Spain curbs 'millionaire' pay for air traffic controllers (incredible salaries)

Breitbart.com ^ | Feb 5th, 2010 | Breitbart

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

According to figures released by the transport ministry last week, 135 controllers earned more than 600,000 euros (830,000 US dollars) per year while 713 earned between 360,000 and 540,000 euros.

By comparison Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earns just under 92,000 euros a year while the average salary in Spain is just over 18,000 euros per year, according to government figures.

In addition, the controllers can retire at the age of 52.

[Felis_irritable]

Non-military people could be trained from the bottom up.....

The US FAA used to do it this way, they seemed to prefer starting with a tabula rasa so to speak. I don't know how things are presently.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

My reply to all (from my poor fund of personal knowledge ...)

PanAm, Eastern, GM, and a hundred more ............

Hell, I’ll even add the USA air traffic controllers under Reagan ....

See a common pattern? That continues to this day?

I do.

Think about it (not just you but I mean everyone)

Why is this POS sneering Andy Stern such a hot visitor to the WH ?

What does everyone think he and ZERO are doing together?

I know what I think.

[ASOC]

Now, let’s be fair here.

THe ATC guys did HAVE to learn a second language - English. THat should be worth something.

[PushinTin]

Really, where did you work traffic at??

[Mark17]

Time to bring in the Army like Ronnie Reagan and fire them all.

For the most part, though not all, it was the Air Force. I would have deployed to a civilian airport except I was already over seas when it happened. My compensation for 20 years of stress was $761 a month. That was 22 years ago, so it is about $1,600 a month now. Needless to say, when my career was over, I did not want to talk to another airplane ever again. PATCO had extremely poor leadership. I knew 4 former FAA controllers who said they really did not want to strike, but got pressured into it.

[mikrofon]

Zapatero is a shoemaker.

(literally...)

[Mark17]

The job isn't that hard or that stressful.

I worked one of the world's busiest airports, Bien Hoa Air Base, Vietnam, Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, TX, and Travis AFB, CA. Trust me, it was not easy and it was plenty streeful.

[Old Professer]

Curremt pay scale seems to range from $33,700 to $110,000 (2008).

[Mark17]

Is that for US or Spain?

[Mark17]

It was even stressful. :)

[Old Professer]

Sorry, USA FAA

[Felis_irritable]

...it was not easy and it was plenty streeful.

I didn't say it was easy or it wasn't stressful...I wrote it's not that hard or that stressful. I have some very close friends who work it...from their war stories GS-14 sounds about right.

Do you really think the job is worth $500,000 per year? That was my point

[Wuli]

Incredible salaries yes, but, then again, when my plane lands in Madrid, would I care to have it’s Prime Minister filling in for an air traffic controller; and how would that vote come out by the rest of my fellow passengers.

Maybe the question should be - who is more important to us; who should be more important to us; a politician who thinks his job is to fund his form of benevolence with our money, or the people who help keep our very crowded airport runways safe?

Just a little perspective; while not trying to defend any particular salaries of any particular public servants.

[par4]

You can now say that you’ve heard from 5, the leadership made out but the average controller took the brunt of the blame. Of course, my blood pressure was 30 points lower 3 weeks after the strike, but that’s just coincedence.

[Enchante]

I think that the job could be done at the highest levels of performance with people who do not get to set their own compensation at public expense - apparently these Spanish ATCs have been setting their own salaries for the past decade:

"Currently it is the employees who manage and organise this public service," he said, referring to a 1999 agreement which granted air traffic controllers autonomy and control over their salaries.

[Elsie]

Oh, he didn't fire them. They quit.

Not according to HISTORY...

---

The federal dreadnought turned all its big guns on the hapless strikers. PATCO leaders were hauled off to jail for ignoring court injunctions against a strike. The Justice Department proceeded with indictments against 75 controllers. Federal judges levied fines amounting to $1 million a day against the union while the strike lasted. Over 11,000 strikers received their pink slips, while 1,200 went back to work within a week's time. Morale among the strikers was shaky. "I thought Reagan was bluffing," lamented one controller. In October the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO.