Originally Posted by sailingfun

Thank you for writing a far more balanced review of the sick leave program then normally appears here. You have basically stated why I am leaning to a no vote.
I will have to disagree with the notion we don't have abuse. I flew with one FO as a example who explained how he exceeds 300k a year. He uses what he termed tactical sick drops to increase GS's. I know another pilot with a full time second job. He sicks out to cover that job. I once had a copilot who just came out of the office and when the RP stated we did not have sick leave abuse laughed so hard I thought he was going to choke! He then proceeded to give example after example. I suggested we fire those guys and he talked about why that is virtually impossible for the company and when they do the abuser almost always gets his job back with back pay. You would think if a pilot only bids turns but every other month over a two year period bid a high time 4 day domestic and sicked out of every one you could terminate him but that's not the case. You would think a pilot who over 5 years had sicked out only on weekends and every single holiday he could not bid off would be fired. Again not the case. I could go on and on.
The real problem is finding a solution that curbs abuse but does not penalize the majority of the pilot group who use the sick leave as intended. The TA falls dramatically short in that regard.