Originally Posted by
Dash8widget
So far, much of the focus has been on long call assignments - I was just pointing out that a similar conflict exists for conversion to short call as well. If a pilot elects to use the PWA minimum acknowledgement for assignment to short call, he would never be able to actually sit short call. Or, at the very least, his short call start time would be pushed back a minimum of 9 hours.
A pilot could use this to fine tune their SC periods. Let's say that they assign you a 0400 SC period, and you would rather have a 1000 SC call. Well, just call scheduling at 2400 (well outside the 1 hour PWA minimum) to acknowledge the SC assignment and be sure to remind them that you won't be legal to actually start your short call for at least 10 hours.
I'm happy to see ALPA taking a hard stand on this. The problem is, even if ALPA fights through the whole grievance process on this, there is no guarantee they would win. Though the 117 conflicts don't actually make our contract illegal, they do make it unworkable. There must be some legal precedence already established in case law. I just wonder whom it would favor, the company, or the pilots?
Nothing in 117 makes our contract unworkable. Long call going to 19 hours when, by the company's own admission "most" conversions happen around the 16 hour mark is far from some new unworkable catastrophe. You can still be on short call too, because your "required schedule check" is now, like it always has been, NLT 2am on your first work day, so then plus 10 hours 117 rest, so you can always get a noon short call on day one, and then be notified of additional short calls while on short call, provided you are notified of your 10 or more hour rest period at that point.
Whatever the company loses because of this was not only completely preventable by constructively engaging DALPA for the year+ they knew this was coming. But they waited til the last second and forced a potential crisis by refusing to negotiate and trying to change the contract by memo and putting us on a perpetual 2 hour fantasy leash that doesn't exist and putting the pilots in the position of putting out the company's self induced helmet fire that they got while counting their money and enjoying their 3 year JV balancing window by getting us to hopefully self gut our own contract.
And now in the 11th hour it appears they are basically saying "that's right, and y'all ain't gonna do jack about it neither".
