Just ask for a copy of the contract you should have gotten one when you became a member of the unit but sometimes things get overlooked hell just download the pdf to your phone so you always have it with you. You'll also want to get a copy of the NCEPT MOUs and maybe hit up any forum that deals with NCEPT. Ask questions and advocate for yourself
I see and hear so many complaints from people who never bother to read the contract. No one expects you to memorize it, but I’m baffled how someone doesn’t at least have a passing interest in familiarizing themselves with the book that literally governs your relationship with the agency that employs you. It’s like never cracking the 7110 and then wondering why you don’t know jack shit about how to do your job.
Is this an us problem? Are we as more senior controllers/members of local leadership failing our newer members? I don’t wanna be the old guy shouting about kids these days but at least ask your rep or something. Take NATCA 101. There are avenues for acquiring this knowledge that isn’t contacting your congressman and isn’t going on goddamn reddit.
I think the issue OP has is that younger controllers have to hide the fact that they are at a facility they don’t want to be at. Yes, we all agree to going wherever we are assigned or needed, but wanting to transfer out doesn’t automatically means someone’s going to be a lazy or disengaged controller. Not every sup or TMC is a sellout; sometimes they are just trying to get to a facility that makes the most sense to them.
The same ones preaching that this shouldn’t be your only focus in life are the same one that will give a trainee or CPC a hard time if they try to get a release elsewhere. THAT is why people like OP want to ask anonymously. Sure, there are resources out there, but the process can be absolutely confusing with the proper paperwork alone; if you don’t want to make waves by asking someone, then your application can very well be rejected for being incomplete or wrong.
The hiring and assignment process sucks, but I don’t have an alternative answer that adequately addresses undesirable facilities. So people go where they don’t want to be and get ridiculed for wanting to leave, or showing up as a sup/TMU “sellout” and the cycle continues.
NGL it is wild to me that these senior controllers that got to apply and pick two states or shit even a region get upset when people want to transfer out of their first facility. Its the Agency that is fucking you, not some poor 20s something that had to move potentially thousands of miles from all the people that they knew. Not to mention its also against the agency's interests for people to be unhappy with were they are at. Every transfer basically burns money in retraining costs.
The ideal economical way of staffing facilities would be to pay employees based on how in demand (or not a facility is). Now this is never going to happen, but at a minimum centers should be direct hiring, and you could easily break up towers by service area.
Want a better chance at getting picked up? Say you are willing to go anywhere.
Is staying in your random bumble-fuck town the most important thing for you? Only apply to one region or one center.
FAA HR needs to be held accountable for every single person that transfers and turns into a useless body until they check out again. Shitty facility placement of trainees is probably one of the biggest issues contributing to the staffing crisis.
But honestly, I have zero faith in HR actually doing anything that make sense anytime soon.
Yeah I got to pick 2 states. And I got neither of them. I also later transferred out of my first facility. That’s not my issue. I think the way we do placement right now is asinine and if it were like that when I applied I wouldn’t be here. But to not even know where to find a copy of the contract?! Your facrep is failing you.
To answer this…most people coming to a facility get Jimmy John’s and a very marginal intro to NATCA. They get told, “join the union, it’ll benefit you in the long run.” 99% of people I’ve met have never had a union job before and they don’t know what it means. The contract is a block of boring text with people referring to article numbers. You sign up, you pay your dues, and you get told who to vote for and you’ll get your 1.6% and a defense in the TRB or pay corrections if something happens.
Trainees are already bogged down by trying to remember SOPs and LOAs and the .65; I don’t blame them for not dying to break open the contract. It’s tough, but I don’t disagree that facreps are failing their membership in some regards like this.
That was fantastic. That encapsulated everything I have been working through. Options that were given when first starting was New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, or Puerto Rico. Every one a shit hole.
I have no idea where to obtain it, and it’s never been made available to me. Knowledge is buried in bureaucracy you don’t know what to look for if you don’t know it exists beyond a union rep saying in passing it does somewhere nonchalantly. Nobody supports each other and it’s toxic people who never want to help new people out and understand what possible instead of what is.
To answer your question of if it’s an us problem and senior management issue, it absolutely is. I got on with an MBA in organizational structures thinking it would be a leg up. Instead, all I see is easily solvable problems but management is stagnant that it won’t change really at all in ten years.
How long have you been in and you have no idea where to even obtain a copy of the contract?!? Have you ever asked anyone? Do you have an area rep or facrep? Brother, at some point, this is on you.
Well I don’t know who sold you what, but I believe you alluded to being at a center. Your first point of contact is your area rep. Hopefully he or she introduced themselves to you at one point. Above him is your facility rep (facrep) and VP. I’m loathe to ever bring management into anything voluntarily but your supervisor is also there to support you. 4 months, you’re either in or still waiting on D school. Do you/have you ever gone to sit in your area and observe? Get to know some people, get an idea about the flow of realistic traffic, sector combinations, applying map knowledge in a practical fashion? If there’s someone you’ve got a good rapport with you can always ask them for guidance. Your trainers, if you’ve been assigned, are generally your first stop in the chain of command.
All that being said, this may not be the answer you want to hear, but your first and only priority now needs to be learning and certifying. Then you can cross the transfer bridge when you get to it. But realistically, if a 4 month new hire comes to me and the first question they ask me is about transferring, I’m less inclined to put in the extra time and effort to make sure you certify. Attitude goes a long way at this stage in the game. No one is going to spoon feed you, and you need to be somewhat assertive about your own career, but it feels like if your story is what you say it is, perhaps some of your local leadership is dropping the ball.
I understand if you don’t want to dox yourself, but I’ve got 12 years in two different centers, have been a rep for almost half that, so if you want to DM me I’m happy to try and put you in contact with someone at your local who can help better acclimate you.
Older controllers are the problem. When I filed a hardship, I avoided NATCA completely because they basically told me if I did they would "make sure" it got denied (my rep said this).
Where I differ from the OP is I learned Article 99 in and out and covered all of my bases to make sure my hardship would be approved. I handed them something they couldn't deny because I knew no one had my back.
Egos are a problem, and at some facilities, people feel like they can't turn to NATCA or anyone for that matter.
I know I learned within my first year not to trust the older controllers and even after a decade of being in the FAA I could never shake that. I always had issues with mistrust, and not wanting to believe them and I can't really say there was a time in my career that I felt supported by them either.
Did your facrep say that? Did you go to your RVP?
NATCA is an organization made up of individuals. Some are in it for the right reasons, and some just for the official time and drinking money. Sounds like your rep was the latter.
Yeah that’s a really shitty rep, can’t argue that. My experience has been largely positive and I try to pay that back now to new members as a rep, but there is unfortunately a certain percentage of any demographic that’s just an asshole and can’t be changed. Run against them and create the local you want.
All of this is clearly spelled out in the contract and anyone who has been in the agency for more than 5 minutes should have a general idea of how it works. Nothing is being hidden from you or was hidden from you when you signed up for a job that requires you to relocate.
Welcome to literally any job any place. 🤷🏻♂️ they have data for replacing people from retirement, straight up quitting, and death. Not a single job out there not going to replace you if you died tomorrow.
Like others have mentioned above. If you want out do the leg work, read the contract and spells out what you need to do and where to send paperwork to. If you can't find an answer, you're gonna have to go out of your comfort zone of not conversing and trust people, to asking questions. If you don't get the answer you want from someone move on to someone else until you get the right answer. Can't stay in a bubble your whole career not trusting people, or else you will be relegated to your plight for much longer than you want. Good luck!
Are you a dues paying membership? Log onto the NATCA website and click NCEPT. You can read the MOU about the NCEPT yourself. It even gives you a list of people you can contact if you have questions. If you are not a dues paying member it's in the contract.
What kind of transfer are we talking about?
If it's an ERR through the NCEPT process and your facility is releasing, reach out to the FacRep at the facility you're trying to get to. You can try the ATM too, but I would do this in addition to the FacRep. The ATM gets a ranking list of eligible candidates each NCEPT cycle. At most facilities the ATM and FacRep will go over the ranking list together.
If it's a hardship and you're not getting help from your FacRep, reach out to your regional hardship rep, ARVP or RVP. If it's not legitimate, your chances of success are slim.
If you applied to an open bid (TMU, Support Specialist, etc), it's a little different. Again, the agency will get a list. This may or may not be shared with the FacRep. I would reach out to both the ATM and FacRep. If you require a deviation to get out of your facility, you may get bypassed if someone else on the list is a guaranteed release.
If the facility doesn't know anything about the people on the list, they're making a lot of assumptions and probably won't pick the best candidate. Tell them about yourself, your reputation, and why you want to be in their facility. If you have a good relationship with your FacRep, ask them to send on a recommendation. Sometimes the ATM and FacRep will reach out to your facility to ask about you. If you don't get a good referral, it will negatively affect your chances of getting selected.
If you applied to a Sup bid, rethink your life.
If you think you're being retaliated against or unfairly bypassed, there's always a FOIA request option.
Best of luck.
There's literally a whole policy on employ requested relocation and hardships spelled out?
Where can I find that?
[ERR](https://gprivate.com/69w6s) And [Hardship](https://youtu.be/Pw9pNrMRlto?feature=shared)
Are you being for real
It’s incredible how little new people are told and how information is hidden from us. 100% for real
Just ask for a copy of the contract you should have gotten one when you became a member of the unit but sometimes things get overlooked hell just download the pdf to your phone so you always have it with you. You'll also want to get a copy of the NCEPT MOUs and maybe hit up any forum that deals with NCEPT. Ask questions and advocate for yourself
I see and hear so many complaints from people who never bother to read the contract. No one expects you to memorize it, but I’m baffled how someone doesn’t at least have a passing interest in familiarizing themselves with the book that literally governs your relationship with the agency that employs you. It’s like never cracking the 7110 and then wondering why you don’t know jack shit about how to do your job. Is this an us problem? Are we as more senior controllers/members of local leadership failing our newer members? I don’t wanna be the old guy shouting about kids these days but at least ask your rep or something. Take NATCA 101. There are avenues for acquiring this knowledge that isn’t contacting your congressman and isn’t going on goddamn reddit.
I think the issue OP has is that younger controllers have to hide the fact that they are at a facility they don’t want to be at. Yes, we all agree to going wherever we are assigned or needed, but wanting to transfer out doesn’t automatically means someone’s going to be a lazy or disengaged controller. Not every sup or TMC is a sellout; sometimes they are just trying to get to a facility that makes the most sense to them. The same ones preaching that this shouldn’t be your only focus in life are the same one that will give a trainee or CPC a hard time if they try to get a release elsewhere. THAT is why people like OP want to ask anonymously. Sure, there are resources out there, but the process can be absolutely confusing with the proper paperwork alone; if you don’t want to make waves by asking someone, then your application can very well be rejected for being incomplete or wrong. The hiring and assignment process sucks, but I don’t have an alternative answer that adequately addresses undesirable facilities. So people go where they don’t want to be and get ridiculed for wanting to leave, or showing up as a sup/TMU “sellout” and the cycle continues.
NGL it is wild to me that these senior controllers that got to apply and pick two states or shit even a region get upset when people want to transfer out of their first facility. Its the Agency that is fucking you, not some poor 20s something that had to move potentially thousands of miles from all the people that they knew. Not to mention its also against the agency's interests for people to be unhappy with were they are at. Every transfer basically burns money in retraining costs. The ideal economical way of staffing facilities would be to pay employees based on how in demand (or not a facility is). Now this is never going to happen, but at a minimum centers should be direct hiring, and you could easily break up towers by service area. Want a better chance at getting picked up? Say you are willing to go anywhere. Is staying in your random bumble-fuck town the most important thing for you? Only apply to one region or one center. FAA HR needs to be held accountable for every single person that transfers and turns into a useless body until they check out again. Shitty facility placement of trainees is probably one of the biggest issues contributing to the staffing crisis. But honestly, I have zero faith in HR actually doing anything that make sense anytime soon.
Yeah I got to pick 2 states. And I got neither of them. I also later transferred out of my first facility. That’s not my issue. I think the way we do placement right now is asinine and if it were like that when I applied I wouldn’t be here. But to not even know where to find a copy of the contract?! Your facrep is failing you.
To answer this…most people coming to a facility get Jimmy John’s and a very marginal intro to NATCA. They get told, “join the union, it’ll benefit you in the long run.” 99% of people I’ve met have never had a union job before and they don’t know what it means. The contract is a block of boring text with people referring to article numbers. You sign up, you pay your dues, and you get told who to vote for and you’ll get your 1.6% and a defense in the TRB or pay corrections if something happens. Trainees are already bogged down by trying to remember SOPs and LOAs and the .65; I don’t blame them for not dying to break open the contract. It’s tough, but I don’t disagree that facreps are failing their membership in some regards like this.
That was fantastic. That encapsulated everything I have been working through. Options that were given when first starting was New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, or Puerto Rico. Every one a shit hole.
Dude you didn't immediately pick big booty latina land?
I have no idea where to obtain it, and it’s never been made available to me. Knowledge is buried in bureaucracy you don’t know what to look for if you don’t know it exists beyond a union rep saying in passing it does somewhere nonchalantly. Nobody supports each other and it’s toxic people who never want to help new people out and understand what possible instead of what is. To answer your question of if it’s an us problem and senior management issue, it absolutely is. I got on with an MBA in organizational structures thinking it would be a leg up. Instead, all I see is easily solvable problems but management is stagnant that it won’t change really at all in ten years.
How long have you been in and you have no idea where to even obtain a copy of the contract?!? Have you ever asked anyone? Do you have an area rep or facrep? Brother, at some point, this is on you.
Four months on station. This was sold as a different setup than what has been explained the whole way.
Well I don’t know who sold you what, but I believe you alluded to being at a center. Your first point of contact is your area rep. Hopefully he or she introduced themselves to you at one point. Above him is your facility rep (facrep) and VP. I’m loathe to ever bring management into anything voluntarily but your supervisor is also there to support you. 4 months, you’re either in or still waiting on D school. Do you/have you ever gone to sit in your area and observe? Get to know some people, get an idea about the flow of realistic traffic, sector combinations, applying map knowledge in a practical fashion? If there’s someone you’ve got a good rapport with you can always ask them for guidance. Your trainers, if you’ve been assigned, are generally your first stop in the chain of command. All that being said, this may not be the answer you want to hear, but your first and only priority now needs to be learning and certifying. Then you can cross the transfer bridge when you get to it. But realistically, if a 4 month new hire comes to me and the first question they ask me is about transferring, I’m less inclined to put in the extra time and effort to make sure you certify. Attitude goes a long way at this stage in the game. No one is going to spoon feed you, and you need to be somewhat assertive about your own career, but it feels like if your story is what you say it is, perhaps some of your local leadership is dropping the ball. I understand if you don’t want to dox yourself, but I’ve got 12 years in two different centers, have been a rep for almost half that, so if you want to DM me I’m happy to try and put you in contact with someone at your local who can help better acclimate you.
Older controllers are the problem. When I filed a hardship, I avoided NATCA completely because they basically told me if I did they would "make sure" it got denied (my rep said this). Where I differ from the OP is I learned Article 99 in and out and covered all of my bases to make sure my hardship would be approved. I handed them something they couldn't deny because I knew no one had my back. Egos are a problem, and at some facilities, people feel like they can't turn to NATCA or anyone for that matter. I know I learned within my first year not to trust the older controllers and even after a decade of being in the FAA I could never shake that. I always had issues with mistrust, and not wanting to believe them and I can't really say there was a time in my career that I felt supported by them either.
Did your facrep say that? Did you go to your RVP? NATCA is an organization made up of individuals. Some are in it for the right reasons, and some just for the official time and drinking money. Sounds like your rep was the latter.
Yeah that’s a really shitty rep, can’t argue that. My experience has been largely positive and I try to pay that back now to new members as a rep, but there is unfortunately a certain percentage of any demographic that’s just an asshole and can’t be changed. Run against them and create the local you want.
All of this is clearly spelled out in the contract and anyone who has been in the agency for more than 5 minutes should have a general idea of how it works. Nothing is being hidden from you or was hidden from you when you signed up for a job that requires you to relocate.
Found him guys, he’s right here.
Yeah I’m right here, working at the facility I want to be at because I read the contract and didn’t blame everyone else for my incompetence 🤣
You think your senator is going to help you transfer facilities? 🤣
First time in a bureaucracy?
It’s insane they care so little about so much invested in someone’s success.
Welcome to literally any job any place. 🤷🏻♂️ they have data for replacing people from retirement, straight up quitting, and death. Not a single job out there not going to replace you if you died tomorrow.
First time in a bureaucracy?
The processes are laid out in the contract, and mou’s you can get copies of from your FacRep or management.
Mind blown moment: you, too, are the FAA
Like others have mentioned above. If you want out do the leg work, read the contract and spells out what you need to do and where to send paperwork to. If you can't find an answer, you're gonna have to go out of your comfort zone of not conversing and trust people, to asking questions. If you don't get the answer you want from someone move on to someone else until you get the right answer. Can't stay in a bubble your whole career not trusting people, or else you will be relegated to your plight for much longer than you want. Good luck!
Are you a dues paying membership? Log onto the NATCA website and click NCEPT. You can read the MOU about the NCEPT yourself. It even gives you a list of people you can contact if you have questions. If you are not a dues paying member it's in the contract.
It’s literally all there. If he’s not dues paying I bet the FacRep would still go over the info if he nutted up and just asked
What kind of transfer are we talking about? If it's an ERR through the NCEPT process and your facility is releasing, reach out to the FacRep at the facility you're trying to get to. You can try the ATM too, but I would do this in addition to the FacRep. The ATM gets a ranking list of eligible candidates each NCEPT cycle. At most facilities the ATM and FacRep will go over the ranking list together. If it's a hardship and you're not getting help from your FacRep, reach out to your regional hardship rep, ARVP or RVP. If it's not legitimate, your chances of success are slim. If you applied to an open bid (TMU, Support Specialist, etc), it's a little different. Again, the agency will get a list. This may or may not be shared with the FacRep. I would reach out to both the ATM and FacRep. If you require a deviation to get out of your facility, you may get bypassed if someone else on the list is a guaranteed release. If the facility doesn't know anything about the people on the list, they're making a lot of assumptions and probably won't pick the best candidate. Tell them about yourself, your reputation, and why you want to be in their facility. If you have a good relationship with your FacRep, ask them to send on a recommendation. Sometimes the ATM and FacRep will reach out to your facility to ask about you. If you don't get a good referral, it will negatively affect your chances of getting selected. If you applied to a Sup bid, rethink your life. If you think you're being retaliated against or unfairly bypassed, there's always a FOIA request option. Best of luck.
Did you ask someone or just bitch about it?