Originally Posted by
sailingfun
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.
Agree. Obviously, my statement that there is "no" abuse is oversimplified. But we all know that there are far fewer abusers than "20% of the pilot group using 50% of the sick leave," and that this policy isn't designed to catch abusers per se, but rather to dramatically lower the overall rate of sick leave use. (I'm sure the company would be fine if they could set it up so that the people who are abusing the system continue to do so, while everyone else uses zero sick leave. They need staffing relief, and they don't care if they get it from curtailing real abuse or deterring legitimate use. And apparently ALPA doesn't care either.) Of course, just like C2012, the abusers will continue to get away with it, and more and more guys who used to play it straight and narrow decide to maybe use up a little more of their "annual allotment," since they're being treated like children anyway. If we vote this in, I submit that the company will regret it even more than we will, and in 2018 who knows what they'll dream up to "fix" the "problem."
Also, I don't think that the few real abusers are going to be hindered in the least by this TA. (Maybe the dropped rotation counting to FAR limits initially, but with the GS deluge that's brewing, I'd bet they can get one even once they go to the bottom of the pile.) And as you pointed out, hassling the entire group with a policy that probably won't even deter the abusers is insane. If this is costing the company so much, and they want to fix it right, they need to hire private investigators to bust these guys one by one. If they know who they are, sooner or later, they'll be able to catch them with photos or other evidence of not being sick on a sick day. Won't take but a couple people being fired over sick leave abuse, and then whole thing will fix itself.
If I were asked to repair Section 14 in this TA, this is what I would do:
- Eliminate all verification requirements except for a single illness in excess of 14 days (no cumulative 100 hours, no cumulative 14 days). We're all adults here. If you give me the power to screw you over, you might be surprised at how I go out of my way to be a good steward of that responsibility.
- Along those lines, still allow voluntary verification, simply to give a pilot who is seeing a doctor anyway the ability to clearly show his illness is legitimate, and despite the elimination of verification thresholds.
- Allow the company to strengthen "good faith basis" language to make it easier to discipline those who are clearly abusing the sick leave system (defined only as calling in sick when not sick, not by usage or subsequent GS behavior). This could include a list of behaviors that—absent CPO approval—would be grounds for discipline, up to termination, if performed while sick, such as non-revving, operating an aircraft (whether for profit or recreation), working other jobs, activities incompatible with the illness, etc.
- I'm okay with making the dropped rotation count to FAR and/or contractual limits to curtail subsequent GS/WS pick ups. However, I would insist that there be no carve-out to benefit the company after other pilots are exhausted. If they want this provision, they lose the pilot for those hours. They need to weigh whether preventing a sick pilot from picking up flying later in the month that he wouldn't otherwise be legal for is more important to them than being able to cover the trip.
- No medical release except for single illness over 30 days or "good faith basis." Records limited to illness at hand. Records destroyed within 30 days of pilot returning to the line.
Similarly, I think they can fix the OE drop issue by having a WS that overlaps an OE drop pay only for the days not touching the original rotation, while a GS pays single-pay during the original rotation's footprint (and double outside it).
They make these changes (or something similar) and this TA passes, unimpressive as the rest of it remains.