Originally Posted by
LeineLodge
Just to clarify your point here.
The Sick Leave Monitoring Program was started by the company to try to curb some of the rampant sick use that was going on. It apparently had the desired effect. I had one office guy tell me that they noticed a serous drop in sick calls the month after it went into effect. Guys hated being called by the CPO and it had the desired result of less sick calls. This IMO is not a good thing because it is a (albeit a mild one) form of intimidation to get pilots to not call in sick.
The new verification program, as you call it, allows the company to satisfy their desire to check on guys with "off-the-chart" sick usage. It will only apply to guys that exceed 100 hours of "unverified" sick usage during the year. If you are legitimately sick, then you have absolutely nothing to fear from this program.
If you get the flu and are out for (just for example) 40 hours you don't have to do anything. In this case you still have 60 "unverified" hours left for the year and go on your merry way. If you decide to go to the doctor because you need to, and get a note from the Doc, you can send it to the company and that sick call won't count against your 100 hours, ie you still have 100 "unverified" hours left for the year.
Let's say you get sick frequently but never need to go to the Doctor. When you go over 100 hours for the year, the CPO can call and ask for you to verify your illness. At this point THEY have to pay for you to go to the Doctor and get a note.
Bottom line, this is a non-issue unless you are abusing sick leave. And while I'm not advocating abusing it, the proposed system actually allows 100 hours of "pilot's discretion" sick leave during the year before you have to prove anything. It's an improvement over the current Monitoring Program without question.
Hope that helps.
The NNP stated that the Monitoring Program had been eliminated. Not true, it has been replaced by a verification program.
The CPO can still call you before the 100 hours.
The CPO can still demand to know the nature of your illness. Forget any privacy. There is no privacy in the CPO. It's none of their business.
Don't you just love how DALPA gave away our right to privacy through contract?
There are certain DALPA adminstrators who have a hard on for sick leave abuse. The way they talk about it, you would think they work in the CPO. DALPA needs to quit giving away our right to privacy.
The new verification policy is entirely at the discretion of the CPO. There is nothing hard and fast about it's administration. These are just the sorts of loopholes that can be and have been abused by the Company.