Originally Posted by
Rhino Driver
3. Verification of sickness under Section 14 F. 2. is required when:
42 a. a pilot has used more than 100 hours of unverified sick leave in a sick leave year,
43 or
44 b. a pilot has been absent on a single sick occurrence for 15 or more than seven
45 consecutive days.
Section 14 – Sick Leave
14-10
1 4. When individual circumstances exist that give the Company a good faith basis to
2 inquire regarding the medical reason for a pilot’s use of sick leave, such pilot is
3 notmay be required to state the nature of his sickness to Crew Scheduling. He may be
4 required to describe his sicknessillness in general terms to his Chief Pilot. Following
5 such discussion, the Chief Pilot may:
6 a. consider the current sick leave occurrence to be verified, or
7 b. require verification of sickness from the pilot under Section 14 F. 2.
8 Note: Such individual circumstances may not be derived solely from the amount of
9 sick leave used by the pilot or the frequency of his sick occurrences.
10 5. In the event the Company requires a doctor’s certificate for verification, a pilot may
11 submit a reimbursement claim through DBMS for any reasonable expense incurred
12 in obtaining such verification.
I personally don't see all the fuss in this. I would expect that such usage highlighted above would most probably already be seeing a Dr. anyway. In the end, if they're requiring the verification, then it appears DAL still has to reimburse you for the Dr. appointment.
It's tricky, and you are missing the stricken sections such as "verification of sick leave will not normally be required for absences less than 7 days". That is gone for a reason!
This new policy creates two sick "buckets". VERIFIED and UNVERIFIED. If you get sick under the TA, you must consider that if you don't go to the Doctor and get a note for the company, it will now count against your 100 hours of UNVERIFIED sick leave. So you'll want to go get that note because if you don't get it while you're sick, there is no way to recapture that UNVERIFIED leave. And since you will be going on your own initiative, the company doesn't have to pay for the visit.
In addition to and inclusive of the above, if you are out more than 15 days, or 100 hours, or for any "good faith" reason the company wants to invent--(over a holiday, after vacation week, etc...) the company now REQUIRES a doctors certificate... For EVERY OCCURRANCE from a Medical Doctor, and in that case, you'd be reimbursed.
But it also begs the question about other reasons you aren't fit to fly, which I won't get into here, but as we all know we must self certify fit to fly. This new scheme would force you to disclose those reasons, whatever they may be.
To me this is a big change, and this used to be the sort of thing ALPA used to look out for us on. But now the NC claims the SLMP is gone when in fact it's been strengthened. This is not good for the pilots of DL.