Originally Posted by
SailorJerry
I can't believe you see this as inadequate or concessionary. The only time the company has access to this provision is if they believe that there was something going on besides you being sick (i.e. they have enough other proof to hammer you). So lets say that you get caught taking a sickation. The Chief Pilot has a good faith cause to query your sick call usage. He asks you the general terms of your illness, you say you had the sniffles. The Chief Pilot asks for the release and now, you have to go back to your doctor, and tell them you had the sniffles, didn't feel well enough to work, and then felt better. You get a quick physical exam, get signed off as well to work, release your medical records specific to the illness in question. Not your whole record - just the record specific to the sick leave in question.
Then because you happen to have screwed up and incriminated yourself anyway, you get hammered for lying to the company and get fired anyway.
So yes - the company can access your medical records, most likely right before they fire you. Otherwise you can go 100 silent hours where you're actually sick and not say a word to anyone, as long as you behave as if you are too sick to work while you're sick and before you tell them you're ok to work.
Delta has an extremely liberal policy for personal drops. We have no minimum level of work required for a given month that I know of. If there's coverage and you want to PD everything, do it. But that's why the company can get away with not budgeting for 100 hours of free credit for every pilot. They have given you the out to be unproductive, and they expect you to take it based on their expectations of you. If you're WS-ing a trip, then 48 hours later sicking out for it, they have every right to be angry, and to question the sick call (should they choose to investigate it and have proof that you were scamming the system outside a hunch). But - most likely - unless you're a massive trouble maker, they're just gonna ignore it.
So what's the problem? Would you rather have an event based system? Where 5 sick calls in, you're required to submit a sick note for very sick call? Would you rather you just be able to abuse the system? Is that really what this is all about? That you can't game the system to your satisfaction, so you call it inadequate and concessionary? I think that's the issue with a lot of you. "I can't get mine, so it's inadequate or concessionary." Quit whining and eat some bad Chinese if you don't want to work. You're an adult - you know how to make this work.
Every word out of your mouth shows that you have a basic underlying assumption that people using sick leave are not sick. Your going in position, subconscious to every word you type on this, tells me that you think anyone who wants their medical privacy and claims sick, is lying and not really sick. This attitude is absolutely un-empathetic to others who may not be so super-healthy as you. I get sick all the time, and after over 2 decades of going to flight docs every single time there is STILL not a good reason they can give me for why I get sinus infections. Maybe YOU, all high and mighty in your assumption that everyone is all feeling great and anyone using a good bit of sick leave MUST be lying and abusing it, maybe YOU only get sick once every couple years and when you go to the doc it clearly is X, here take these pills you'll be good in 3 days.
Well guess what, not everyone is so lucky to be so arrogantly healthy. Some of us get sick, and it lingers lightly for weeks, and after twenty trips to the doctor for the same symptoms over our life where each time the answer is "no treatment really, drink lots of water and rest up, oh hell here's some cough syrup too, good luck", well we've come to understand that not every actual REAL ILLNESS needs you to visit the doctor. Particularly when it takes 2 days to get an appointment and nothing happens except they look at you like, "***, you again? Weren't you just coughing like this 2 months ago? I couldn't solve it then, what am I gonna do now? Stop wasting my time man!"
Under situations like this, you might evaluate the requirements of the current language with a more skeptical eye.
There is a reason the sick hours are in the hundreds, and it's because many people get sick particularly as they get older or have young kids bringing home germs from school. I'd trade getting routine coughs and sinus problems with you in an instant, even if I had to take being naively arrogant about my youthful health ... though I'd hope not to be so foolish in assuming everyone else had my great good fortune or were scheming liars.
None of the above is any indication of my thoughts on the actual new contract, so pls don't misconstrue... I do think this new verbage is worse than what existed before, mostly for hypothetical antagonistic situations that I think contract language should be evaluated under--for this reason I agree with Purple Drank here. Yeah, I think it is probably workable and ok as is, but will NOT protect in those conceivable extremes (which is when contract language like this really comes into play, so it's pointless to evaluate it under normal "healthy" conditions). My point, SailorJerry, is that you seem to evaluate this intelligently and are eloquent on it... but I perceive a mistaken assumption in your writing that I don't think you even notice.