Originally Posted by
Doug Madsen
OK - let's take them one at a time.
Sick Leave - what did you lose here? The ability to call in sick (a lot) when you're not sick? You didn't lose any sick leave credit hours. You didn't lose the value of pay for using any sick leave. You simply may be required to provide some proof that you're actually eligible to use this benefit. Is that so unreasonable? And what about the improvements in this area? FAA leave, disability bank, improvements to psychiatric benefits. Isn't it quite possible that those improvements exceeded any perceived concession of the sick leave language?
And back to the core issue - so, it doesn't bother you that a local council, despite being briefed extensively on all of the exact costing of the various issues, makes a claim that is no where near reality? While simultaneously ignoring the offsetting improvements in each of these areas?
Next?
I had arranged a long block of time off, and of course got sick for all of it. This just happened to occur when the TA was presented, so I read that part closely. I had a cold that lasted three weeks. I generally fly each week, under current system that would have worked out to about 63 hours sick, just about killing my sick leave balance as a new hire, but not even hitting verification trigger. Handy as I never went to a doc (worst cold of my life, but it was a cold). Under the TA that would have been 20 days sick, right past the trigger and four days from having to sign a med release.
I consider that a loss.
Bigger picture, I'm a privacy guy. I can't really imagine why the company would need any form of access to my medical records. Especially when the verification trigger is so low. The current PWA does allow for a med release, the trigger for which seem more than adequate to allow for investigation of abusers. So why lower the trigger so much? I'll skip the many conspiracy theories, but I personally didn't like it.
As for the 8 percent, I think it was offset somewhat by the concessions. But I didn't really care if it was or wasn't. To ME,
15 was overall a worse contract than 12. And that's how I voted.