The largest thing when it comes to contract/policy violations is that with a certified union under the NLRB there is a legally defined path to settle disputes and provide restitution.
When a genuine dispute arises between a union and the company it is arbitrated/mediated by a neutral 3rd party. These decisions are legally binding (not always in favor of the union) and are often codified into the contract via MOUs.
The pilot's of SkyWest and SAPA do not participate in this process, because we are not a certified collective bargaining unit. SkyWest pilots are AT WILL employees.
This is the current "grievance" process via SAPA:
1) Pilots fill out a policy grievance on SAPA's broken down, heavily censored, often-hacked, half functioning website, that many pilots can't even access because it isn't updated and been left to decay.
2) After some indeterminate time frame that can be up to several months. The SAPA "president" sits down with management to discuss the policy disputes, and the conversation goes something like this:
SAPA: The policy clearly says XYZ. We interprit the policy on face value to mean XYZ as written.
Management: We don't interpret it that way. We interpret XYZ to actually mean ABC, besides that's what we have done in the past, so that's the way it is.
SAPA: That's not what the policy says, and this is a clear violation.
Management: Well, that's not the way we see it. Sorry. End of discussion. Thanks for coming see you in 6 months. TFAYD.
The results of these policy dispute meetings are occasionally communicated to the pilot group via the broken down, hacked website. However, the vast majority of time the results are never communicated at all. Like all things SAPA related, it's completely on a whim.
When was the last time we had a CSC update? PIC update? Hotel committee update? over a year?
The only updates we've received have been from the "president" blowing smoke up people's buts.
SAPA is a toothless joke, and a sham of an organization funded by the company to give pilots the "illusion" of representation.
Last edited by SMACFUM; 10-17-2017 at 05:00 PM.