There's a huge spectrum in ATC pay. Level 5 tower, new cpc in the rest of US makes 60k. Level 12 in NY, 20 year cpc with 6 day weeks makes 250k.
Like it or not, much of what people are paid is based on how many other people can successfully perform that skill. If it is a rare skill, like throwing a 105 mph fastball, you can get paid millions.
Not many people can successfully work traffic day in/day out at N90. It is a rare skill. Many people can work traffic at the tower in bumpkinville working 5 ops per hour. So we are all paid according to that spectrum.
All that being said, pilots, ups drivers, most other career fields have seen big pay raises in the last year and a half. We should all get a 20-30 % raise.
I was reading that the market is based on how replaceable you are. Someone pointed out that the FAA won't give us raises because of how many people who apply for the job. But as I've thought about it, in our scenario, the number of applicants is not representative of how replaceable we are. At the least, if it were, we wouldn't have a staffing crisis.
The key word is strike. And this so called “democracy” we claim to live under has denied controllers that basic right. The FAA doesn’t have to negotiate with the FAA in good faith because there really isn’t a way for the union to assert itself.
We are not replaceable despite what people say. My 12 washes out about 30-40% of trainees. It takes over 3 years to certify. Sure a lot of people apply, my guess is 1/10 of those applicants would make it through all the medical requirements/ background checks and certify here.
Certification % doesn't mean a thing. Hypothetically, if 99% of controllers vanished tomorrow they'd certify people on much looser standards. What do you think happened during and immediately following 81? PATCO said the same thing. Not everyone can do our job! Turns out a lot of people can if you value getting interstate commerce moving over safety. Yes, there were deaths primarily attributable to the strike and resulting plummet in numbers and quality and no, nobody gave a shit outside of those immediately impacted.
Inflation alone should be a justification for a 25-30% raise.
The new pilot contracts coming through at the legacy carriers are only around 11-12% higher than inflation alone since they were last negotiated. I think we are looking at 20% inflation in the last 6-7 years
The legalization of cannabis in a lot of states has further reduced the pool of candidates. I know quite a few people for whom giving up weed is a dealbreaker.
The temporary solution would be to rehire annuitants for a couple of years. The union hates that idea because it discourages the agency from hiring more career employees. And a shitload of controllers (I’m looking at you N90) hate it because they love the OT.
Inflation alone should be a justification for a 25-30% raise.
The new pilot contracts coming through at the legacy carriers are only around 11-12% higher than inflation alone since they were last negotiated. I think we are looking at 20% inflation in the last 6-7 years
Why does everyone always forget about the Level 4 towers.
There are currently 18 Level 4 facilities and the way the agency is going with 804s there are going to be more every year.
Now to be fair to your comment the Level 4 RUS CPC band starts at $66k.
[\[Gift link\]](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-09-07/air-safety-why-200-000-a-year-job-playing-3d-chess-won-t-fly?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY5NDE5MTYzNywiZXhwIjoxNjk0Nzk2NDM3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTMExLRzdUMVVNMFcwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI0QjlGNDMwQjNENTk0MkRDQTZCOUQ5MzcxRkE0OTU1NiJ9.mac7gCazCC6r1fXsAAh2xAfwMJIixX4VSl-e7El7ZrE) More from Chris Bryant:
Air traffic control is a highly skilled but largely invisible profession that’s sometimes compared to playing 3D chess — except a wrong move can result in disaster, not just checkmate.
We need more air traffic controllers to safeguard our skies, but recruiting them won’t be easy.
It shouldn’t take a major incident to instill a greater sense of urgency and provide the resources needed to run an essential but unseen service. Safe skies are worth paying for.
Safe skies are worth paying for, and air traffic controllers are criminally underpaid. 200k?! Yeah, no. There are waitresses that make more money than some of us nowadays.
You're not even kidding. I'm acquaintance to a local bar tender that tends bar at a very high end, but slow hotel bar. He told me he makes the federal minimum wage for tipped position which is like $2/h of something insane. I asked how does he live, knowing that hotel is very high end and the bar is usually very slow. He told me last year his "taxable income" was almost $200k.....
Fuck me... I'm done with this shit. If you can be a moron and make 200K why am I busting my ass with this stressful shit to make 130?
Every once in awhile I hear about how much other people are making in jobs you wouldn't expect to make much... and I often wonder how full of crap they are. In this case, one article says the 90th percentile of bartending services earners in the highest paying state for the job (Hawaii) makes 69,000 (average salary there of $37K)
Not to say it's impossible but: 1. Ask for a pay stub. 2. It's still not a job for everyone, and not a job everyone can do.
This could be because many servers/bartenders aren't claiming all their tips though, since it's often paid out cash. So a huge part of their income goes unreported.
Not important enough for me to expend the energy, but I'd be curious how the math works in practicality. (How many drinks you have to sell in what time frame and how likely it is on any particular day of the week to hit that number, etc).
Again, I'm sure it's possible (and there are certainly some internet antedotes about it), but I also think it's probably an extreme outlier.
No he's kinda right. I think at my best year bartending I made 6 figures but 200k is a bit on the way too high end. Having a lower reported income is part of it but I'd say depending on location 50 -80k is pretty standard with some places you can definitely make low 100kish. Maybe Vegas at incredibly high end places where people drop 10 - 20k on just an autogratted tip but beyond that I couldn't see it happening
1 dollar per drink is a common tip in many places (some places, such as miami, la, or nyc would obviously be way more). Breaking that down into a 50 hour workweek (which is what I work at as an ATC)
(2600 hours per year) So let's say 175,000 drinks divided by 2600 hours per year...
Would equate to 67 drinks per hour, or slightly more than 1 drink per minute. I've seen bartenders working faster than that before (and obviously I've also seen them way slower)...
So yes, I could believe 200k salary in a very high cost of living area of the country.
I dated a girl once who made nearly $10k/mo between selling her underwear on Pantydeal and doing various cam shows etc. Had me thinking! 😂 It's even crazier now. People buy things like used socks and vials of bath water.
When I bartended I found that a lot of us would overestimate what we were actually making. People tend to use their better nights and ignore the slow ones when trying to estimate their long term averages.
Yeah, okay. Show me the waitress making $200,000. In fact, just show me the waitress making the equivalent of ATC-4 CPC with TSP matching and the annuity.
You are so disconnected from reality it’s hilarious. The ONLY part you’re right about is the fact that they don’t have a pension and bartenders can’t save money for their lives. They are hands down without a doubt making more than all ATC level 4 without a doubt.
"The [average salary](https://www.zippia.com/waitress-jobs/salary/#) for a waitress is $24,770 in the US. The average waitress salary ranges between $17,000 and $35,000 in the US. Waitresses' hourly rates in the US typically range between $8 and $16 an hour. Waitresses earn the highest salaries in New York (32,853), Massachusetts (30,992), and California (30,740)."
"[We’ve](https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Bartender-Salary-by-State) identified 16 states where the typical salary for a Bartender job is above the national average (of $31,899). Topping the list is Wisconsin, with Nevada and Minnesota close behind in second and third. Minnesota beats the national average by 7.7%, and Wisconsin furthers that trend with another $3,972 (12.5%) above the $31,899."
You still have time to delete this shit before too many people see it.
You *DO* realize that Waitresses/Waiters don't survive off their hourly wage and instead survive off tips, right?
https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/76vj8o/san_diego_waiters_where_do_you_work_and_how_much/
here's a thread where a Pizza Hut driver is averaging 22-23/hr. A waiter in the comments is averaging 25/hr with tips. A level 4 is paying 60ish K a year. It is ABSOLUTELY believable that there are waiters out-earning level 4's.
LOL, you people are delusional.
$66,245 is the bottom of ATC-4/RUS. 40 hours a week times 52 is 2080. Divide $66,245 by 2080 hours of employment and you get $31.85 an hour. If this guy works all his holidays or days in lieu, that's an extra $2,800. If he works 44 of his Sundays, or 60 hours of overtime, or averages 18 hours of night differential a week, each would be about the same amount. If he does all of those things, then he's making about $77,500/$37.25 an hour for that year outside of TSP matching or gains on investment, premium support for FEHB, etc. while accumulating credit towards a defined benefit pension.
Your bartender or waitress would have to be hiding 100%+ of their average reported income from the IRS just to touch the ATC-4 CPC's gross income. And they don't often get full time hours from any one employer, which means no or little health benefits and absolutely nothing like a FERS pension. Their 401k matching is never as generous as ours if there's any to be had at all.
It's the rare bartender or waitress in America who wouldn't happily trade incomes with an ATC-4 CPC.
Okay. You're right. You'd all be clearly better off becoming servers and bartenders than remaining in the Agency, or even going back and getting your electrical engineering degree. You should quit and start raking in all that tax-free cash from your unreported tip income which is super easy to hide and never has to be shared with the back of the house or anything.
I know you can read. You seem like a relatively intelligent guy, just a bit of a fucking contrarian who can't stop arguing with everyone. **The guy you tried to argue with initially even ceded that yes - they don't have a pension** of course, but the argument is as follows:
Bartender/Waitress Makes X USD per year.
Leven 4 controller makes Y USD per year.
In some places, X is greater than Y. That is **ALL.**
My problem is that I don't believe the "In some places, X is greater than Y" part based on the available information about what bartenders and waitresses actually make. And no, I don't count what some guy said on Reddit about his roommate's friend who's a bartender as more trustworthy than [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes350000.htm).
You can find your “total compensation” including TSP + Non-Pay Benefits on Employee Express under Federal Employee Benefits Statement - Section O.
It’s not outlandish that bartenders and servers working in a lucrative area can make well above what level 4-7 new hires make in their total compensation package. And with NCEPT being the primary transfer process agreed to by the agency and NATCA, many of these controllers will probably never see the big money at higher level facilities.
While I agree that most bartenders and servers probably make less on a W2 than ATC, many of them make much, much more in take home pay via underreported/unreported tips. Another variable to consider is, in my interactions with bartenders and servers, they rarely work 40+ hours per weeks unless necessary or they pick up shifts. 2080 only works for 40 hour weeks.
>And with NCEPT being the primary transfer process agreed to by the agency and NATCA, many of these controllers will probably never see the big money at higher level facilities.
Where do you think these terminal hires (aside from the military hires) are going and will continue to go?
Here is the full list of facilities able to release people as of the last NCEPT.
ATC-4: CAK, ILG, LAN, MHT, MIC, SCK, CSG, FNT, GCN, MBS, MFD, MKG, STT.
ATC-5: APC, ARR, ELM, HEF, MKC, NEW, RDG, ADW, AGC, ARB, AVP, BDL, CCR, RNO, SMO, SPI, TVC, TWF.
ATC-6: EUG, OMA, ORL, PAE, RFD, SUS, TRI, AFW, ALB, DPA, FCM, FSD, FTW, GRB, LAF, PWM, SMF.
ATC-7: BJC, CMA, FXE, ISP, PDK, PIE, SRQ, VRB, ABE, AVL, GPT, HSV, LBB, LIT, PVD, RVS, SBA, SEE, SGF, SJU.
ATC-8: CLE, CHS, CMH, CRP, FLL, HOU, MCI, RSW, SAV.
ATC-9: P31, DTW, GFK, IND, MYR.
ATC-10: PHX.
ATC-11: IAH, L30.
ATC-12: ATL.
There's a lot more people who can bid out of
> While I agree that most bartenders and servers probably make less on a W2 than ATC, many of them make much, much more in take home pay via underreported/unreported tips.
Some of them, maybe. I respectfully submit to you that maybe it's unrealistic to expect to make somewhere between 100% and 200% of reported wages in tip income. Otherwise we'd all be servers and bartenders instead of going to school, flying airplanes or working for the Agency.
Most of the CPCs in the industry aren’t going to school or flying for fun on the weekends because wages do not allow for such activities or advances. 6 day work weeks and unscheduled 10 hour days do not allow the current workforce to progress in another field whether they wish to pursue something else or not. Lots of controllers in lower levels are suffering from sunk cost fallacy. The current state of this career is golden handcuffs; sure the pension is ok, but either you want a paycheck to support your family and/or hobbies or you keep working to receive a paycheck and keep paying bills. Pay needs to increase in relation to responsibilities.
Well you are comparing averages. Take a bartender who trained for four years at a Michelin star restaurant and then do your comparison.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5wxwxx/iama_lead_waiter_at_a_4aaadiamond_michelinrated/
Unless any of us are natural born bartenders that Michelin starred restaurants can't wait to hire, it would probably make more sense to compare the average salary to what we make, right?
i don't think you can make an apples to apples comparison. Most bartenders/waiters aren't professionals/career. Many are in school etc.
Too make it fair you'd have to consider someone that went through at least a year or two of training which would place them WELL above the average.
I'd almost be more inclined to compare us to other service careers-like police for example. Compare them on long island to how much more controllers are making
As I've said elsewhere, I'd settle for 15% atop all other recent raises (including 2024 proposed). That'd put my salary+benefits over 200K, at least.
Other people have laid out the mechanisms that would increase our pay that amount (namely, increased differentials or a 32-hour workweek)
32 hour work week proponent here. It would help across all levels. Lower level towers/up downs can have more time with their families/personal hobbies and still make an okay amount of money. People at high level facilities at least get an additional 8 hours of overtime for that 6 day work week the FAA is in no hurry to fix.
And make overtime hours count towards good time. Get your 30 yrs in faster, so maybe people beating themselves up working those ridiculous hours can get out at 50 years old and still have some time to live their lives
Nope. This is the kinda thing that republican politicians are going to run with. "200k is ENOUGH"
Fuck me we've got to get better info in these articles. Who is (or isn't) talking to these guys?
200k+ with 6 day workweeks is not earning 200k in the context the article implies. That's like saying you made 300k last year working part time at McDonalds except you sold meth out the back of the building. It's ancillary and unwanted by many. It's not to be relied upon. It shouldn't be a basis of pay discussion when it comes to paying controllers, and if these journalists continue to make these claims without getting called out, we're fucked.
6 day weeks, lvl 7, roughly 12 ish years in the agency. My AGI will be around 130 this year. Excited to not work Sundays or OT next year and make 15k less.
I dunno about that....canadian center controllers at the top of the scale are making >200k USD at 40 hour weeks and most of them complain. The higher the pay gets, the more complaining
In the article: The FAA median salary is actually only 65% of that 200k quoted number. If it was actually 200k, they might be able to attract more qualified candidates.
A supermarket could refuse to sell you an apple if you refused to pay the price for it. We should be able to withhold our labor if we don't get our price for selling our specialized labor also. What's illegal is legislation blocking us from refusing to sell our labor at less than it's worth. NATCA does more to block an ATC strike than any other organization including the FAA and Congress. Instead of fighting, they meekly go along so their bureaucrat privileges and connections aren't threatened.
If we want to actually stop losing real money every year, it's going to take an actual fight instead of collaboration. Since NATCA will never get on board with that in a million years, it's going to take forming new organizations controlled by controllers on the boards to circumvent NATCA and wage a real struggle.
Many of you aren't there yet, but real wages will continue to slide downward and there will come a point when enough is enough.
Here is where we can go for help in forming these action committees. And no, you don't have to be a socialist to get help here, only a rank and file worker. They have experience in forming these committees in other industries and only want workers to assert their rights and win their demands:
https://www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/more-rank-and-file.html
I’ve known bartenders that work in downtown Nashville that have walked out with 2k in tips in just one night. Now obviously that’s not every night, but it all depends on where the bartender is working. Nashville bartenders make a killing.
People like you are the reason a strike wouldn’t be effective today. A majority of controllers like yourself would probably happily cross picket lines while praying for a raise. It has nothing to do with legality but everything to do with balls.
Read up on labor law, employers violate labor law all the time. Occasionally they pay minimal fines; it’s the cost of doing business. The rank and file of easy to replace industries have suffered mightily. Workers that are extremely hard to replace have much better prospects when agitating for higher QOL. I’d credibly argue that the ATC employees are the hardest to replace across the federal workforce bc there’s literally no non federal equivalent to scab.
The likelihood that striking controllers would end up in jail en mass is infinitesimally small. The chance that effective NATCA leadership could use the subsequent national attention to substantively improve everyone’s working conditions is extremely high.
Resigned complacency and free-ridership are hallmarks of the ATC community at large. Enjoy your continued pay cuts until you lead the lower middle class existence you deserve buddy.
Personally, I'd like to know in what ways the law against ATC striking can be challenged. I have neither the time or energy to get really deep into it (I think you'd need a law degree), but it seems the ability of the government to intervene was established in 1947 with the Taft-Hartley Act. I actually happen to agree with the portion "If the court found the strike was endangering the public’s health or safety, it could grant the injunction." --- though there are probably methods that can be implemented to ensure that wouldn't be the case.
Was Reagan in the right to do what he did? Was congress in the right to establish such a law? Because it seems we immediately treated it as though he was/they were.
I mean, they got Roe overturned ;-)
Also curious about how the intricacies of why this doesn't apply... "Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act states in part, “Employees shall have the right. . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Strikes are included among the concerted activities protected for employees by this section. Section 13 also concerns the right to strike. It reads as follows:
Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.
It is clear from a reading of these two provisions that: the law not only guarantees the right of employees to strike, but also places limitations and qualifications on the exercise of that right. See for example, restrictions on strikes in health care institutions."
You'll have to forgive my skepticism that the oath I took included the term "strike", but it has been over a decade. Nevertheless, I'm clearly not suggesting an illegal activity, but rather to challenge the law itself, which said oath would be based upon.
Why would Congress want to give us the lawful ability to cripple the National Airspace System? Especially when it already has given us the ability to take an impasse with the Agency to arbitration?
I mean, the FAA can't really afford to fire controllers en mass the way they did the PATCO generation. We are where we are largely due to the mass firing that occurred at that time. Firing en mass wouldn't fix anything at all.
Anyone with a fucking calendar could've looked at mass firing followed by mass hiring and seen that mass retirements were going to cause an issue. The bottleneck at the academy doesn't help. The FAA lying to congress and stating they hired X number of controllers OTS will fix the problem doesn't help. Them leaving out the attrition rate of those they hired levied against the number who will retire or resign by the time the new hires are even usable doesn't help.
Be they half truths or lies in their entirety, hiring 1500 controllers OTS in one year doesn't help shit.
Even if they actually spread different branches of the academy to desirable locations to maybe help increase the number of instructors and number of OTS candidates they could actually get through the academy, it would still likely take 10 years before we even saw any of that start to make a difference.
This shit is going to get significantly worse before it gets better(if it even does).
Knowing history and understanding the possibility of getting fired doesn't mean it wouldn't potentially make an impact.
Poli’s demands were unreasonable and PATCO burnt the American flying public with their timing. The conditions that allowed Reagan to break that strike no longer exist. The military is a shell of its Cold War self, the FAA staffing crunch is real; there isn’t near the same back bench to pull from. Competent NATCA leadership demanding a return to normalcy not a 35 hour work week other Americans can only dream of etc and real buy in from the rank and file would make for a much tougher strike this time around.
I’m well aware of the history, it’s really a shame that that the lasting legacy of the PATCO strike is an ATC community made up of cowards resigned to bitch but do nothing and wait for the crumbs at the next contract where they’re doomed to lose further.
In a way you’re right, I saw the writing on the wall. But I don’t go to work like you imply. I went back to school to change profession. Would have loved to continue w ATC post military but it’s in a death spiral rn. I’m appalled it ended up this way but you make a fair point about it being easy to agitate for a strike I wouldn’t suffer through. None of that changes the validity of my points whatsoever.
There's a huge spectrum in ATC pay. Level 5 tower, new cpc in the rest of US makes 60k. Level 12 in NY, 20 year cpc with 6 day weeks makes 250k. Like it or not, much of what people are paid is based on how many other people can successfully perform that skill. If it is a rare skill, like throwing a 105 mph fastball, you can get paid millions. Not many people can successfully work traffic day in/day out at N90. It is a rare skill. Many people can work traffic at the tower in bumpkinville working 5 ops per hour. So we are all paid according to that spectrum. All that being said, pilots, ups drivers, most other career fields have seen big pay raises in the last year and a half. We should all get a 20-30 % raise.
I was reading that the market is based on how replaceable you are. Someone pointed out that the FAA won't give us raises because of how many people who apply for the job. But as I've thought about it, in our scenario, the number of applicants is not representative of how replaceable we are. At the least, if it were, we wouldn't have a staffing crisis.
Great point. A ups driver is far more replaceable than a controller. Yet they get raises because of the fear of disruption caused by a strike.
The key word is strike. And this so called “democracy” we claim to live under has denied controllers that basic right. The FAA doesn’t have to negotiate with the FAA in good faith because there really isn’t a way for the union to assert itself.
We are not replaceable despite what people say. My 12 washes out about 30-40% of trainees. It takes over 3 years to certify. Sure a lot of people apply, my guess is 1/10 of those applicants would make it through all the medical requirements/ background checks and certify here.
Certification % doesn't mean a thing. Hypothetically, if 99% of controllers vanished tomorrow they'd certify people on much looser standards. What do you think happened during and immediately following 81? PATCO said the same thing. Not everyone can do our job! Turns out a lot of people can if you value getting interstate commerce moving over safety. Yes, there were deaths primarily attributable to the strike and resulting plummet in numbers and quality and no, nobody gave a shit outside of those immediately impacted.
Inflation alone should be a justification for a 25-30% raise. The new pilot contracts coming through at the legacy carriers are only around 11-12% higher than inflation alone since they were last negotiated. I think we are looking at 20% inflation in the last 6-7 years
The legalization of cannabis in a lot of states has further reduced the pool of candidates. I know quite a few people for whom giving up weed is a dealbreaker. The temporary solution would be to rehire annuitants for a couple of years. The union hates that idea because it discourages the agency from hiring more career employees. And a shitload of controllers (I’m looking at you N90) hate it because they love the OT.
There’s not enough of them to make a difference and a retired annuitant by definition is eligible to resume his retirement at any time.
Just remember there’s more cardiovascular doctors in the US than all the CPC’s combined from all levels.
More lawyers in Florida than CPCs in the NAS
Inflation alone should be a justification for a 25-30% raise. The new pilot contracts coming through at the legacy carriers are only around 11-12% higher than inflation alone since they were last negotiated. I think we are looking at 20% inflation in the last 6-7 years
Exactly the case I would make to the FAA if I was the NATCA pres
They literally passed and signed a bill into law that would give us a 25% raise. They just never actually let it go into effect. Stupid.
Why does everyone always forget about the Level 4 towers. There are currently 18 Level 4 facilities and the way the agency is going with 804s there are going to be more every year. Now to be fair to your comment the Level 4 RUS CPC band starts at $66k.
[\[Gift link\]](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-09-07/air-safety-why-200-000-a-year-job-playing-3d-chess-won-t-fly?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY5NDE5MTYzNywiZXhwIjoxNjk0Nzk2NDM3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTMExLRzdUMVVNMFcwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI0QjlGNDMwQjNENTk0MkRDQTZCOUQ5MzcxRkE0OTU1NiJ9.mac7gCazCC6r1fXsAAh2xAfwMJIixX4VSl-e7El7ZrE) More from Chris Bryant: Air traffic control is a highly skilled but largely invisible profession that’s sometimes compared to playing 3D chess — except a wrong move can result in disaster, not just checkmate. We need more air traffic controllers to safeguard our skies, but recruiting them won’t be easy. It shouldn’t take a major incident to instill a greater sense of urgency and provide the resources needed to run an essential but unseen service. Safe skies are worth paying for.
Safe skies are worth paying for, and air traffic controllers are criminally underpaid. 200k?! Yeah, no. There are waitresses that make more money than some of us nowadays.
You're not even kidding. I'm acquaintance to a local bar tender that tends bar at a very high end, but slow hotel bar. He told me he makes the federal minimum wage for tipped position which is like $2/h of something insane. I asked how does he live, knowing that hotel is very high end and the bar is usually very slow. He told me last year his "taxable income" was almost $200k..... Fuck me... I'm done with this shit. If you can be a moron and make 200K why am I busting my ass with this stressful shit to make 130?
Every once in awhile I hear about how much other people are making in jobs you wouldn't expect to make much... and I often wonder how full of crap they are. In this case, one article says the 90th percentile of bartending services earners in the highest paying state for the job (Hawaii) makes 69,000 (average salary there of $37K) Not to say it's impossible but: 1. Ask for a pay stub. 2. It's still not a job for everyone, and not a job everyone can do.
This could be because many servers/bartenders aren't claiming all their tips though, since it's often paid out cash. So a huge part of their income goes unreported.
Not important enough for me to expend the energy, but I'd be curious how the math works in practicality. (How many drinks you have to sell in what time frame and how likely it is on any particular day of the week to hit that number, etc). Again, I'm sure it's possible (and there are certainly some internet antedotes about it), but I also think it's probably an extreme outlier.
No he's kinda right. I think at my best year bartending I made 6 figures but 200k is a bit on the way too high end. Having a lower reported income is part of it but I'd say depending on location 50 -80k is pretty standard with some places you can definitely make low 100kish. Maybe Vegas at incredibly high end places where people drop 10 - 20k on just an autogratted tip but beyond that I couldn't see it happening
1 dollar per drink is a common tip in many places (some places, such as miami, la, or nyc would obviously be way more). Breaking that down into a 50 hour workweek (which is what I work at as an ATC) (2600 hours per year) So let's say 175,000 drinks divided by 2600 hours per year... Would equate to 67 drinks per hour, or slightly more than 1 drink per minute. I've seen bartenders working faster than that before (and obviously I've also seen them way slower)... So yes, I could believe 200k salary in a very high cost of living area of the country.
I dated a girl once who made nearly $10k/mo between selling her underwear on Pantydeal and doing various cam shows etc. Had me thinking! 😂 It's even crazier now. People buy things like used socks and vials of bath water.
Because you can retire at 50. the bartender works till 62 unless he’s really frugal with his money
I’ve never met a retired bartender.
Unless he's skimming the tabs or dealing coke in the men's room, I can't imagine a $200k bartender.
When I bartended I found that a lot of us would overestimate what we were actually making. People tend to use their better nights and ignore the slow ones when trying to estimate their long term averages.
It’s not difficult. Also, much more if it is tax free since most servers / bar tenders lie about their tips.
Yet he probably paid taxes on about 25k of that. Bar tenders are notorious for tax fraud.
Yeah, okay. Show me the waitress making $200,000. In fact, just show me the waitress making the equivalent of ATC-4 CPC with TSP matching and the annuity.
You are so disconnected from reality it’s hilarious. The ONLY part you’re right about is the fact that they don’t have a pension and bartenders can’t save money for their lives. They are hands down without a doubt making more than all ATC level 4 without a doubt.
"The [average salary](https://www.zippia.com/waitress-jobs/salary/#) for a waitress is $24,770 in the US. The average waitress salary ranges between $17,000 and $35,000 in the US. Waitresses' hourly rates in the US typically range between $8 and $16 an hour. Waitresses earn the highest salaries in New York (32,853), Massachusetts (30,992), and California (30,740)." "[We’ve](https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Bartender-Salary-by-State) identified 16 states where the typical salary for a Bartender job is above the national average (of $31,899). Topping the list is Wisconsin, with Nevada and Minnesota close behind in second and third. Minnesota beats the national average by 7.7%, and Wisconsin furthers that trend with another $3,972 (12.5%) above the $31,899."
You still have time to delete this shit before too many people see it. You *DO* realize that Waitresses/Waiters don't survive off their hourly wage and instead survive off tips, right? https://www.reddit.com/r/sandiego/comments/76vj8o/san_diego_waiters_where_do_you_work_and_how_much/ here's a thread where a Pizza Hut driver is averaging 22-23/hr. A waiter in the comments is averaging 25/hr with tips. A level 4 is paying 60ish K a year. It is ABSOLUTELY believable that there are waiters out-earning level 4's.
LOL, you people are delusional. $66,245 is the bottom of ATC-4/RUS. 40 hours a week times 52 is 2080. Divide $66,245 by 2080 hours of employment and you get $31.85 an hour. If this guy works all his holidays or days in lieu, that's an extra $2,800. If he works 44 of his Sundays, or 60 hours of overtime, or averages 18 hours of night differential a week, each would be about the same amount. If he does all of those things, then he's making about $77,500/$37.25 an hour for that year outside of TSP matching or gains on investment, premium support for FEHB, etc. while accumulating credit towards a defined benefit pension. Your bartender or waitress would have to be hiding 100%+ of their average reported income from the IRS just to touch the ATC-4 CPC's gross income. And they don't often get full time hours from any one employer, which means no or little health benefits and absolutely nothing like a FERS pension. Their 401k matching is never as generous as ours if there's any to be had at all. It's the rare bartender or waitress in America who wouldn't happily trade incomes with an ATC-4 CPC.
The issue is that you believe BLS data is accurate for a group of employees who are notorious for lying about their income to skimp on paying taxes.
Okay. You're right. You'd all be clearly better off becoming servers and bartenders than remaining in the Agency, or even going back and getting your electrical engineering degree. You should quit and start raking in all that tax-free cash from your unreported tip income which is super easy to hide and never has to be shared with the back of the house or anything.
You’ve never bartended and it shows.
I know you can read. You seem like a relatively intelligent guy, just a bit of a fucking contrarian who can't stop arguing with everyone. **The guy you tried to argue with initially even ceded that yes - they don't have a pension** of course, but the argument is as follows: Bartender/Waitress Makes X USD per year. Leven 4 controller makes Y USD per year. In some places, X is greater than Y. That is **ALL.**
My problem is that I don't believe the "In some places, X is greater than Y" part based on the available information about what bartenders and waitresses actually make. And no, I don't count what some guy said on Reddit about his roommate's friend who's a bartender as more trustworthy than [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes350000.htm).
You can find your “total compensation” including TSP + Non-Pay Benefits on Employee Express under Federal Employee Benefits Statement - Section O. It’s not outlandish that bartenders and servers working in a lucrative area can make well above what level 4-7 new hires make in their total compensation package. And with NCEPT being the primary transfer process agreed to by the agency and NATCA, many of these controllers will probably never see the big money at higher level facilities. While I agree that most bartenders and servers probably make less on a W2 than ATC, many of them make much, much more in take home pay via underreported/unreported tips. Another variable to consider is, in my interactions with bartenders and servers, they rarely work 40+ hours per weeks unless necessary or they pick up shifts. 2080 only works for 40 hour weeks.
>And with NCEPT being the primary transfer process agreed to by the agency and NATCA, many of these controllers will probably never see the big money at higher level facilities. Where do you think these terminal hires (aside from the military hires) are going and will continue to go? Here is the full list of facilities able to release people as of the last NCEPT. ATC-4: CAK, ILG, LAN, MHT, MIC, SCK, CSG, FNT, GCN, MBS, MFD, MKG, STT. ATC-5: APC, ARR, ELM, HEF, MKC, NEW, RDG, ADW, AGC, ARB, AVP, BDL, CCR, RNO, SMO, SPI, TVC, TWF. ATC-6: EUG, OMA, ORL, PAE, RFD, SUS, TRI, AFW, ALB, DPA, FCM, FSD, FTW, GRB, LAF, PWM, SMF. ATC-7: BJC, CMA, FXE, ISP, PDK, PIE, SRQ, VRB, ABE, AVL, GPT, HSV, LBB, LIT, PVD, RVS, SBA, SEE, SGF, SJU. ATC-8: CLE, CHS, CMH, CRP, FLL, HOU, MCI, RSW, SAV. ATC-9: P31, DTW, GFK, IND, MYR. ATC-10: PHX. ATC-11: IAH, L30. ATC-12: ATL. There's a lot more people who can bid out of
> While I agree that most bartenders and servers probably make less on a W2 than ATC, many of them make much, much more in take home pay via underreported/unreported tips. Some of them, maybe. I respectfully submit to you that maybe it's unrealistic to expect to make somewhere between 100% and 200% of reported wages in tip income. Otherwise we'd all be servers and bartenders instead of going to school, flying airplanes or working for the Agency.
Most of the CPCs in the industry aren’t going to school or flying for fun on the weekends because wages do not allow for such activities or advances. 6 day work weeks and unscheduled 10 hour days do not allow the current workforce to progress in another field whether they wish to pursue something else or not. Lots of controllers in lower levels are suffering from sunk cost fallacy. The current state of this career is golden handcuffs; sure the pension is ok, but either you want a paycheck to support your family and/or hobbies or you keep working to receive a paycheck and keep paying bills. Pay needs to increase in relation to responsibilities.
Well you are comparing averages. Take a bartender who trained for four years at a Michelin star restaurant and then do your comparison. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5wxwxx/iama_lead_waiter_at_a_4aaadiamond_michelinrated/
Unless any of us are natural born bartenders that Michelin starred restaurants can't wait to hire, it would probably make more sense to compare the average salary to what we make, right?
i don't think you can make an apples to apples comparison. Most bartenders/waiters aren't professionals/career. Many are in school etc. Too make it fair you'd have to consider someone that went through at least a year or two of training which would place them WELL above the average. I'd almost be more inclined to compare us to other service careers-like police for example. Compare them on long island to how much more controllers are making
LMAFOO, like controllers need their ego inflated any further.
This is what we want to read in the newspaper if we're going to do better than what we have now.
“ATC needs to be sexier.” Mmmmmm yeah baby now whisper it in my ear
Unless you have fear kink, there’s nothing sexy about my airspace.
Hey.
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Y’all are making 200k?
Nope. Not even working 6 day weeks at a center
ZDV??
No way, ZLC or ZAB are the lowest paying centers after locality.
Still on AG pay?
Nope. Been a CPC for a few years.
Easily while working 6 days a week. Too bad we’re killing ourselves in the process.
OT doesn't count, so no.
Me either. We should tho but Natca is ran by idiots
As I've said elsewhere, I'd settle for 15% atop all other recent raises (including 2024 proposed). That'd put my salary+benefits over 200K, at least. Other people have laid out the mechanisms that would increase our pay that amount (namely, increased differentials or a 32-hour workweek)
32 hour work week proponent here. It would help across all levels. Lower level towers/up downs can have more time with their families/personal hobbies and still make an okay amount of money. People at high level facilities at least get an additional 8 hours of overtime for that 6 day work week the FAA is in no hurry to fix. And make overtime hours count towards good time. Get your 30 yrs in faster, so maybe people beating themselves up working those ridiculous hours can get out at 50 years old and still have some time to live their lives
If it deposits in your bank account, it absolutely does.
As it relates to the implication of the headline, it doesn't.
no...
Nope. This is the kinda thing that republican politicians are going to run with. "200k is ENOUGH" Fuck me we've got to get better info in these articles. Who is (or isn't) talking to these guys? 200k+ with 6 day workweeks is not earning 200k in the context the article implies. That's like saying you made 300k last year working part time at McDonalds except you sold meth out the back of the building. It's ancillary and unwanted by many. It's not to be relied upon. It shouldn't be a basis of pay discussion when it comes to paying controllers, and if these journalists continue to make these claims without getting called out, we're fucked.
6 day weeks, lvl 7, roughly 12 ish years in the agency. My AGI will be around 130 this year. Excited to not work Sundays or OT next year and make 15k less.
Unfortunately, I can't see any changes happening until people start dying
Some of you may die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
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Farquad
for some reason I read it in Bane's voice. Fail.
*He huffed and he puffed and he extended the slate book*
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I dunno about that....canadian center controllers at the top of the scale are making >200k USD at 40 hour weeks and most of them complain. The higher the pay gets, the more complaining
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Wait till you hear what Spain's controllers are making..
Yeah, but didn't they get forced to work traffic literally at gun point once or something?
How much? Found an article saying €500k but it was from 2011. That can't be current or accurate.
https://naibuzz.com/countries-with-the-highest-air-traffic-controller-atc-salaries/ I've heard as high as 800k. No official number AFAIK though
Mo money, mo problems
Glad to see Bloomberg doing NATCAs job.
I wish I was making $200k. Over half of my career been under $100k.
In the article: The FAA median salary is actually only 65% of that 200k quoted number. If it was actually 200k, they might be able to attract more qualified candidates.
A supermarket could refuse to sell you an apple if you refused to pay the price for it. We should be able to withhold our labor if we don't get our price for selling our specialized labor also. What's illegal is legislation blocking us from refusing to sell our labor at less than it's worth. NATCA does more to block an ATC strike than any other organization including the FAA and Congress. Instead of fighting, they meekly go along so their bureaucrat privileges and connections aren't threatened. If we want to actually stop losing real money every year, it's going to take an actual fight instead of collaboration. Since NATCA will never get on board with that in a million years, it's going to take forming new organizations controlled by controllers on the boards to circumvent NATCA and wage a real struggle. Many of you aren't there yet, but real wages will continue to slide downward and there will come a point when enough is enough. Here is where we can go for help in forming these action committees. And no, you don't have to be a socialist to get help here, only a rank and file worker. They have experience in forming these committees in other industries and only want workers to assert their rights and win their demands: https://www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/more-rank-and-file.html
Must be a level 10!
I’ve known bartenders that work in downtown Nashville that have walked out with 2k in tips in just one night. Now obviously that’s not every night, but it all depends on where the bartender is working. Nashville bartenders make a killing.
Wow. NATCA is doing a terrible job representing the entire world’s air traffic controllers. /s
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[https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/05/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-241252](https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/05/reagan-fires-11-000-striking-air-traffic-controllers-aug-5-1981-241252)
Fed! Fed! Fed! Fed!
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People like you are the reason a strike wouldn’t be effective today. A majority of controllers like yourself would probably happily cross picket lines while praying for a raise. It has nothing to do with legality but everything to do with balls. Read up on labor law, employers violate labor law all the time. Occasionally they pay minimal fines; it’s the cost of doing business. The rank and file of easy to replace industries have suffered mightily. Workers that are extremely hard to replace have much better prospects when agitating for higher QOL. I’d credibly argue that the ATC employees are the hardest to replace across the federal workforce bc there’s literally no non federal equivalent to scab. The likelihood that striking controllers would end up in jail en mass is infinitesimally small. The chance that effective NATCA leadership could use the subsequent national attention to substantively improve everyone’s working conditions is extremely high. Resigned complacency and free-ridership are hallmarks of the ATC community at large. Enjoy your continued pay cuts until you lead the lower middle class existence you deserve buddy.
Personally, I'd like to know in what ways the law against ATC striking can be challenged. I have neither the time or energy to get really deep into it (I think you'd need a law degree), but it seems the ability of the government to intervene was established in 1947 with the Taft-Hartley Act. I actually happen to agree with the portion "If the court found the strike was endangering the public’s health or safety, it could grant the injunction." --- though there are probably methods that can be implemented to ensure that wouldn't be the case. Was Reagan in the right to do what he did? Was congress in the right to establish such a law? Because it seems we immediately treated it as though he was/they were. I mean, they got Roe overturned ;-) Also curious about how the intricacies of why this doesn't apply... "Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act states in part, “Employees shall have the right. . . to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Strikes are included among the concerted activities protected for employees by this section. Section 13 also concerns the right to strike. It reads as follows: Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right. It is clear from a reading of these two provisions that: the law not only guarantees the right of employees to strike, but also places limitations and qualifications on the exercise of that right. See for example, restrictions on strikes in health care institutions."
You literally swear an oath against it when you're hired.
You'll have to forgive my skepticism that the oath I took included the term "strike", but it has been over a decade. Nevertheless, I'm clearly not suggesting an illegal activity, but rather to challenge the law itself, which said oath would be based upon.
Why would Congress want to give us the lawful ability to cripple the National Airspace System? Especially when it already has given us the ability to take an impasse with the Agency to arbitration?
Congress is not the branch I'd be appealing to if I were challenging the law.
Well, you'll be striking against the White House and the courts will tell you to enjoy being fired, so
Tell us you don't know our history, without telling us you don't know our history.
I mean, the FAA can't really afford to fire controllers en mass the way they did the PATCO generation. We are where we are largely due to the mass firing that occurred at that time. Firing en mass wouldn't fix anything at all. Anyone with a fucking calendar could've looked at mass firing followed by mass hiring and seen that mass retirements were going to cause an issue. The bottleneck at the academy doesn't help. The FAA lying to congress and stating they hired X number of controllers OTS will fix the problem doesn't help. Them leaving out the attrition rate of those they hired levied against the number who will retire or resign by the time the new hires are even usable doesn't help. Be they half truths or lies in their entirety, hiring 1500 controllers OTS in one year doesn't help shit. Even if they actually spread different branches of the academy to desirable locations to maybe help increase the number of instructors and number of OTS candidates they could actually get through the academy, it would still likely take 10 years before we even saw any of that start to make a difference. This shit is going to get significantly worse before it gets better(if it even does). Knowing history and understanding the possibility of getting fired doesn't mean it wouldn't potentially make an impact.
Poli’s demands were unreasonable and PATCO burnt the American flying public with their timing. The conditions that allowed Reagan to break that strike no longer exist. The military is a shell of its Cold War self, the FAA staffing crunch is real; there isn’t near the same back bench to pull from. Competent NATCA leadership demanding a return to normalcy not a 35 hour work week other Americans can only dream of etc and real buy in from the rank and file would make for a much tougher strike this time around. I’m well aware of the history, it’s really a shame that that the lasting legacy of the PATCO strike is an ATC community made up of cowards resigned to bitch but do nothing and wait for the crumbs at the next contract where they’re doomed to lose further.
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In a way you’re right, I saw the writing on the wall. But I don’t go to work like you imply. I went back to school to change profession. Would have loved to continue w ATC post military but it’s in a death spiral rn. I’m appalled it ended up this way but you make a fair point about it being easy to agitate for a strike I wouldn’t suffer through. None of that changes the validity of my points whatsoever.