OVERVIEW OF SPANISH CONTROLLERS' SITUATION

...INCLUDING SOME TRUTHS.

First of all, it's fair to state that most of the numbers reported belong to a time which now seems very long extinct. Our previous conditions, however good they may have seemed, were freely negotiated between our union Usca and Aena, our employer. Admittedly overwhelming amounts of overtime were necessary mainly because there is, in Spain as in most countries around the world, an extreme shortage of air traffic controllers (ATCO's). The salaries which have been profusely aired by the Spanish Government and Aena's spokespersons belong to that period, before 2009. I don't personally know anyone earning in excess of 900.000 euro, but on my own accounts, to earn such a salary a controller would have had to work a highly improbable more than 450 shifts that year. Admittedly, we did earn a lot (myself over 300.000 € before tax; I am a supervisor in the Madrid Terminal area, therefore on the uppermost rungs of the salary ladder). Many ATCO's decided, nevertheless, not to do any overtime at all and worked the agreed basic workload of 1200 hrs per year.
Almost all public communicators (politicians and Aena's managers) in Spain say 1200 was a very low workload. So just to give you a basic picture of what this means, here are the total number of effective hours per ATCO as have been reported by Eurocontrol for similar countries, corresponding to 2008, the latest year published, -and this includes overtime-: Italy 1506, France 1303, United Kingdom, 1268 and Germany 1123.
(Eurocontrol ATM cost-effectiveness report 2008, page 124, available on the internet: divide total number of working hours between workers).
On the end of the scale is Spain, with an average of 1786 hours per ATCO. Considering many controllers worked 1200 hours or less, many others worked double shifts. Personally I think there could have been a safety issue, but that is another matter. To illustrate how extreme the need was, controllers in Madrid had a basic roster of 16 shifts per month. A further 14 were scheduled as "structural overtime", and further volunteer overtime was done on top of that. It was a time when we were required to do lots of training in order to open new sectors, or runways, as in Madrid. And there was a rush to stage opening acts before elections. Furthermore; if we failed to work then, we would have been accused of interfering with the citizens' right to travel freely. I have copies of the rosters to prove the overtime done.
Our low productivity has also been one of the government's communication milestones: we control fewer aircraft per hour than UK's controllers, they say. True. Spanish airspace has a few peculiarities. Some parts of the upper airspace are obviously not as dense as most of the British airspace. Should we control them or not? If we decide to control them, controllers will be needed, and their productivity will necessarily be lower than their counterparts'. In a similar manner, Spain has a peculiar administration system. The State is divided into 17 Autonomous Communities: some more densely populated than others. Their respective governments support the State Government when required at National Parliament, and "pay back" favours. And they all want to have their own airport, regardless of whether there are passengers to use them reasonably or not. Consequently, some of the network's airports have one flight on alternate days, or around 300 passengers per year.
The previous working conditions were completely overhauled by a Royal Decree Law on 5th February 2010 (which you may find on the State Official Bulletin, Boletín Oficial del Estado www.boe.es ). Firstly, the Spanish Constitution (Carta Magna) clearly specifies that collective bargaining agreements are "specially protected" and should not be subject to regulation via Royal Decree. And the degree of interference in previous agreements has been devastating.
The basic object of the Royal Decree was to establish a new yearly timetable of 1750 basic hours, thus axing overtime altogether. In an imaginative interpretation, the resulting 1750 are payed at the same total price as the previous 1200. With one additional detail: Aena failed to comply with commitments made upon the collective bargaining table, and didn't declare their new pay obligation to CECIR (the Interministerial Retributions Committee) . Therefore, the resulting pay is lower than the previous basic salary, posing problems for controllers to pay their regular monthly bills. Amidst global crisis -particularly bad in Spain- controllers still have a tough time selling off assets to adjust to the new situation. So now the Spanish mass media still say average pay is 200.000 whereas there isn't a single operational controller in Spain earning that amount, even if before taxes data are considered.
Further consequences of the Royal Decree were that many other rights were slashed. On call duties were introduced into the system, and, as even that wasn't enough to cover the demand, COS (Obligatory Service Coverage) shifts were also tossed in. The final result of this is that Spanish ATCO's have no dependable free time. Any day off could be suddenly eliminated. Rosters, previously published 90 days beforehand, were now handed out with just 10 days' previous advice. Vacations, two months instead of being confirmed in October of the previous year. A whole batch of measures devised to make family life planning impossible.
The previous situation included an option of early retirement for controllers over 52 (with 30 years' experience) or 55 years of age (as admitted by ICAO). In The US , 56 is a compulsory retirement age, and in Europe it is between 55 and 60 in many countries. Spain allowed controllers to continue work until 65 if they felt like doing so and passed the compulsory medical checks (which cover eyesight and hearing, but not stress coping or decision making agility). It seemed a reasonable agreement whereby one decided whether he/she was in good order to carry on working. The new Royal Decree cancelled early retirement for everyone. On one hand that made 52 year olds stay. But it also forced unwilling 62 year olds to continue until the age of 65.
In a later regulation, to cover up this tremendous mistake, all 57 year olds and over were declared unoperational, thus leaving certain workplaces, notably the Madrid Terminal Area, deeply understaffed. As a consequence of the whole situation, at least 11 A type airproxes (real collision risk) have been reported in the first half of 2010, compared to only two in the previous year. Controllers have had to increase spacing between aircraft to compensate for the terrible psychological and physical state they are working in.
Realising the new mistake, all 57s and over were requested to return to work six months and a few days' later. After six month's of not making use of their license, hay have to be retrained. Most are still at it.
Professional excellence.
Aena is adamant on the fact that no new air traffic controllers are needed. But in some workplaces (such as Madrid, where I work), most ATCO's have had no refresher, or English, or emergency training whatsoever in the last two years. This is unacceptable in Air Traffic Control. Even new procedures have been imposed under this regime. Some controllers had read circular letters that were dispersed in the operations room; some others hadn't. Different people working with different rules in the same airspace. Why no refreshers? Simply because there's no spare time in the controllers' already overloaded timetables to do anything apart from productive aircraft separation.
There is a privatization operation underlying, and the Spanish State needs to sell off parts of it's Air Navigation Business. So far so good. But in order to do so, they need to destroy any kind of trade unionism, because the ultimate object is to create "low-cost" controllers, for the privatized part. To illustrate this point, all air traffic controllers currently working in Spain are University degree holders who have passed a tough selection process involving several tough psychometric tests plus English interviews and exams. The normal ratio was around 8000 applicants for 200 posts awarded in order to complete a 15 to 18 month course. This seemed a reasonable selection. The current system involves the new applicants paying 45.000 euros for a 22 week course in a private University (check the Senasa webpage). How this will work in the future has still to be seen.
The latest move has been the declaration of the State of Alarm by the Government, conveying the message that they are incapable of negotiation. Many law experts in Spain say that both this new Royal Decree and the subsequent mobilization (militarization) decree are illegal moves. These followed a yet further decree by which some of the few remaining rights were also removed. Amongst them the right to have free leave days for circumstances such as illness, next to kin's illness, maternity, or many others. A new accountancy system establishes a " de facto" workload of almost 2000 yearly hours. No further comments are needed.
The next day I'll explain why so many hours were required and how Air traffic controllers could choose between two conditions: guilty of earning too much money or guilty of blackmailing travelers.

Afer all this, the current situation is a group of 2000 air traffic controllers who are working under the the effects of tranquilizers and sleeping pills. With soldiers behind them. People who start crying with no apparent reason when least expected. Controllers are absolutely knackered and we can't even resort to article 34.4 of the Navigation Law which clearly states that we should refrain from work unless in perfect physical or mental order.
As for Safety? Judge for yourselves.