acaTerry said:
A quote from acaway.com: "Everyone at ACA is of equal importance. The work of the person loading baggage on the ramp is of equal worth to the work of the captain in the cockpit. "
Unfortunately, it seems more in the direction of the Captain being the same worth as a ramper, than a ramper being the same worth as a Captain.....
That's for d*mn sure. I'll tell you from first hand experience that they sure as h*ll don't give the same importance to a ramper than they do the captain.
How so? When you're running the last flight of the day to ORF, and you know the CA is giving you bogus weight restrictions for the J41 and challenge him on that, you can bet the company won't back you. Why bother challenging the CA on that? Um, well, last flight of the night, an overweight loading requires you to call out CSR's and dig out carry-ons (loaded in both compartments in back corners, who knows where the ones you need are located) and multiple checked bags, you're looking at a minimum of a 20 minute delay. I liked to prevent those if I could, made less work for me, the CSR's, and the flight got out on time. You guys have NO idea how much trouble I got into, pretty much just for pissing a captain off.
One of the BIGGEST issues I had with station management is that they do not want anybody to take the time to do the job right, just do what you're told, even if your supervisor doesn't know what he's talking about. Heaven forbid you call somebody on an error or tell them there's a better way to do things, management won't back you.
As far as CA's becoming the same worth as a ramper, I concur. I have no idea how you guys can survive on first year pay -- I did all right, but I had to work 15 hours of overtime each week, and I got paid while you guys were sitting out AR and MW delays. I've seen your first year paychecks, and they were less than mine and you worked longer duty weeks.
And for those that say, "Well the pilots aren't being productive during plane changes, so why should they get paid?" At IAD, the rampers get away with murder. They have so much paid non-work time that it's ridiculous. From the time your flight left and came back, we did not lift a finger. Once you landed, we had to turn the plane and load it, and once those were gone, we sat around doing nothing until the next bank came in.
I guess the point is how you first year guys are supposed to take a pay cut is beyond me.
