Originally Posted by
sailingfun
You don't understand the grievance process. You are required to attempt to work out the problem with crew scheds and then with your CP. If at that point you feel that a resolution has not been reached you involved the union. If at any point the company agrees with you and fixes the problem you have your grievance is over. You can't continue the process if you have been made whole which is normally the case if you are correct in the first place.
Where the process falls apart and fails is when a union or individual insists on pursuing a grievance that has no merit. If you do this often you poison the well for pilots going through the process in the future. Federal mediators have a memory. They know who wastes their time and yanks their chain. This can come back to truly haunt a pilot group at some point. Think about the next merger because there will be a next one!
Totally disagree with this.
Documenting a pattern of contract abuse, no matter what the issue, is very important in any grievance cases that occur down the road.
Say the company is too slack on running the PCS runs right on time. Starts out as 0700, then 0710, then 0730. Pretty soon, there's no schedule at all.
FINALLY someone decides to grieve it, and naturally the company says "well, what's the problem? You never complained before" (there's no record, because it was "just worked out with scheduling" on an individual basis.
Lo and behold, it goes to arbitration, and the arbitrator agrees with the company position. It was INDEED against the contract, but since we did nothing about it for the months and months (years maybe?), we were giving our tacit approval.
Now what was a totally grievance situation, subject to correction and compensation (or at least a "cease and desist"), becomes "past practice" and is deemed ok, giving the company free reign to do what they want.
Slack enforcement becomes a concession.
It is VERY important to get any potential contract violations in front of the contract admin team. They HAVE to keep a record of this so they know what is becoming a problem.
Is this "toxic" labor relations? No, it's called expecting the other party to hold up their end of the agreement.
Nu