Originally Posted by
Iceberg
First, jaxsurf’s post was inaccurate because silver slips pay 200% not 150%.
Why isn’t volunteering for a green slip a negative as well? Couldn’t the company also “throw a $&it fit,” as jaxsurf put it, if green slip behavior changed? Why is it that VAS are the problem, and at risk of becoming involuntary if anyone bids for them and then down the road the number of volunteers drops?
I see the point from a status quo type of perspective, but it seems to be overblown and being ignored in other instances of voluntary behavior. If they ask for involuntary airport standby, they can be told it is a no-go item by the NC.
You’re correct, I missed the 200% part. I thought I’d read that silver slips paid 150% if they were designated premium in the bid pack (not sure where I read/heard that, but it was before the full language came out).
I’m not mad about silver slips, but I DO want to know WHO asked for them. Us, or the company? Nobody has been able to answer this. If it was the company, I wonder if this is part of an overall strategy to reduce the number of payback days they have to give out.
Silver slips don’t generate payback days. VAS doesn’t generate payback days. If SS and VAS are used in lieu of GS (not saying this is the case, I truly have no idea), then the company has successfully reduced payback days, which allows them to maintain less staffing. And aren’t payback days supposed to be the mechanism which prevents the company from running lean?
Also, the company absolutely WOULD throw a sh*t fit if people stopped picking up green slips. The operation would absolutely fall apart. Are you denying that? Yeah, green slips are voluntary, except we’d be sued by the company if we exercised our right to not pick them up. Sounds super voluntary to me.
As far as VAS goes, again I ask, who wanted this? Us, or the company? If the company wanted it, I do want to know why.
I’m not saying that VAS is part of a grand scheme by the company to get us to one day have involuntary airport standby, but when I juxtapose the voluntary-ness of picking up green slips by the pilot group as a whole with VAS, it doesn’t seem a far stretch to think that someday the same thing could happen with VAS.
At the end of the day, I don’t care about green slips, payback days, silver slips, or VAS. By personal choice (mostly laziness), I don’t pick up white slips or green slips. I manage my finances in such a way that I don’t need or want extra income that comes with being gone even more than I already am. I also don’t care that people can or will pick them up, no sweat off my back.
However, what I DO care about is what the effect on staffing these things have. I wish the company were staffed in such a way that green slips and white slips were a total rarity, because that would mean that we’d have adequate reserve coverage and my schedule flexibility would be increased. As it is, I have almost zero schedule flexibility because reserve staffing is always black (and yes I do understand bad day/worse day).
I’m not saying these things as a reason to vote no on the contract (I’m still undecided, but 95% sure I’ll vote yes), I just want to know WHY these new things are being introduced to the contract. I want to know what impact they’ll have on staffing, because that does affect my life, even if I don’t pick up extra work.
I don’t think these things are bad in and of themselves, or a reason to vote no, but I think it’s important to closely examine the ramifications of adding things to the contract. To go in eyes wide open, as it were.