Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
You are correct. I do not know how the MEC Admin got itself here. It makes zero sense that the MEC would proceed with a grievance without the agreement of the Committee Chairman & Subject Matter Expert.
Alternative theory - batch
sizes were creating a ton of work for the Scheduling Committee; identifying the missed pilot, verifying the batch size and getting pay treatment for everyone in the batch size. Most of us think there were errors in this process and the company was fighting the pay treatments (ACE it, ACE it, ACE it) A theory making the rounds is that Capt. Kellett agreed with the company that pilot slip abuse broke ARCOS** and fixed it by removing batch sizes. The scheduling committee job just got a lot better by not having to fix this mess.
If there is truth to the alternative theory the MEC Admin & Reps either got rolled or they were in on it. (I don't know and my rep will not tell me)
At the end of the day we know two things for sure:
- This makes life much easier for some ALPA admin
- The pilots gave up a ton of leverage to negotiate something better
** and I do not disagree with this logic, JMHO, but the result is not good.
This makes logical sense, but would go against what I know about SK’s character.
At the end of the day, we could go back and forth about the why’s, but I think we both agree we should have received more. I like the reporting requirements of the settlement, but it’s a small win for a large give up.
IMO, we likely would have lost an arbitration on the company’s current usage of 23.M.7. They would argue that current levels of open time and pilot behavior with blanket slips made increased usage of 23.M.7. the only way to protect the operation. Arbitrators are spring loaded to find any excuse to agree with a “protect the business” argument. However, given how little we got, I would have favored pressing on.