Originally Posted by
down2mins
Oh no, it was not against any regs. Scheduling was very nice about it too, I asked, she checked and said "oh no, that's not right, I'll take it off your line." I offered to do anything else they had at the time and she said nothing was in open time right now. I was just wondering how often pilots take illegal (in the sense of contract, not FARs) assignments a)knowingly and grieve it later b) knowingly because they want to fly and don't care.
One other question as well. If we get an assignment and we're not sure if it's legal, is there a union rep oncall who we can get advice from before we have to report or query scheduling? What does the status rep do?
I believe the only time you can grieve it would be if you accepted it under protest.
If you would have indeed accepted the assignment knowing it was illegal you would not be able to grieve it unless you brought it to the attention of scheduling and a chief pilot and they forced you to fly in anyways.
If you would have accepted it knowing it was illegal and never brought it to anyones attention it sets precedent for the company to argue later grievances with other pilots. So make sure you verify your assignments are FAR legal and contract legal when you accept them or it may screw fellow pilots later.
The Union reps numbers are on the ALPA website and they are very good at accepting and returning your calls quickly. The reps will verify that the assignment is illegal and get it touch with scheduling to remedy the situation. Or get the chief pilot to say on the recorded line that they are forcing you to fly the assignment under protest. Giving you grounds to grieve it later. They will help you through the entire process and most of the time the grieving pilot doesnt even have to show up to any of the meetings.