I am a Professional...

[undatc]

After a month or so of a lot of bashing the ATC field has taken, my union has put out a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NRkafph_oDk

The lady in the video works with me in my area at work.

 

[G-man]

"Aviation is the safest form of transportation" --- yep --- we never left anyone up there yet....

So is this in response to the ones on the East coast who are not doing you guys any favors?

[undatc]

Basically yes.  Sad thing is, the first two, DCA and the guy at MCO tracon were actually supes, not controllers.

The ones that have been 'caught' sleeping, as well as the one with the movie on were all CPC's.  The whole Miami Center debacle is pretty embarrassing, where she caught the guy sleeping and earlier that day he had turned her in for an airspace deviation. 

I've heard, and this hasn't come out yet so I'm not sure if its just rumor or what, but last week two more were found sleeping too.  We shall see....

To boil it down, basically our work schedule is horrible and the FAA wont do anything about it. We work counter rotating shifts (which the FAA even acknowledges attributes to fatigue), and most controllers have two quick turns within a week (8 hours between shifts).  They've been fighting this fight for the last 25 years or so since the PATCO strike, and NOTHING has changed.  Only now is it coming to the surface......

Thank god we got Bin Laden to take the heat off us for awhile 

[Baradium]

Basically yes.  Sad thing is, the first two, DCA and the guy at MCO tracon were actually supes, not controllers.

The ones that have been 'caught' sleeping, as well as the one with the movie on were all CPC's.  The whole Miami Center debacle is pretty embarrassing, where she caught the guy sleeping and earlier that day he had turned her in for an airspace deviation. 

I've heard, and this hasn't come out yet so I'm not sure if its just rumor or what, but last week two more were found sleeping too.  We shall see....

To boil it down, basically our work schedule is horrible and the FAA wont do anything about it. We work counter rotating shifts (which the FAA even acknowledges attributes to fatigue), and most controllers have two quick turns within a week (8 hours between shifts).  They've been fighting this fight for the last 25 years or so since the PATCO strike, and NOTHING has changed.  Only now is it coming to the surface......

Thank god we got Bin Laden to take the heat off us for awhile 

We still do 8 hour "reduced rest" as well.   Although we are going to get those new regulations "any time now"

[Stef]

Nice video! But actually it is sad, that it takes a video to make people aware that being an ATC is a very important and responsible job, and that you people deserve an honest wage, a decent working environment and respect.

I hate it how the media and politicians always set different groups of people against each other. It's the same here in Austria. For a few months everybody is bashing teachers for their privileges, then everybody is bashing the railway workers for their privileges, next year everybody's bashing postal workers for their privileges... We really shouldn't fall for that trick any longer. If some job is so great, easy and overpaid, nobody's stopping you from taking it up!