Originally Posted by
BobZ
X.....your problem is not with sick leave 'abuse'. that really is inaccurate language to address what you are insinuating.
use of sick leave is never 'abuse' as it is an earned part of compensation. I don't care if your kid is sick, you are sick, or any other reason a pilot exercises their judgment they should not be at work.
calling in sick, is never 'abuse'.
Your issue is more precisely the suggested use of sick leave to intentionally manipulate a pilots schedule, presumably....and most importantly from our pov....to the detriment and potential abrogation of other pilots seniority rights in the category.
there are solutions far more effective to address this alleged practice than what was arrived at in the ta. the least of which is for management to adequately staff categories so that when a pilot utilizes their earned sick leave it does not create a cascading staffing shortage.
It is highly unlikely the pilot group would have anywhere near the heartburn with well thought out modifications to work rules that address what you are alleging than treating us all like criminals for availing ourselves of a hard earned part of our compensation.
PS...CE.....your formula applied...except for the first year. then you got $1800. period. I can tell you the fedex new hire pay rate in 1987 was what we are paying new hires now.
I disagree strongly with what you are saying. Our sick leave balance is not--NOT--"part of our earned compensation." If that were the case we should all use--SHOULD use--our entire balance every year. But if you had a shred of integrity you would not, unless you truly had a bad year, which statistically should not happen a whole lot.
For whatever strange reason that still eludes me, DAL has always wanted this peculiar sick leave approach where you get a big balance every year, but it doesn't carry over. As I have posted before it is a lot like your car insurance. The insurance companies' models are such that the assumptions are that eventually most use some (fender benders), some use none (great, safe, or lucky drivers) and a few use it all (car is totaled). But no insurance company would last long if every driver used all their insurance up to their limits every year, year after year.
Call in sick--without hesitation--if you are sick and I will go so far as to say if your kid is sick, etc. I get it that some times you shouldn't be flying, even if your own personal health is ok.
You should not be calling in sick to turn a one week vacation into two, or you just feel like it.
I do agree that mgmt has somehow hijacked the issue to their own liking, and has us being defensive from the start. I am not sure that any of that is warranted.