[Peetwo]

Sir A & Harfwit caught diddling the books -

From law firm 'Chamberlains' online publication - the RiotACT... :

Airservices faces potential class action over staff contracts

By Charlotte Harper - 12 May 2017




Current and former staff of Federal Government-run navigation service provider Airservices Australia are working with Chamberlains Law Firm to advance a potential employment claim with an estimated value of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per worker.

The potential claim focuses on superannuation losses and employment contracts the firm says unlawfully stripped away redundancy entitlements.

Management staff joining Airservices Australia between 1996 and 2017 were allegedly obliged to sign individual contracts that, while offering high pay rates and bonuses, capped their redundancy entitlements. This was allegedly in contrast to standard redundancy rights contained in the collective agreement between all other staff and the organisation.

Rory Markham, Chamberlains’ Director, Litigation – Employment and Risk Management, said the firm was currently working with several potential claimants, with that number likely to grow substantially by the time legal proceedings against Airservices Australia were to commence in a few weeks.
“We know that at any one time there would have been at least 150 to 200 individuals that were on these management contracts,” Mr Markham said.
“It is of great concern that according to our instructions, these management contracts were an attempt to circumvent the Fair Work approved entitlements and the enterprise agreements, in a plan to lower liability in the event of a large redundancy pay-out.”
He said the firm will allege the contracts had been presented in strictly closed human resources meetings as a way of offering lucrative bonuses to selected staff without transparency or disclosure.

The solicitor said that Airservices Australia could have offered its staff lawful individual flexibility agreements under a collective agreement in order to negotiate different hours of work or higher pay.

“But that didn’t appear to be the purpose of the management contract,” he said.

“It appeared to have nothing to do with flexibility, regardless of who you were, you tended to have the same terms, and the redundancies were capped.”

The RiotACT approached Airservices Australia to ask whether they were still using individual management contracts that imposed caps on redundancy payments and/or requiring new staff to move to retail superannuation schemes, and whether they stood by those contracts signed previously.

A spokeswoman for Airservices Australia provided the following statement in response.
“Airservices Australia complies with its obligations as an employer, including those set out by the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), and other relevant legislative and industrial instruments.

“It would be inappropriate to comment on individual matters.

“Airservices is willing to engage with relevant parties to resolve any outstanding employment issues.”

With many of the management staff in question having arrived from other areas within the Australian Public Service, signing up to the contract allegedly meant surrendering rights to years of service that would otherwise have been factored into any redundancy payout at a time when they were joining an organisation in which Chamberlains will argue redundancies were a strong possibility due to uncertain budgets.

When one of the largest redundancy rounds in public service history took place in 2016, the employees allegedly received a fraction of the redundancy payments they would have had they not signed individual management agreements upon joining Airservices Australia.

Their packages were capped so that years of public service in other departments or agencies played no role in calculating the payments, according to Mr Markham.

All staff joining Airservices during the period from 1996 until 2017 were allegedly told they could not con---??

Chamberlains has also been instructed that workers joining Airservices Australia during the years in question were advised they must switch to their superannuation to Airservices’ own retail superannuation fund, AV Super.

In the case of those moving from other parts of the public service this meant they could not continue to participate in the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme or Public Sector Superannuation Scheme preserved benefits schemes.

“What our claimants will argue is that Airservices employees were entitled to continue with their very generous superannuation schemes but were wrongfully told by Airservices that they had to participate in a retail super fund,” Mr Markham said.

“Their losses are really quite considerable because they were wrongfully told that they couldn’t stay in their preserved fund.”

The claims will seek compensation for those losses as well as in relation to the redundancy shortfalls.

The claims could run individually into the hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the individual’s circumstances, Mr Markham said.

He said the firm was looking into whether there may have been similar incidents elsewhere in the government sector in recent years and would welcome information from the public that may assist with these investigations.

While few of the current and former Airservices Australia staff eligible to participate in the claim through Chamberlains were members of a union, the Deputy National President of the CPSU, Rupert Evans, told the RiotACT his organisation had worked with affected staff in recent months.

“We have supported members who were incorrectly put in contract positions to return to the enterprise agreement,” he said.

“The enterprise agreement, which was negotiated by the CPSU and others, ensures Airservices workers receive proper rates of pay and important rights around issues such as redundancies.”

Are you a current or former Airservices Australia staff member who may be eligible to claim workplace entitlements through the Chamberlains-run claim? Find out more here or email Chamberlains at airservices.action@chamberlains.com.au

Meanwhile in a parallel hemisphere Trump is talking up privatising, the equally antiquated FAA ATC system, along the lines of NAV Canada... 

Via the International Airport Review :

The necessity of liberalising our skies | It’s time to talk ATC

Posted: 27 April 2017 | David McMillan

In the first of a series of articles entitled ‘It’s time to talk ATC’, David McMillan, Chair of the ATM Policy Institute think tank asserts the importance of liberalisation of our airspace.



It is hard to realise it now, but in fact the history of air traffic control is a vital part of the history of airports.  At first, airlines each provided their own ATC services, at airports.  It was seen as an airport operational function. Croydon, then London’s airport, took over those services for its customer airlines and built the first ATC Tower in 1916.  A fine structure it was too. 

However, it was only in 1936 that ATC was, in effect, nationalised, with the creation of what is now the FAA in the USA.  Give or take, it has been that way ever since, even as airlines and airports are increasingly commercial entities.

Happily, safety is well managed, but operational, environmental and economic challenges continue to emerge for airports as air traffic continues to grow.

For ATM, meeting the challenges can be slow. With an historic monopoly status, weak economic regulation, and government control the ATM industry has weak incentives to improve performance, and it is notoriously resistant to change.  Management tend to respond to the needs of government, rather than its airline and airport customers. The resulting under-performance can include high prices, inefficient expenditure, a lack of transparency and slow adoption of new technologies and processes.

"The ATM industry has weak incentives to improve performance…"

In February this year, a number of air navigation service providers (ANSPs) founded the ATM Policy Institute, aiming to focus discussion about improving the efficiency and performance of the ATM industry through liberalisation.

Liberalisation has transformed the broader aviation industry, driving growth and innovation at a notable pace. The Institute argues that liberalising the ATM industry can also achieve significant benefits, including reducing the cost of ATM service and increasing the customer focus and responsiveness of the ANSPs, while maintaining or improving safety.

There is evidence to support this.  Several nations have some competition for supply of aerodrome control services, including Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UAE, the UK and the US.  Where competition for terminal ATM navigation services (TANS) exists, the benefits of liberalisation are clear.

Competition to supply aerodrome control services in Spain reduced the cost of ATM by 50%; in Sweden the costs reduced by 30-40%.  In the UK, it has been reported that the successful competitors have reduced costs and maintained highly efficient operations, whilst the previous incumbent has become more customer-centric, adopting cost-saving measures and accepting performance-linked payments in a range of markets.

"The benefits of liberalisation are clear."

Another important point that comes out of these examples, as well as examples of liberalisation of other infrastructure based industries is that for competition to be successful, several “health factors” must be in place.

• The operational aspect of the ANSP needs to be separated from the state’s safety regulation function, to avoid conflicts of interest. Like other safety crucial industries, the State has a duty to its citizens to ensure that safety performance of ANSPs is not compromised.
  

• ANSPs need to act like commercial entities. This is best achieved through corporatisation, or commercialisation, where the organisation is given greater management and financial authority and encouraged to behave more like a private firm, with good governance.  This does not require the organisation to be privately owned – nor does it rule it out.  Several ownership options exist and are used around the word.  The key characteristic is that the organisation has sufficient autonomy and flexibility to respond to competition.
  

• Selected ATM services must be open to genuine competition, such as through a tender process for the right to operate an aerodrome control service for a specified period of time.  Genuine competition means that any tendering process must present a level playing field to both the incumbent and any new entrants, for example by making sure that all parties have adequate information about the market and the cost of transition.  It also means that the barriers to entry must be low enough to encourage several contenders to apply.  Such barriers include access to technology, buildings and facilities, current expert staff, and the ability to train new staff for the location.
  

Liberalising ATM services represents opportunities for airports.  Birmingham International Airport in the UK decided during a routine tender for TANS service that self-supply was more economic than any of the suppler offers, and established its own ATM unit, reducing the cost of ATM service, which it could pass on to its customer airlines through the provision of better facilities or services – and indeed, through lower charges.

ATM can also be an expansion of the services the airport offers to its airline customers.   Over time, it might also be a means of attracting airline customers, as they realise that the ATM services offered add value to their network operations.  Airports can start to offer tailored services.

The ATM service can supply not only the separation safety service, but also information and data exchange, and perhaps local flow control.  This means the airport could be in a position to offer premium, or priority services to airlines or flights, or collaborate with origin or destination ports to offer route-long flow management or priority services. The advent of competition in other industries has promoted differentiated products and services.  It is reasonable to expect the same effect for airports when liberalising ATM services.

Liberalisation has the potential to disrupt the ATM industry. Some ANSPs may see this as a threat, with concerns about risking jobs, the viability of supply of ATM services (especially in un-economic airspace) or safety.  Similar concerns were raised in the lead up to liberalising the airline industry; the vast majority of which later proved to be unfounded.

Liberalisation of the airline industry is generally seen as a success. In the ATM industry, liberalisation presents opportunities for those ANSPs willing to adapt and innovate, including opportunities to expand into new markets, work collaboratively, and secure rewards for better serving airline and airport customers.  Perhaps it is enough to note that the ATM Policy Institute itself has been founded by ANSPs.

Astute airports might also want to look at the work being done and see what might be in it for them. They would find us very willing interlocutors

&.. via @BREAKINGVIEWS... :

Standby

2 May 2017 By Gina Chon, Lauren Silva Laughlin

 
U.S. air-traffic control badly needs first-class treatment. Donald Trump’s administration wants to privatize the organization that coordinates flights and manages often antiquated systems. The Federal Aviation Administration, currently in charge, has faced obstacles in trying to upgrade its 1940s-era technology, a project estimated to cost about $35 billion. Canada pioneered a self-funding, stakeholder-governed model. A similar approach could work for the more complex American system if carriers, politicians and the like can dump their baggage.

In most ATC operations across the United States, flight patterns are still organized on paper strips and passed by hand from one controller to another. The old-school radar used to mark planes with dots on screens can be off by as much as three miles.

There were nearly 40 million flight movements in the United States in 2015, according to the FAA. Of the much smaller number of commercial flights, over 80 percent arrive on time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but that’s still a lot of delays. Though the FAA is gradually upgrading its technology, almost a quarter of the late arrivals are attributed to air-traffic control – and that doesn’t include late-arriving aircraft, some of which may be delayed by ATC, as well. Those advocating for a new system – including airlines as well as the administration – say that the GPS capabilities of cell phones are more sophisticated than the technology that organizes U.S. air traffic.

An overhaul has been proposed multiple times since the 1990s, but policy and funding have been at the mercy of a dysfunctional Congress. The FAA was partly shut down in 2011 because of political budget squabbles, and in 2013 more than 15,000 employees, including 3,000 safety inspectors, were temporarily put on leave. Right now, Washington will probably rely once more on short-term budget extensions, and without a longer-term deal something similar could happen again.

Trump has likened U.S. airport infrastructure to “a third-world country,” while U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said at the Milken Institute conference on Monday that action on air-traffic control was overdue. It’s true that plenty of other nations have jumped ahead with ATC technology. Dozens have upgraded their systems in recent decades. The UK is the only one that now has air traffic managed for profit within a public-private partnership, a model dating back to 2001. Other countries such as Germany and Australia have adopted government-owned company models, though Australia is considering a shift to something more like Canada’s private, non-profit structure. A key feature that differentiates all of them from the FAA is that all of them are self-funded.

In Canada, legislators worked with the airline industry and other stakeholders to put air-traffic control into a private corporation. Nav Canada, as it’s called, started in 1996 with a $2.3 billion bank loan, overseen by a board made up of airlines, government representatives, unions and other stakeholders. Roughly 6,000 employees were plucked out of the public sector and moved into the corporation.

Nav Canada has since shed 25 percent of those workers. The company is self-funded through user fees and bonds, and profit is plowed back into improving infrastructure and services. In 2016, Nav Canada reported revenue of C$1.4 billion ($1 billion) and net income of C$37 million.

The shift meant Nav Canada no longer had to rely on the government for funding, and the accompanying upgrades in technology and efficiency improved the ATC picture in several ways. Required distances between airplanes have been reduced, helping to relieve bottlenecks, according to Nav Canada. Routes have gotten shorter too, decreasing fuel usage. It develops software inhouse, which Nav Canada sells to other ATC operators.

The FAA has more than nine times Nav Canada’s roster of air-traffic controllers and a much bigger budget, but Nav Canada is more productive. It clocks 1,900 flight hours per controller each year versus just above 1,800 hours for the FAA, according to the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization. The U.S. air network is bigger and more complicated than Canada’s – Nav Canada handles about 12 million flight movements each year – but similar improvements ought to be there for the taking.

The problem is getting the various U.S. stakeholders to agree. Even airlines, all of which want improved technology, don’t see eye-to-eye on how this should be achieved. Bill Shuster, who leads the U.S. House Transportation Committee, has proposed a similar structure to Canada’s. His initiative has fresh momentum thanks to the administration’s backing. Some U.S. airlines like Southwest and American Airlines support Shuster’s plan but Delta, for one, has publicly opposed it, preferring upgrades within the existing FAA framework.

One issue is cost. Delta argues that air travelers would end up covering ATC fees which could rise by 20 percent or more in a privatized system versus the existing system. Direct comparisons are hard to come by, but an Eno Center for Transportation study in February suggested the all-in cost in privatized markets is lower than the full U.S. tax burden for equivalent flights.

Another point of contention is the control of a new U.S. ATC system. Shuster’s proposal last year – he is working on a new one – was for a 13-member board representing the government, air-traffic controllers, pilots, four airlines and others. One danger of this allocation would be an even greater concentration of airline-industry power with the largest U.S. carriers, which already have big market shares.

One way or another, tens of billions of dollars are needed to upgrade air-traffic control across the United States. Because the beneficiaries – air carriers and, ultimately, passengers – are easily identified, it’s also a good candidate for a full or partial privatization that removes the funding burden from government and the political drag from air-traffic management. The benefits would far outweigh the costs of any compromises airlines, lawmakers, unions and everyone else involved might have to make.

 

MTF...P2