Piedmont.... Just Don't Call In Sick!

[ponder]

We were in the crewroom in ORF when somebody came out of the mailbox room with an "atta-boy" letter for not calling in sick for an entire year. He turned to me and asked me if I saw mine.... I hardly called in sick and they assumed I got one.

I replied that I didn't, I had called in sick in Nov. or Dec., I couldn't remember. We started comparing notes and I realized that prior to that I hadn't called in sick in almost two years! Unfortunately it wasn't following a "calendar year" schedule, and my sick call record was actually a lot better.

We are both with other carriers now and fell off the couch laughing at how retarded Piedmont's sick call policy was..... When I left the company I had a ton of sick time left but yet got a nastygram for sick calls that were "too close together" and they "looked suspicious", and was invited to contact headquarters to discuss my options. My friend split from the company with hardly any sick time left in his bank and a big thank you letter for not calling in sick.

Well Duh!

Now I hear that have completely lost their minds and freak out over the smallest sick call/late check-in issues, but I can't confirm it.

Sounds like a great place to work if you don't mind working for pinheads!

 

[Dash8]

thats apparantely the story...

"pilot dependability program"

a draconian, at best, system for beating down the crews to not use they're legally allowed sick time

and i thought alg was messed up.....

 

[FL000]

ASA used to give out no-fee buddy passes (ASA system only) for perfect attendance every six months. I got two during my probation year.

 

[WSurf]

Some pilots at Piedmont like the program! It's a no fault program and you can call in sick up to 7 times a year. Up to four time without a trip to SBY. So before we used to get a call after a total of 10 days of being sick, well now everyone just calls in sick for four 4 day trips (4*4=16 days off).
The only thing I dont like, is if your late too work it counts as one!!! So most people bang in sick if there gonna be late. That sucks if its a day trip or 2 day trip.
You just didn't use your sick time the right way! It's easy to leave here with 0 sick bank.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Sick time. every CEOs pet peeve. They can't stand the fact that a certian employee group can unilaterally decide not to come to work. They don't care about the safety factor........ everyone else comes to work with a sinus infection...even the FAs....why can't the damm pilots!!

Instructions to CPO; Intimidate to the max but don't cross the line. Notice the above post says

"and was invited to contact headquarters to discuss my options"

They can't manadate you come in, but they sure can scare you into coming in.

Also many CPs don't follow the CBA in handling sick calls, which only validates thier strong arm tactics program.

If your sick your sick...

 

[Dash8]

so if they can't "make" you come in, why is it such an issue, why don't y'all just say 'uhm, no, i don't think i will'? if the contract doesn't support their actions, why give in to them?

 

[ponder]

I got's to get a plan-I'm thinkin of a master plan...

Wsurf...

Yes, apparently I didn't know Piedmont's super secret formula to ABSOLUTELY know when the pilots were abusing sick time.

So instead of not calling in sick for almost two years, I shouldn't have got the flu followed by that dental abscess right behind it.... Really bad planning on my part.

So all I had to do to completely ransack my sick bank was evenly space the calls.... And then go play golf, um, with a cold of course (cough cough), and if truly desired one of those "good boy" letters (O GOODY!) you just had to pick a calendar year that you felt healthy, not that it's worth it anyway.

I wish I had known. Doesn't really matter now anyway. I now work at a place were they really don't care. It's nice when you call scheduling with a sick call and they actually end the phone call with a "hope you feel better" remark, and you can guess - yes, my sick bank is relatively untouched at this carrier. The big difference is they don't get anal about sick calls.

 

[rattler]

Legally the company can't do anything about sick calls. Every company has a policy, however it is in direct conflict with the FAR's and therefore cannot be enforced. My company's policy allows you to call in 4 times in a year, before you have to visit the CPO. (4 calls=16 days) On the 5 th the CP will say something like "next time get a Dr.'s note, ok see ya later" On the 6 th time basically the same thing. 7th written warning. 8th probabation. etc. At some point they are suppose to terminate you. I don't think it has or ever will happen. Legally it's too risky for the company. Now combine several sick calls with a miss trip, or some other major F up and your screwed. But sick calls alone no. As a matter of fact, I know of a few guys that are in the teens for the year, and they still have a job. I personally won't go beyond 4 in a year because, I don't even want the CP to know my name. But that's me.

As far as the entire pilot group calling in sick as part of a labor action, that is a whole different story. No you can't do it. AMR pilots did it and the union was sued by managment. Under the RLA there can be no change to status quo untill released by the NMB.

 

[WSurf]

Very true Ponder,

Congrats on moving on! I have always been pissed off at the fact that we neg. our contract to pay us a certain amount of sick time a month! So why in the hell should a company get mad if we us it!!!!!! Isn't it our, not theres! If we have no sick bank, then we dont get paid.
Piedmont gets into a bind because they have no reserve system! They call it reserve (they are flying all the open flying), but how can all your reserve pilots still fly 80-100hrs a month. I flew with a reserve captain that told me out of 3 months she was not used for only one day! WOW! was my reaction! Don't get me wrong, most kinda don't mind because they are getting over 100hrs pay credit, but then its a fatigue issue! Hence the sick calls, because of being overworked.
We get a letter from our CP some time ago,that we as a pilot group have the most sick calls of any other airline. Well if you looked at our block hrs flown, we are one of the hardest worked pilot group in the industry!
Hopefully with all the hiring and upgrades going on it will change!

Or Not

 

[Dash8]

surf,
hopefully with our guys on the property soon, we'll be able to get some of the baloney fixed either in the interim, or when the next contract comes up for neg, especially if we can keep a number of our current mec in office when the mec's merge. we can hopefully get some stuff done, or last couple mecs have really gotten a lot accomplished for us.

we wanted to bring some of our good parts of the contract with us, but you know how that went, they wanted us on your contract cause its slightly more abusive than ours was, but then we don't have the 'big picture'

did you hear the rumor aways back when houk was at salsbury and one of the lackeys(maybe farrow? i dunno for sure) there showed him some huge printout of all the times people logged in late or called in, the toadey was going off about how bad it is there and houk asked "how many of those flights left late because of this?" the lackey responded "well, none really" and houk responded "i don't care about that list"
that was the basic gyst of the convo supposedly

we don't have a log-in setup at alg, we show up and do our jobs, its never really been much of an issue here, this whole signing in and out every day thing is going to be a huge bane for sched. when pretty much none of us will likely remember to do it, i know i won't

 

[OPECJet]

Ah yes... Checking in late.

It's perfectly fine for scheduling to change things around so much that the only thing you actually got from your bid was your days off. Its OK that there are lines that are scheduled with reduced rest. Also OK that out of 10 days off on reserve, you only spent 6 at home since your trips ended after the last flight home, and began before the first flight to work. Perfectly acceptable that you flew 98 hours in a month while on reserve (gotta love those paychecks though...) Even better that your paycheck didn't reflect a few hours here and there, or certain things were trip averaged.

But God Almighty DON'T CHECK IN LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ponder]

When the reserve calls in sick....... That's when the fun begins.

I forgot that Piedmont is pretty retarded when it comes to reserve. The only airline in the universe that the reserve line will end up having more block than a hard line holder.

Of course, with all the junior manning going on, everybody was pretty much on reserve anyway..... Is it still like that?

 

[OPECJet]

Not as bad with the junior manning, at least with FO's. Not sure about CA's.

I'm not sure about the other bases, but if you're based in CLT, you're definately on reserve. The schedulers even joke about it.