Originally Posted by
GunshipGuy
Scoop,
If as you said, a grievance filed for the scenario you painted would not stand much of a chance of being successful, what's a union or pilot to do? SD has made the company's position clear, and you can pretty much count on getting a call from the CPO as well as getting a PD put on your schedule as a result if you use the contract in a way you're free to do.
My take (tell me where I'm wrong):
So pilot A doesn't acknowledge a trip until 3+30 before sign in and gets a PD put on his schedule--doesn't get paid. How many pilots are going to do this? My guess is not many. DALPAs not going to pay pilots who decide to do it the anti-SD way; there's no point after a day or two when others are falling in line. The company will come down on those who use the PWA to its fullest and pilots will fall in line. Unless DALPA were to make as strong a drive for getting all reserve pilots to wait until 3hr plus > 1 min to acknowledge as they had to get us to vote yes for the TA, there's not going to be enough pressure on the company to come to the table on this issue.
It would appear that the company played hardball on this and won't suffer much. They will probably want to clean this item up in the next round of negotiations and claim they're giving something in return, but in reality you know they're not or they would have given it now. Maybe after a couple of weeks they'll give DALPA a little something after they show them it wasn't all that big of a deal (since we didn't put up much of a fight).
I think the company looked at the data and saw that most pilots acknowledge trips pretty early on. My category typically got them out about 14-15 hours before sign in.
Gunship,
You are not wrong, but I don't think you understand my point. If the company and the union do not come to agreement and they stick with requiring us to acknowledge long call trips within 2 or 3 hours then I think every reserve Pilot should acknowledge within the contractual requirement - if only to force the company to negotiate with the union. If this makes reserve pilots not legally rested for the trip per 117 then too bad for the company.
A company memo does not undue our contract.
If on the other hand, the company assigns long call trips 19 hours out then I think a reasonable Pilot would acknowledge within 9 hours as before 117. To me this is the key - to allow long call Pilots a long call leash. Like I said, the NLT 3 hours wording in our contract is a means to an end. The desired end is a 9 hour response window.
I see the companies interpretation as unworkable and unreasonable, but I also think that Pilots who want to wait until 3 hours prior if they have 19 hours notice are just as unreasonable.
Does anyone really think we would win a grievance if given 19 hours notice prior to reporting and we insist on waiting until 3 hours prior to acknowledging? I realize this is what our contract says, but the change in the law eliminates the option of a 3 hour prior acknowledgement.
The bottom line is that the law has changed. Acknowledging long call assignments in 2 or 3 hours aint gonna cut it - sorry SD.
If the company is willing to work with us and push the assignment of trips further out - say 19 hours, then we should work with them. If they insist on a quick long call acknowledgement then we should comply with our contractual requirements.
Scoop