Originally Posted by
baseball
I understand your position. Here's the thing. The pilots Commander has directed the pilot in question to be available to perform his/her military duty, and has further directed his/her civilian employer to make him/her available if there is a conflict. It's not a "stunt." It's military necessity.
I would love a PEK trip. Sounds mucho productive. I'd be crazy to drop that trip to go hang out at the guard and lose money for a few days. If my unit had me in an upgrade program, or a particular course of training, I would be obliged to perform the military duty.
Some of the Commanders understand PBS and some don't. Some don't care. In the freight dog days of the 90's I had a chief pilot that would assign me trips to intentionally conflict with military duty in an attempt to make me resign my guard job, even though my seniority had me off.
It's a PBS thing. Prior to PBS, military leave was never an issue to the best of my research either at CAL, or UAL. The only reason it's an issue now, is because we have Carmen PBS and it's rule sets and hold over language from the CAL ways and days.
The pilot in question has been at UA for 20 years, so I am guessing that at a minimum he has been in the MIL for 28 years! I am not questioning the legality by USERRA of his MIL drop. I am quite sure that his commander (who may be himself) will provide orders for this duty. I am quite sure that if push came to shove he would be able to document he was on military duty next Monday.
You can call this a "necessity" and by USERRA it would be. That does not make it ethical. If I called my unit and said "hey have you got anything I can do on Monday" and they said "sure." It can be made legal, but I wouldn't call it ethical.
You say you would love a PEK trip, and that is my point with this whole conversation. He didn't have a MIL drop in until he knew he could pick up an even better trip, so it wouldn't cost him any cash, in fact it made him more money in less days worked. Great for him, just unethical by my standards. Yours may differ!
Generally speaking, when a guy or gal puts in MIL I don't even think twice about it. But when it is this in my face, I point it out to show how one bad apple can spoil the bunch.