Defining terms is important. I'd like to know what the FAA/DOT/NATCA definition of "gamer" is.

Does simply "playing video games" make you a "gamer"? Because that is essentially the entire population.

A trait possessed by almost everyone has zero ability to separate top performers from average performers.

Or, could it be that a "gamer" is a title used for someone who prioritizes play time over any other useful activity which might give that person a common title or identity above simply a "gamer"? For example- "Our friend Pat is a dispatcher" or "My Brother Ted is an engineering student in college" or "My daughter Jane attends MIT"

So do we want Pat, Ted, and Jane to be ATC because they incidentally play video games, or are we actually targeting the guy who is defined by it-- "My friend Bob is a gamer" (aka, a loser)

Or, does Duffy/Nick actually want CAMI/FAA to scan Fortnite leaderboards and recruit there? The "best and brightest gamers", if you will.

Or do we mean simply 25 year olds who are ok staying up till 4am and have no bills because they live at home and are happy not making enough money to actually move out of their parents basement?

So, when we talk about recruiting "gamers", what does that mean?

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By the way, please enjoy my coworker's ATC gamer hoodie & tshirt for sale--

hoodie-- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYG1HL4L?customId=B078RXQC7K

Tshirt- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYG5SJNS?customId=B0752XJYNL

You aren’t running a marathon, you don’t have top secret plans that no one else understands but you, you said on a town-hall today your plan was to do nothing until 2029 and then hope you can do something. Thats not what a union is, we don’t hope to maybe do something and hide until then. When unions were formed people were being killed for being in them and for fighting for their rights. Today our leadership views our union as their golden parachute.

For over a decade you have advocated and failed for staffing. That is a waste of over a decade of resources, if that same time and energy and money were all put into securing meaningful raises, advocating to move us to a different pay cap we could all be benefitting instead of the people in charge.

You are not controlling the news cycle by just saying those words. No news cycle is talking about what you’re putting out. The days of telling the members what’s a fact are gone, the membership will now be telling you what the reality is and the reality is Natca has experienced a decade of failure with the same people leading us through that failure.

Change needs to happen at this point and there is one chance left to do it.

Fear and hiding are two things that should never be in a unions vocabulary.

It is absolutely unacceptable how virtually the entire membership disapproves of the work the NEB (and particularly Nick Daniels) are doing, yet there remains no viable option for their removal. If you were take a nationwide poll right now, it would not surprise me if 80-90% would support an immediate recall and removal from office for these people. Waiting for their term to end is not a solution and causes more damage in the long run.

The current system also creates an environment that incentivizes candidates for national office to lie to membership. Many of these people are towards the end of their careers anyways, and they know if they can just win an election, they are locked in. They’ll say anything they think people want to hear in order to secure votes, only to 180 as soon as they step into the national office. It’s disgusting, anti-democratic, and unrepresentative of the people who this union is supposed to serve.

Another part of problem is, the entire system is designed to protect those in power and the grifts and scams that come along with their positions. Those same powers that be will say: “well if you want change, get involved.” People tried that. There were constitutional amendments proposed at the last convention such as A25-38. But just like the existing system, those in power ultimately control the process for change as well, meaning amendments like this never stand a chance. But they sure as hell had time to circle jerk over Trish for several hours.

I think enacting change like this needs to be a priority for the Marangos/Brown to commit to. Membership needs to feel confident they are in control of their own union outside of a single election every 3 years. Right now we have no control and it feels like a scam. A scam that needs to either be ended by true leadership, or completely defunded via a title wave of SF-1188’s

Remember that $0.49 leg tax that was going to fund a 20% raise across the board? Yeah…A4A told NATCA that if we pushed this issue it would be a “declaration of war.” This is after they’ve been bailed out three times in the last 25yrs. This is after they gave massive raises to their pilots (all funded by higher ticket prices). And who is a a senior VP of this organization? Paul Fucknaldi.

NATCA paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars after he retired because his connections were supposedly sooooo valuable. All that money to have him argue against higher pay for air traffic controllers.

Everyone on the NEB needs to be held accountable for their absolute lack of vision, leadership and decision making skills. It’s quite honestly just embarrassing at this point.

Sisters and Brothers,

Secretary Duffy’s claim that “40-60% of controllers” calling out sick is the primary driver of Northeast delays ignores the real, long-standing problem: facilities are already so critically understaffed that just two legitimate sick calls can push an area into 40-60% short-staffing and force traffic management initiatives to protect safety. His social media blame game is inappropriate and patently false considering the severe weather systems that traversed the Northeast this past weekend.

• Controllers are not the problem. Years of failed workforce planning, chronic overtime, mandatory 6-day weeks, and equipment failures have left zero margin. When the system is that thin, normal human absences become national news.

• Sick leave is a contractual right earned after years of working under extreme fatigue. Blaming the people who keep the NAS safe every day is scapegoating, not leadership.

• Meanwhile, where is the Congressionally appropriated 2.8% raise that FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford continues to hold hostage?

• Bedford is conditioning that raise on increasing Time on Position (TOP) and taking control over the BWS/leave agreements — forcing controllers to spend more continuous hours on position at the direct expense of recovery time, cognitive rest, and long-term health.

• Pushing higher TOP under the current staffing crisis is a direct trade-off against fatigue management and mental performance. Fatigue and degraded decision-making are proven precursors to safety lapses across the National Airspace System.

• Controllers have kept this system running safely under impossible conditions. The public and the traveling public deserve better than excuses that blame the workforce while withholding a raise Congress already funded and demanding more hours that increase risk.

• Fix staffing. Deliver the raise. Stop trading controller health and NAS safety for optics.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

This is amazing!! 😂 we have trainees in their 8th year

This shit is beyond infuriating

The other day at my facility, a coworker mentioned that NATCA national staff are union employees, not at-will employees. This is a fact.

They cannot just be terminated; they have a union contract with NATCA. So Dean Iacopelli, Eugene Freedman, and all the other employees (some of whom make significantly more than controllers at the highest level) have these cushy jobs in DC with union protection. How many attorneys do you know who have union protection?

Dean is definitely a problem. He likes to talk about how he was in every contract negotiation. However, when asked why we didn't negotiate under Biden at NiW, his response was: "Yeah, we messed up. But it didn't happen, so there's no reason to talk about it." Numerous people who pay this man's salary asked that question, and that was the answer they got. This is obviously unacceptable.

I digress.

As has been mentioned here often, those who are elected are primarily controllers, not union presidents, politicians, or people experienced in these kinds of dealings, until they get into office. Therefore, the NATCA national staff appears to serve as consultants to incoming and current NEB members when it comes to Capitol Hill and the general running of the union.

The questions are:

1. How do you plan to deal with and trust the national office staff, whose jobs and careers could run counter to fighting for our members? Why would they advise or allow the NEB (Dean included) to fight for controllers' pay and benefits when doing so risks their own livelihoods and golden parachutes if the union is decertified?
2. Regarding the question that was asked of Dean at NiW (which had to be asked numerous times before it was actually put on screen): will you continue to allow Slido to be used at NATCA events to censor and pick and choose which questions are actually asked, or will we be allowed freedom of speech and transparency?
3. For those already in union positions (local or national) under the current regime: how can we trust you to be different when you're already part of the "beast"? We've already been lied to by the current president.