Originally Posted by
damnyourabbit
"Arbitrarily demand." That's not true at all. The PWA prohibits them from doing a GFB based on the frequency or duration of the occurrences, so it's actually pretty narrow in scope, which is one of the reasons people say things like, "I've only gotten one GFB in my career." With that being true, enhancing the verification requirements are huge, and I hope to see further advancements in 26.
The contract doesn’t place any limitations on the reason for a GFB, other than amount of sick used and frequency of occurrences. About 3 years ago, when GFB use was hitting its highest levels, pilot leaves had a lengthy list of “reasons” to issue a GFB. Sick within a week of a holiday, sick before / after a long period of time off, sick before / after very little time off, sick before / after training, sick before / after vacation, sick after trying to PD a trip (or posting to the swap board), sick after a WS, sick after a GS, sick after a reserve assignment — just to name a few. Virtually any sick call can trigger a contractually valid (in the company’s eyes) reason for a GFB.
They’ve wisely scaled back GFB use since then, but my point stands that as long as we have GFB language in the contract, the company can effectively nullify our lookback / verification requirements (aside from the 50-hour GFB exemption) at any time.