The Furlough grievance is being fast-tracked and is slated for arbitration (AGAIN!) this summer. The company has sand-bagged on this at least twice that I know of now.
23.A.1 requires the company to meet with the MEC "and establish a program for reducing the number of hours in the bid blocks to prevent the furlough."
It is our position (ours=all of us collectively through our union) that the company has not complied with this section of the contract.
This has NOTHING to do with any of the reduceded time programs that have been implemented.
There seems to be some confusion so I'll try my best to explain what a "program for reducing the number of hours in the bid blocks" should have looked like.
I'm WAG'ing the numbers but pre-furlough 1500 pilots averaging say 80 hours=120,000 total pilot hours.
Company comes to union and says we need to cut out 10% of the flying hours and come down to 108,000 hours. (again this is what should have happened...this did not actually happen)
You can do it two ways, you can cut down on pilots so you have 1,350 pilots flying 80 hours=108,000...which is essentially what the company did (that's where the origianl 150-200 furloughed number came from that gs was tossing around last fall...actual reduction is to 1,374).
The other way to do it is to take the 108,000 hours and divide it by 1500 and build the lines to that amount so you get...72 hours. In other words if the company builds all lines to an average of 72 hours then there would have been ZERO furloughs...which is what our contract requires them to do...hence the grievance.
Ironically, in my opinion, had they just reduceded the lines to 72 they would have covered the same amount of flying FOR LESS MONEY because they would have cut the hours of everyone including guys at the MAX of the payscale. Instead they keep the top guys/gals pay the same but cut the bottom lowest paid guys down to zero.
Again...the early outs, reduce bid blocks, or reduce reserve programs do NOT relieve them of their obligations under 23.A.1.
Fly Safe,
