have to work out in one of the following ways:

NATCA would agree to the "limited opening" for the Purple & Light Blue Books and "fix" Article 108 (Pay) and agree to the contract for just 2 years, lining it up to expire with the Slate Book in 2026 and using the revamped Article on pay as the baseline for the new catch-all CBA.

Or

NATCA would (and should IMO) be tenacious with the Purple & Light Blue negotiations and get every single drop they can out of the FAA right now and consolidate those two books into one large CBA for 5 years. That would allow NATCA to not worry about the next administration for over 25% of its members and hopefully allow a cleaner "carbon copy" negotiation for the Slate Book in 2026 where they more easily get everything they for in 2024 and only would have to fight for a little bit extra with a new administration. They could lock that in for 3 years and have it expire in conjunction with the unified Purple & Light Blue book from 2024. Then they could unify everything under one book in 2029.

I just hope NATCA realizes this is their true window of opportunity.

 

[nab]

32andBelow : misunderstanding reality since 2017.


I just skimmed back over the Purple Book: 122 articles and 11 Appendices. Hard to guess what the FAA would want to try and negotiate concessions/changes out of, but potential guesses might be:

Article 5 (Agency Rights)
Article 7 (Mid-Term Bargaining)
Article 18 (Office/Cubicle Space)
Article 68 (Telework)
Article 69 (Dress Code)
Article 81 (Hazardous Duty Pay)

A lot of the Articles seem to be either copy & paste or Cliff Notes versions of OPM items so it is hard to imagine the FAA trying to curtail what are universal federal employee benefits/standards.

My interesting thought for the NATCA side that I haven't thought of before is: how negotiable are the Appendices? Appendix I is the MSS Pay Band table for Support Specialists and I wonder if the table itself is a negotiable item? If NATCA could theoretically negotiate moving ATC Levels to different Codes in the table? ATC Levels 4 & 5 could be moved and consolidated to code Fx and ATC Level 6 could be moved and consolidated with ATC Level 7 to code Gx? I understand the FAA would probably be a resounding "hell no," but is it technically possible? That could be a theoretical quick fix for pay for most low-level facilities and could be easily replicated for the CPC bands in 2026.

View attachment 9371

Outside of that extremely unlikely possibility, I would hope that NATCA's primary goals for people under the Purple (and Light Blue) Books would be Articles 68 (Telework: maximize its availability for those that qualify for it) and 108 (Pay) and not giving up much of anything anywhere else. Like I said before, anything that doesn't address the 1.6% June raise is ultimately a failure for us as BUEs and a failure for NATCA as an organization and for Santa politically. I mean, if, in order to grease the wheels of negotiation, NATCA "conceded" a new section addition to Article 69 (Dress Code) that stipulated your body odor shouldn't be detectable from 10 feet downwind, I would be okay with that too.


It would be nice to have one unified book for all BUEs. In a perfect fantasy-world it would have to work out in one of the following ways:

NATCA would agree to the "limited opening" for the Purple & Light Blue Books and "fix" Article 108 (Pay) and agree to the contract for just 2 years, lining it up to expire with the Slate Book in 2026 and using the revamped Article on pay as the baseline for the new catch-all CBA.

Or

NATCA would (and should IMO) be tenacious with the Purple & Light Blue negotiations and get every single drop they can out of the FAA right now and consolidate those two books into one large CBA for 5 years. That would allow NATCA to not worry about the next administration for over 25% of its members and hopefully allow a cleaner "carbon copy" negotiation for the Slate Book in 2026 where they more easily get everything they for in 2024 and only would have to fight for a little bit extra with a new administration. They could lock that in for 3 years and have it expire in conjunction with the unified Purple & Light Blue book from 2024. Then they could unify everything under one book in 2029.

I just hope NATCA realizes this is their true window of opportunity.

Santa told me directly that we have too many pay bands. I believe his goal is to reduce that to maybe 5 or less as a best guess.

 

[Logical_Mongoose]

Like BCHOOSIER said, Santa could say that whatever they get for the Purple & Light Blue will be the starting point for the Slate and NATCA anticipates to get more in 2026; that's the best reelection campaigning he could possibly do for himself. But that's still dependent upon substantial wins for the Purple (and Light Blue) Book and not milquetoast improvements.

NATCA, for the sake of their continued existence, can sacrifice some outlier articles that don't apply to the vast majority of us, but they must win some BIG combination of the following for Purple and Light Blue BUEs:
1.) One-time bonus (15% or better) .
2.) One-time pay raise (15% or better).
3.) Modify the June raises to something more acceptable (2.5% should be the minimum goal and ~2.8% should be the true goal).
4.) Align our Annual Leave accrual and cap with the Scientific and Professional positions.
5.) Something else like having FAA funds earmarked for EV charging at all facilities or some other line-item facility improvements.

Santa is still in control of his own reelection fate, but I don't think he could survive a bad or even mediocre Purple Book update. An updated Purple Book that doesn't address #3 at all will be seen as a failure and Santa should start packing now if that's the outcome. Fixing #3 and getting either #1 or #2 will probably be seen as the minimum threshold for an acceptable negotiation outcome. The holy trinity is 1-3; securing some degree of all of them would probably shut most of us up.

If we (Purple Book) lose anything of significance and the gains aren't impressive, then I don't know how Santa could avoid a bloodbath and membership exodus that either leads to his ouster or the eventual dissolution of the union itself. I don't know if he knows it or not, but this is his Cuban Missile Crisis.

Apparently there is a NATCA Telecon today (NATCA regional people only, allegedly?) regarding the negotiations for the Purple & Light Blue CBAs. Will be interesting to see if any worthwhile news comes out of that...