ASA "town hall" prediction

[johnpeace]

Life is sweet compared to the hell that reserve has been the past year

The potential now exists, and will likely come to fruition this summer, where a junior lineholder can bid and award a 70 hr/16 day schedule...then get extended an extra day on each 4 day trip, to wind up working 20 days for (70 + (3.87 * 4) ) hrs credit. That's only 85 hrs. If the min-day credits are paid at 150%, it's 93 hours of pay.

10 days off for 93 hrs pay!? No thanks!

That's if the company agrees to pay min-day at 150% premium...which by my reading of the contract is a little gray. How would you like to get extended to day 5 for 2.2 hrs credit paid at 150%? If only the credit time of the extension (with no min-day protection) is paid at 150% premium...it's even worse).

That's a raw deal. It's not really any better than being on reserve.

 

[crj567]

The potential now exists, and will likely come to fruition this summer, where a junior lineholder can bid and award a 70 hr/16 day schedule...then get extended an extra day on each 4 day trip, to wind up working 20 days for (70 + (3.87 * 4) ) hrs credit. That's only 85 hrs. If the min-day credits are paid at 150%, it's 93 hours of pay.

10 days off for 93 hrs pay!? No thanks!

That's if the company agrees to pay min-day at 150% premium...which by my reading of the contract is a little gray. How would you like to get extended to day 5 for 2.2 hrs credit paid at 150%? If only the credit time of the extension (with no min-day protection) is paid at 150% premium...it's even worse).

That's a raw deal. It's not really any better than being on reserve.

Yep-

And PBS is really just a "delivery system" ain't it... Many people still have no idea the vast potential for abuse in our system.

-We gave away the whole farm, and the one next door on this one.

 

[Max Q]

Coopervane: You must have seen a different group of folks than I. Everyone I have talked with is miserable at the idea of working more for less pay. Agreed on the senior guys not giving a flip about reserves, but I suppose I don't expect them too. I do expect adequate union representation for all parties, which reserves obviously didn't have with PBS. If I pick up a split trip, call in sick for that trip, and it causes the company to owe a reserve pilot min day, the pilot gets min day and the difference is taken out of my paycheck. Tough **** lineholders. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

(BTW: I am one of those lineholders just off 3 years of reserve)

 

[johnpeace]

Yep-

And PBS is really just a "delivery system" ain't it... Many people still have no idea the vast potential for abuse in our system.

-We gave away the whole farm, and the one next door on this one.

I don't think it's the fault of PBS...I see PBS as a delivery system.

The problems we're looking at now really are, as a number of people are saying, pairing construction problems. If you got a 68 hr month with 4 4-day trips under line bidding, you'd be no better off. If that's how the pairings were constructed, that's what most of us would get...PBS or not.

The problem here is that the association didn't demand pairing construction or trip rig language to protect us from something like this.

To their credit though...nobody would have believed this would be possible until seeing it.

Now that we know it's possible, we need to insist on contract language that will prevent it from happening in the future.

The big ones are:
- trip rigs
- higher per diem
- higher premium pay for extensions

They're trying to turn the lineholders into ready reserves, to increase their flexibility and cover up their ineptitude. We have to negotiate language that makes it too expensive to do it that way and forces them to competently manage their crew resources...that's the only way they'll be incentivized to put a competent (read: expensive) person in that position.

 

[Freebrd]

They be calling me at the airport and at home. don,t know what they want cause I ain,t home! Lol

 

[Redan]

JohnPeace, I agree although many did see this coming and gave warning. To be fair, there were those who stoically pointed out the shortcomings of the JCBA LOA prior to the vote for these very reasons.

One additional major point should be PAY PROTECTION for RESERVES. This is another item forcing company kicking and screaming, to utilize more efficient practices.

 

[johnpeace]

One additional major point should be PAY PROTECTION for RESERVES. This is another item forcing company kicking and screaming, to utilize more efficient practices.

What would pay protection for reserves include?

As a reserve pilot, I'm presently pay protected by:
- MMG
- min day credit
- min-day credit for unused reserve days if I go over 75 hrs

What are you thinking?

And yeah, my biggest issues for the next contract are that we make it too expensive for crew utilization to be stupid, lazy and inefficient. I want to force them to either do their jobs half competently or pay through the nose for it.

 

[Tailwind]

Reserves do NOT have min-day credit if they are given a NMD assignement paring in open time. This is happening more often than you think, and it must stop. But so far, all of our complaints have fallen on deaf ears...

 

[johnpeace]

Reserves do NOT have min-day credit if they are given a NMD assignement paring in open time. This is happening more often than you think, and it must stop. But so far, all of our complaints have fallen on deaf ears...

I can't believe people accept these assignments.

The basic, fundamental reality of our contract and all of the presumptions about employment are that we are compensated for our work.

This practice violates that most fundamental right to be compensated for labor given.

I wouldn't do it and would simply point out that since the assignment credits nothing and gets me no closer to being compensated under the rules of our contract, that I refuse.

I don't see how anyone would be able to fault me for refusing to work for free.

 

[Redan]

"Stupid, lazy and inefficient," exactly the way company likes it. They want to have all the cards in their hand and what we're seeing is pretty much that.

Reserve Pay Protection is the items you mentioned plus credit for trips assigned just like lineholders. Once a trip is assigned, it then becomes similar to an awarded trip in that they can change your schedule but they still owe you the credit value of the trip. For example, a 3 day is assigned worth 18 hours credit. Scheduling can still modify your pairing and reassign you, but you will receive at least the 18 hours credit or the credit value of the reassignment, whichever is higher. IMHO this would tighten up the abusive manipulative practices of Scheduling by forcing them to assign trips logically and reasonably versus the haphazard putting out of one fire after another methods they currently employ.

This item, just like all the other items mentioned previously, are utilized quite successfully at many other airlines. There would be up front costs including more sophisticated software and employees, but the dividends in efficiency outweigh those costs. And frankly, the QOL improvements provided by what we're suggesting result in intangible cost savings that can't be measured by their metrics. I find it difficult to understand how our management simply cannot grasp such basic tenets as: "happy pilots are cheap pilots."