Cover Story

The glorious plan to save the hides of all Winnipeg ACC staff was unveiled to representatives of CATCA on January 4, 1999. The working title of this travesty is "Restructuring and Sectorization" with very little substance and detail to back the flimsy ideas set forth within it.
The background to this project, according to GMIO, Duane Clefsted, is the need to improve training success, lower overtime costs, and reduce controller burn-out. Their objectives with this plan is to improve check-out rates by simplifying workload - their goal in the long-run is 105 percent staffing. They are aiming to reduce overtime costs, and lastly on the list is reduce high overtime demands on staff leading to burnout.
The plan is two-fold: an immediate initiative involving optimization of present resources (all sorts of code-words) which will evolve from now until September of this year, and future initiative which will continue through to the year 2001.
The immediate initiative involves the following:

* Initiate restructuring to accomplish High/Low Level Specialties
* Progressive qualifications for High and Low Level (read - Partial Specialty Qualification)
* Amalgamation of low level parent airspace and Tri-TCU operation
* Enhance WG TCU operation
* Review and adjust Unit leave policy for added "efficiencies" (they love that word)
By the end of the 3-year period, they hope to have in place three functions in the ACC: High level, Low level, and TCU specialties.
As far as specific airspace is concerned, their plan is to do the following:
Year 1
* Winnipeg West Low into WG TCU
* Marathon into Tri-TCU
* Waskesiu & Kenora into North Low
* Superior into North High &Trout Lake
Year 2
* Great Plains into Tri-TCU
* Winnipeg East Low into WG TCU
* Low level airspace into Tri-TCU complete
Year 3
* Incorporate Dryden and Falcon Lake into East High
* Incorporate Gimli into West High
The end result of all this is, according to management, a reduction in overtime costs of $11.6 million over 4 years, as well as an increase in trainee success rate to 80 per cent, with a reduction in average check-out length to 7 months. When asked what they are using to justify these numbers, Garry Hollier said that it was a gut-feeling type of thing, that these are ball-park figures. Speaking of ball-park, attached is a chart provided to us to show cross-training costs. The numbers they are using as a basis to determine the costs are quite mind-boggling. 25 days for an Enroute controller to qualify in WG TCU? 10 days for WG TCU controller to qualify in WG East? Judge for yourselves - these numbers seem to be well below what a reasonable person would deem safe.
Most questions posed to management went unanswered during the briefing, save for a few gospels from Mr. Hollier expounding the virtues of this plan. The issue of new ratings on ATC licenses, and the requirement for additional training was something that had yet to be considered, even though the numbers on the attached chart were the ones used to sell this stool sample to the junta in Ottawa. Mr. Clefsted believed that with cooperation from the staff, this plan would work itself out, and any bugs would be dealt with as they arose. He was noticeably silent when queried as to why any staff member should show one shred of cooperation to a management team who insist on treating the employees like children who need constant guidance (see Headset Policy). Lorne Anderson's silence on this issue was also noted, though not remarkably so.
The overall impression taken from this meeting is that the plan, as it is now, is doomed to fail on its own - however, if there were to be a few shoves to ensure its failure, one would hardly be surprised.