ABX Mega Proffer

[356emain]

It is true DC-9er. The last SO was called yesterday by one of our cheif pilots to confirm he wanted the class. They are all in.

 

[abxaviator]

Obviously a great deal of forethought and consideration went into the initial furlough decision.

 

[GoABX]

Obviously a great deal of forethought and consideration went into the initial furlough decision.

I don't like the idea of going through the motions, especially when it is screwing with peoples lives, BUT to get to the PFEs they had to also take out the SOs. They've rang the warning bell for the PFEs and those who can control their own destinies have chosen not to, as evidenced by many having a lackadaisical attitude toward upgrading. A straight 9F proffer wouldn't have worked, because it would have triggered recall rather than getting PFEs off the panel.


On OPF bans

The argument that money merely flows from the senior to the junior and it is ineffective is just selfish rationalization. If we claim to be members of a union, it is immorale for one man to work extra if it puts another man out of work. Forget about brotherhood, but imagine that the other man was literally your blood brother or father. Would you work two jobs and put your real brother out of work? Yes, I know that furloughee is not really your blood brother, but do you have several sets of morales and ethics you apply differently to different people to suit your purposes??

Can the company work around an open time ban....yes. Does it make things more difficult on them? ...Yes. When we are in negotiations or going head to head with the company we stop doing the favors we that do for them every night.

The OPF rationale is sort of like requesting an interesection takeoff (during negotiations) and then saying well we were going to takeoff some time anyway....I might as well just get out early. No Favors = No Favors....(even if that favor might help yourself too.)

Everyone that sqwawks about lawsuits knows the answer they want and then tries to find the evidence to support it. The lawsuits everyone refers to have 2 things in common: #1) those unions were in 'status quo' and #2) they were taken to court, told to stop, and then it continued.

People, who tout the ineffectivesness of OPF bans, always quote the failure of the ban 10 years ago. That action wore on the company and on the crewmembers. But in the end the only reason it failed was because some senior guys were going to fall out of ranks and no one on the EBoard or SPC had the stones to say "the hell you are" and it was lifted before it collapsed. Poor leadership, not poor strategy.

The solution does lie in a contract amendment that says no OPF with furlough and also protects the hi-5ers. But don't be surprised if it dies on the table.


Extra seats at the schoolhouse

If in fact the company did decide to slide the SOs into class, then they did "the right thing". The union better not say a peep about proffer protocol or seniority.

 

[LarryinTN]

It was the union that convinced the company to publish all of the 767 proffers, to run the DC9 class and to put all four of the F/Os into it. The company was going to just furlough everybody and worry each 767 class one at a time.

 

[GoABX]

LJ

I understand that. It would have been nice if the SOs had just gone direct to class via proffer. But when it didn't shake out that way, the argument could have been made that another proffer had to be posted, rather than telling them when to show up for school.

 

[Spooky 2]

Don't mean to hijack the thread here but how do the Boeing 767 pilots like the IS&S Flat Panel Display. Any issues or delays assoicted with this unit?

Thanks in advance and no we can get back to our normal programing!

 

[freighthound]

If you are going to argue OPF and staffing it is more complex than just to do it or not.

First an OPF ban doesn't even come into play until the amount of OPF days exceeds 125% of the number of hard lines. For those of you who never look at your contract, you just complain about the union, the company, and anyone else who doesn't make your life easier, that comes from the fact the company can assign the bottom 50% of the line holding pilots 2 days of work and the next 25% one day if open time isn't bid. If the level of OPF does not exceed this amount then not bidding OPF is mute because it will be assigned and there is no requirement for the company to give back any days in this case, (under 13 days off rule). All you did in this case was shift OPF around as far as who gets it. Only the OPF above this amount comes into play.

 

[LarryinTN]

We tried the OPF ban back around 1998, or so. Didn't work.

All of the bottom 50% of lineholder were assigned two extra days at regular open flying rates and those above the bottom 50%, but in the bottom 75%, were assigned one day. Next they assigned everybody two junior man days. All of this was assigned before the end of the previous month. Those in the bottom 50% ended up with only 11 days off, those on the 50%-75% range had 12 days off and those in the top 25% were down to 13 days off.

All of that was assigned without generating the need to restore any days off.

Next the company would continue junior manning to assign any remaining open flying. Those additional days would have to be returned within 30 days but then you'd just get junior manned on your return days again.

Guys were being assigned/junior manned for entire blocks of days off. Commuters were getting trips to which they couldn't commute. One guy was up on his roof installing shingles when he got the call. He said he couldn't leave, he had to finish fixing his roof. The company told him to call a contractor to finish the roof on his cell phone as he was driving into work. It was miserable.

Whenever the union has discussed a reduction in OPF in exchange for preventing furloughs the company's method for valuing each furlough was completely out of line with reality.

 

[freighthound]

Excellent, factual post LJ. Before we get rid of OPF let's remember that OPF allows the rest of us to get 14/15 days off a month, while the average productivity is between 17 - 18 days per pilot. This increases the QoL for the group as a whole. I agree the union is for everyone, not just the nifty 50 or the bottom 20. If OPF was contractually abandoned the other 750 or so would be adversly affected. I'm not saying we can't make the system better but you have to look at the system as a whole not just through the eyes of a few people.

 

[penguin22]

Don't mean to hijack the thread here but how do the Boeing 767 pilots like the IS&S Flat Panel Display. Any issues or delays assoicted with this unit?

Haven't flown one yet. The Miami guys have been flying them for a couple months, maybe they'll answer for you. The first one is just now starting to fly out of ILN, I think. So most of us will start seeing it soon.

 

[LarryinTN]

We could have an agreement which allowed the company to withhold a specified amount of open flying from the OPF bid in exchange for each furloughee who was kept employed. The problem is that we haven't been able to agree on a formula. The formula proposed by the company seemed way out of line with the cost of a junior S/O or F/O to us.

I have talked to one MIA 767 FO and he really likes the flat panel conversion. I don't remember any of his specific comments as I'm not a 767 guy so am not that familair with the standard setup.

 

[Spooky 2]

We could have an agreement which allowed the company to withhold a specified amount of open flying from the OPF bid in exchange for each furloughee who was kept employed. The problem is that we haven't been able to agree on a formula. The formula proposed by the company seemed way out of line with the cost of a junior S/O or F/O to us.

I have talked to one MIA 767 FO and he really likes the flat panel conversion. I don't remember any of his specific comments as I'm not a 767 guy so am not that familair with the standard setup.

Thanks for the feedback. We are considering this unit(s) in our airplane and sure would like to talk to the "line pilots" about their experience with it.

 

[LarryinTN]

PM me your email address and I'll give it to the 767 MIA guy I know who's flown them.

 

[erichartmann]

If you are going to argue OPF and staffing it is more complex than just to do it or not.

First an OPF ban doesn't even come into play until the amount of OPF days exceeds 125% of the number of hard lines. For those of you who never look at your contract, you just complain about the union, the company, and anyone else who doesn't make your life easier, that comes from the fact the company can assign the bottom 50% of the line holding pilots 2 days of work and the next 25% one day if open time isn't bid. If the level of OPF does not exceed this amount then not bidding OPF is mute because it will be assigned and there is no requirement for the company to give back any days in this case, (under 13 days off rule). All you did in this case was shift OPF around as far as who gets it. Only the OPF above this amount comes into play.

You are correct, as is LJ-ABX. I am quite familiar with the CBA clause in question. I didn't bother to reply to Booger as it is quite evident from his (or her) posts he (she) has made his (her) mind up about OT and does not wish to be confused by the facts.

In fact, the OT "ban" was tried more than once. It was never sucessful. The union wound up in court at least 3 times over it as I recall. In one of the cases the judge ruled no damages becasue the company managed to cover all the flights and no economic harm could be demonstrated. The judge also indicated damages could be assesed the union if economic harm had been demonstrated.

The APA/AA case was also instructive. The long and short of it is that the judge ruled the union's membership is the union, and it really doesn't matter if the unions leadership (in our case E-board) supports a concerted action to put pressure on management through some sort of job action or not. BTW, any job action is illegal unless the union is released to "self help" under the provisions of the RLA. How, you ask, would the court determine a job action had occured? The company keeps records of how much OT is bid. Any substantial decrease by a large segment of the pilot group would show up right away, and an arguement could certainly be made (again) that this constituted a job action. I believe the judge levied both compensatory and punitive damages against APA in this case, which involved a sickout.

The question is even more complicated than the CBA clause in question, or the EMC provisions. Your true compensation, from management's POV is more than 30% greater than what you see in your paycheck. It includes healthcare costs, insurance costs, vactaion time, sick time, training, and FICA, etc. OT allows the company greater productivity (i.e. more work for the same or lower cost) than hiring additional crewmembers. This in turn allows those who chose not to work OT (or can't get any) higher base salary and more time off. We could take a step backward and eliminate OT, forcing management to hire more crewmembers. I have little doubt (I've worked here long enough to understand how our management sees things) management would seek to zero sum this move by increasing the number of work days and reducing salary.

 

[Clipperskip]

Opf

You are correct, as is LJ-ABX. I am quite familiar with the CBA clause in question. I didn't bother to reply to Booger as it is quite evident from his (or her) posts he (she) has made his (her) mind up about OT and does not wish to be confused by the facts.

In fact, the OT "ban" was tried more than once. It was never sucessful. The union wound up in court at least 3 times over it as I recall. In one of the cases the judge ruled no damages becasue the company managed to cover all the flights and no economic harm could be demonstrated. The judge also indicated damages could be assesed the union if economic harm had been demonstrated.

The APA/AA case was also instructive. The long and short of it is that the judge ruled the union's membership is the union, and it really doesn't matter if the unions leadership (in our case E-board) supports a concerted action to put pressure on management through some sort of job action or not. BTW, any job action is illegal unless the union is released to "self help" under the provisions of the RLA. How, you ask, would the court determine a job action had occured? The company keeps records of how much OT is bid. Any substantial decrease by a large segment of the pilot group would show up right away, and an arguement could certainly be made (again) that this constituted a job action. I believe the judge levied both compensatory and punitive damages against APA in this case, which involved a sickout.

The question is even more complicated than the CBA clause in question, or the EMC provisions. Your true compensation, from management's POV is more than 30% greater than what you see in your paycheck. It includes healthcare costs, insurance costs, vactaion time, sick time, training, and FICA, etc. OT allows the company greater productivity (i.e. more work for the same or lower cost) than hiring additional crewmembers. This in turn allows those who chose not to work OT (or can't get any) higher base salary and more time off. We could take a step backward and eliminate OT, forcing management to hire more crewmembers. I have little doubt (I've worked here long enough to understand how our management sees things) management would seek to zero sum this move by increasing the number of work days and reducing salary.

While I do not disagree with what you are saying Erich, surely you see some advantage to encouraging our pilots to move from the right seat to the left and from DC-9's to B767's. I am one of those pilots that has chosen to fly little or no open flying yet I clearly understand that this choice that I make is an option because of the increased productivity gained from others working on their scheduled days off. That is all well and good but it can be taken too far especially when you have some DC-9 captains making over 300K a year. This limits or discourages upgrades in general. Of course the option for the F/O who now is stuck in the right seat for 14 years is to work his butt off in the right seat for F/O overtime. While he may approximate base captain's pay with all the additional F/O flying, this defeats the whole purpose of "work less and get paid more". If he were allowed a captain's upgrade then he could achieve the same , if not more pay, with less days worked. Unfortunately now that our pilot group is so accustomed to flying all these additional days it could be argued that if the F/O did upgrade that he would want the same amount of overtime as a captain to make even more money. There has to be fair balance somewhere between the two extremes. We should encourage and support future upgrades and yet we should also support the chance for our pilots to have an opportunity to gain additional compensation in exchange for a few of their days off. I know my goal in my aviation career was to upgrade to captain in the largest, most advanced, and best paying aircraft that my company offered. Should we no longer encourage this goal? Perhaps this is an goal that is no longer held by the majority of our pilot group. Maybe it is all about the money!

 

[erichartmann]

Clipperskip, there are limits as to how much OT any pilot can fly. If the company is growing upgrades will continue. If not, then...

The real problem we face is not our OT system, but rather the fact that our company has stagnated due to decisions made by the management of our former owner's in ABF, and is now shrinking due to the decisions of our major customer DHL.

While the 76 has not replaced the 8 on a one for one basis it is clear that some people are going to lose their jobs as the 8 goes away, which it will. Some of the PFE's will never move from the FE seat, and they will go the way of the dodo as the 8 does the same. Others have been comfortable in the FE seat and not wanted to spend the time, money and work needed to move to a window seat. They now face a problem and some of them will not make the transition. This will cause disruption as we work through this process. We faced a similar problem in the early 80's when we transitioned from the mixed small & large aircraft mixed Part 135/121 operation to our present large aircraft only Part 121 operation. In short, we had to many crewmembers for the seats. We must also face the fact that we are parking 9's, and have not added enough 76's to offset that and the parking of the 8's.

Adding additional costs to the airline by restricting OT to keep jobs is not the answer. This will make it more difficult for our present management to market us to both DHL and other customers by driving up our costs. Ultimately, this will mean pricing ourselves out of the market, and we will all lose our jobs.

 

[abxaviator]

From Day 1 as a SO, I have understood and appreciated the trade-offs associated with our overtime system. At my previous major arline, reserves got just 10 days off and generally fly every reserve day; vacations were almost universally cancelled by the company and with a guarantee of 80 hours, if one had a 70 hour line, one had to fly 10 hours for free before being paid for additional flying.

Here, we have some of, if not the best hourly rates in the industry and EXTREME schedule flexibilty. As a reserve, I have 40% more days off, and rarely fly more than half the scheduled work days. Then, I have the OPTION to work additional days and get paid for all the additional flying regardless of being below my guarantee or enjoy all the extra time off at my very good base pay. Does this slow my progression along the upgrade path? It is a minor factor among many. Even with the OPF sytem we used to have captain upgrades in 5 years or less, now it is 13-15. The OPF has not changed, the environment has, we are no longer experiencing double digit growth, that is the PRIMARY cause for the stagnation and a radical alteration or even elimination of OPF would do little to change that.

 

[freighthound]

Well said Aviator. The flexibility OPF provides is very important. If through the contract we got rid of all OPF, it would initially creat the need for some more pilots in each seat, since I'm sure the company would not want to replace all OPF with junior man assignments, (for sake of this arguement I'm not addressing any other factors except manning). Once the shake out occurred and the company got their manning levels where they wanted them stagnation would again resume if the operating environment stays the same. Sure some individuals would get upgrades while other individuals would take pay cuts, but more importantly the job security of those at the bottom would be far worse than it is currently. Our flying has varied greatly over the last 2 years. OPF has provided the shock absorber for this. In times of increased flying there is much more OPF available. When flying gets cut back there is much less OPF. The company does not have to hire/furlough to adjust to these changes. Yes the company would hire/furlough if there are long term changes (i.e. the DC-8 going away), but not for adding/losing 5 cities for a two month period. All getting rid of OPF would do is provide a one time increase in upgrades and hiring but then provide a more unstable environment and a more costly work force for the company. The growth of the company is the key to solving upgrade stagnation. Could we have a better system for bidding for OPF, sure, but getting rid of the system is not in the best interest of this pilot group.

 

[Clipperskip]

Opf

Clipperskip, there are limits as to how much OT any pilot can fly. If the company is growing upgrades will continue. If not, then...

The real problem we face is not our OT system, but rather the fact that our company has stagnated due to decisions made by the management of our former owner's in ABF, and is now shrinking due to the decisions of our major customer DHL.

While the 76 has not replaced the 8 on a one for one basis it is clear that some people are going to lose their jobs as the 8 goes away, which it will. Some of the PFE's will never move from the FE seat, and they will go the way of the dodo as the 8 does the same. Others have been comfortable in the FE seat and not wanted to spend the time, money and work needed to move to a window seat. They now face a problem and some of them will not make the transition. This will cause disruption as we work through this process. We faced a similar problem in the early 80's when we transitioned from the mixed small & large aircraft mixed Part 135/121 operation to our present large aircraft only Part 121 operation. In short, we had to many crewmembers for the seats. We must also face the fact that we are parking 9's, and have not added enough 76's to offset that and the parking of the 8's.

Adding additional costs to the airline by restricting OT to keep jobs is not the answer. This will make it more difficult for our present management to market us to both DHL and other customers by driving up our costs. Ultimately, this will mean pricing ourselves out of the market, and we will all lose our jobs.

So how much is enough OPF. 15 days, 14 days, ?? The open flying system has definitely affected upgrades at our airline, of this there is no doubt! Don't get me wrong though, I am not against the OPF system just the way it works here and now. I just think that it needs to done with some thought and perhaps some restraint. Especially, if there appears to be little or no growth in our near future. Let's not forget that this OPF system is relatively new for our company. It started on the contract we voted in in 1992. Before that the system worked differently.

 

[freighthound]

Clipper what do you mean the OPF system is relatively new? 14 years is a long time in an airline that only goes back as far as this one. It's been there for approximately have the time of it's existance.

As far as affecting upgrades, as I stated earlier, it would only affect it one time then we are right back where we are now except now with our hands tied to absorb changes in flight tempo. It is also not so definate that staffing would increase. IF we contracted not to fly OPF the company would surely want our productivity increased so their costs would remain the same. Thanks to the suspension of OPF we would all work 17 days a month to make up the difference. Guess what, no upgrades necessary since the OPF is gone except vacation and sick calls and reserves could cover that. More work days, no overtime, and no upgrades.

Thinking that the company would just absorb the lost productivity is not realistic. We wouldn't accept an increase in productivity without gaining something.

It seems to me you are more concerned with someone getting 15 days OPF while you get none. That is a legitimate topic and can be addressed but it has nothing to do with total days we as a pilot group fly.