Region X Update | 19 February 2025
| Region X Family, During yesterday’s Town Hall with our NATCA President Nick Daniels, attendance was limited to 1,000 members. We quickly reached that limit. Some Region X members shared the link others, resulting in non-members attending the Town Hall. Please think about this for just a moment: dues paying members of NATCA were unable to join a member event, because non-members took their spot. Union brothers and sisters whose dues pay for events like Town Hall meetings were basically locked out because non-members wanted to hear what our Union has to say. This is unacceptable. We have to protect our Union, our members, and the information that we all pay dues for. Please do not share any communication that contains Union business with a non-member. It diminishes our collective strength. That includes this email, member updates, and Town Hall invites. Return to Office Mandate It has been over a week since we received notification from the Agency regarding their proposal for a return to the office 5 days per week. As previously messaged, NATCA sent a cease and desist to the Agency and requested a briefing. The Agency has yet to respond to our briefing request. In its message, the Agency stated that employees covered under Collective Bargaining Agreements will receive further information pertaining to return to office procedures by Friday, February 21st. At this time, we have no further information regarding the Agency’s return to office plan or related policies. We understand there is a lot of frustration right now with the unknown, we are just as frustrated as you are with the lack of answers and communications from the Agency. Over the past week we have fielded many calls and e-mails from members on their specific issues with the proposed Agency imposition of return to the office 5 days per week. We understand that many of us live outside of local commuting areas, some of us were hired over a decade ago as remote workers, some of us need time to set up childcare or family care, and the additional impacts for our work life balance that many of us rely on day in and day out. We take these issues very seriously and are taking all the steps afforded to us to enforce our binding contract. NATCA’s Labor Relations and Government Affairs staff has been working around the clock to assist with all of the issues facing us as a collective. Regarding grievance questions specifically, as of now we are actively exercising our Article 7 rights and there are no individual violations of the contract to grieve at this time. We will continue to exercise our rights under our Collective Bargaining Agreement once the Agency provides additional information on February 21st as we did for return to the office following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Probationary Employees Over the last few weeks our Brothers and Sisters in air traffic have been dealing with tragedy and stress related to the airline events throughout the NAS, while we in Region X have been dealt a blow to our workforce by the Agency removing probationary employees in an effort to downsize the Federal Workforce. We have not and do not take these removals lightly. Part of the confusion surrounding the removal of the probationary employees was that we received no advanced warning it was going to occur. Adding to that confusion was the fact that removals were done late at night via email or via phone call from managers Saturday morning. We went into action immediately, reaching out via local leadership and reps to determine the extent of terminations. First thing on Tuesday morning, NATCA sent a request for information to the Agency about the extent of the terminations. Yesterday afternoon, the Agency responded that it had terminated a total of 64 NATCA BUEs; 28 from AFN, 1 from APL, 30 from ARP, 3 from AVS and 2 from ATO. Roughly 15% of the probationary employees NATCA represents in NRX. While Federal law prevents us from being able to file grievances on behalf of probationary employees, they still have rights with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and/or are able to speak with an attorney that specializes in Employment Law. Many employment lawyers offer free consultations, and they would be the best parties to help those impacted understand their rights under the law. Additionally, impacted BUEs should be applying for unemployment benefits as soon as possible. For those members who were removed please read the bottom of this message for information on a Federal Employee webinar that can help educate you about your rights. The webinar is scheduled for tomorrow, February 20th so be sure to sign up as quickly as possible! Also reach out to you your ARVP’s or myself for additional resources. We know these removals also have an adverse impact on our work. Local representatives need to be engaging with Agency counterparts regarding the impact and implementation of these removals. Start asking questions: How will these removals will impact our members? How does management plan to implement the distribution of duties? Will current BUEs have new duties spread out fairly and equitably across teams? Additional duties should be assigned with fairness and equity and local representatives have a right to that conversation as we are the exclusive representatives for our members and BUEs. We have the right to ask about the impact and implementation of these removals as they will have a direct effect on our membership. We need to be asking what our expectations are for the use of credit hours, overtime, etc. to complete these additional duties. These assigned duties should also be reasonably associated with our existing work. In closing, this action by the Administration is going to have a major impact on the ability of the Federal Government to provide services to the American people. Many of which have no idea what we do and believe we are already overpaid and overstaffed to do the work we do. Many of which believe there is rampant fraud, waste and abuse. NATCA has been on the news across the country educating the public on what we do as Aviation Safety professionals and the services we bring day in and day out to support the American people. If you are asked to speak to the media, please direct all media questions to [email protected]. We ask you to not speak to the media and allow our Public Affairs office to handle media requests. Please continue to check your email regularly. Check in with your Local and National Reps and if you have a unique situation, they will reach out to the ARVPS/RVP if needed. Lastly, we are working on logistics to begin holding Region X Town Halls for our members. We are anticipating announcing the first NRX Town Hall date in the very near future, so please stay informed, and stay engaged. This is frustrating for all of us and devastating for those who have lost their jobs. More than ever we need to show solidarity and work together as members of NATCA to protect our rights and our professions. Thank you all for what you do. Rest assured we will get through this together. In solidarity, Mark Rausch Region X Vice President Probationary Employees Webinar – THIS IS A RESOURCE AND NOT A NATCA SPONSORED EVENT Know Your Rights as a Federal Employee: Informational Webinar/Training on Your Rights under the First Amendment and Privacy Act When: Thursday, February 20th at 5:30 pm Where: The webinar is available online through the National Whistleblower Center at https://www.whistleblowers.org/privacy-act-webinar/. Note that one can access the webinar anonymously through the Zoom link on the web site, or one can register for the webinar. A recording of the webinar will be available at this site for later viewing. Who: This training will provide information for federal workers who have recently been placed on administrative leave, terminated or furloughed (or are expecting that they may be), and will provide information about how workers can access their files to determine if their rights under the Privacy Act or First Amendment may have been violated. This training is also appropriate for lawyers who would like to receive training so that they may volunteer their services in the future representing workers whose rights have been violated. Please see the attached flyer for further information and a basic Privacy Act request letter. NATCA Academy Courses – The 2025 academy course line up has been set and is available through the NATCA portal. Retirement webinars and in-person seminars are extremely valuable and very popular. If justified we can possibly overfill a course. Get with your local leadership as the local 2025 budgets are being set and plan now to send as many of your local members as you can.  Contact Ms. Lisa Head, (202) 628-5451 if you have any problems enrolling in retirement seminars. Contact Carolyn Kamara, for all other academy courses. Talk to your local leadership about attending RT-1, Secretary-Treasurer training and check the portal for even more course offerings.  NATCA in Washington – March 24 – 26, 2025 – Visit the NiW page for more information. Politically active local members wanted! Become part of our NATCA legislative force on capitol hill. Make this a topic at your local meetings.  Communicating for Safety 2024 – September 15 – 15, 2025 – This is the premier aviation safety event in held in Las Vegas, and hosted by NATCA. You can meet and interact with industry leaders, agency counterparts, and most important, our NATCA family. Excused absence from work with 45-days advance notice and proper coordination. Talk to your local leadership for more information, or go to the CFS page on the NATCA portal.  Registration for NATCA’s 20th Biennial Convention Is Now Open! Register today and plan to be at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco from May 9-11, 2025, with the opening ceremony taking place on the evening of May 8. Early registrants will get the best prices on all Convention events. Room reservations can be made directly during the Convention registration process. The cutoff date and time to book your room is April 11, 2025, at 5 p.m. PDT or when our Union’s room block is sold out. Visit the 20th Annual NATCA Convention page on the portal for more information and to register! NATCA Member Benefits – Take Advantage! Grab back some of your dues money with great NATCA benefits! Take a discounted cruise, get a Snooz for your baby, apply for a college scholarship, or save $1,100 a year on home and car insurance like Curt Howe did this year. Check out the Benefits website (behind the firewall) and feel free to email the Benefits team at the address provided. https://www.natca.org/benefits/ [email protected]  Want to recognize your work, your coworkers efforts, members that do community outreach, or other really cool human achievements that our NATCA members do everyday? Or perhaps you just have pictures from a NATCA function worth sharing? Send pictures and brief captions/narratives to our own Ms. Lisen Minetti. If your content is acceptable and approved, Lisen will work to get your valued input into our Region X Facebook (please like and follow) page and NATCA National Website. We also have a new clearing house for submitting news articles to our National Communications Committee. Region X National Contact Informations Region X National Leadership Mark Rausch Regional Vice President Bob Aitken Alternate Regional Vice President Nicole Wysong Alternate Regional Vice President Allen Casey Alternate Regional Vice President Gwendolyn Kimbrough AFN National Representative Felicia Reeves Airports National Representative Patrick Massie Aircraft Certification National Representative Allen Strah AIT National Representative Freidy Lazala Drug Abatement National Representative Ralph Pagington Field Automation Support Team (FAST) Kevin Hammond Operations Support Facilities (OSF) Team Region X National Committee Representative Don Schmeichel – National Safety Committee Bob Aitken – National Training Committee Lisen Minetti – National Communications Committee Freidy Lazala – National Drug & Alcohol Committee Samantha Giberson – National Safety Committee Mike Martin – National Constitution Committee Anthony Barksdale – National Organizing Committee Jefferson MacDonald – National Organizing Committee Homer Benavides – National OSHA Committee Quang Nguyen – National Benefits Committee Don Schmeichel – National Historical Committee Jason Holland – National Legislative Committee Dawn Forde – National Legislative Committee Corey Glaze – National Pay Team & Collaboration Facilitator Ed Szczuka – Finance Committee, Onboarding Corey Glaze – Finance Committee (Mentee) Allen Strah – IT and Regional Communications Homer Benavides – National OWCP Committee Brittan Smith – Union Synergy Committee Nicole Wysong – National Reloaded Committee |
