Originally Posted by
Nosmo King
Filing a grievance doesn't automatically go to a mediator or an arbitrator. It may not even lead to a formal grievance.
That is why you file it to get the paper trail started and then let the ALPA grievance review board decide whether it has merit or to let it die.
If ALPA decides its without merit, the pilot then has the option to pursue it using his/her own resources.
If ALPA decides it has merit then they can take it to system board, they can talk to the appropriate management for that department, they can wait and see if it continues. IMO a phone call from ALPA Contract Admin is likely to get quicker results than a call from a line pilot saying - You guys screwed me...
Filing a grievance quickly serves a very useful purpose in establishing a history/trend/paper trail that can be used later IF NEEDED. Even if you resolve your problem quickly on your own, you should still document it for others benefit and let ALPA Contract Admin decide what to do with the information.
We had some schedulers that kept lists of pilots that did not know the contract (so they could take advantage of them) and the ones that did know the contract (so they wouldn't have a grievance filed against them).
That eventually led to an automated system on the fNW scheduling computers that would flash (and record) a Scheduling Alert if something was not contractually legal or not legal in FARs. Even then there are things that could not or were not detected by that system, but it went a long way to detecting "trends" by certain schedulers, so it still paid dividends to at least file the grievance and add to the ALPA database..
Pilots would (hopefully) ask if there was an alert on their line when scheduling tried to assign/change something. Those pilots that did NOT know the contract now had a tool to see if they were being screwed. Even if they didn't know the language, all they had to remember was to ask about an alert on their line.
ALPA could get copies of the recorded events on request for enforcement purposes.
I have had four problems with schedulers in 20+ years. Two were resolved by the schedulers, one by the Chief Pilot, and one by Contract Admin. All resulted in double pay.
I am not sure why I should burden the Contract Admin folks with useless paperwork after I got paid in the first three instances. All of your conversations with scheduling are recorded, there is an automatic trail. If you don't trust your Chief Pilot, send an email so there is a paper trail. If you ask Contract Admin, they will tell you they don't really need to hear about every reroute you are given or every time scheduling cuts a corner. Believe it or not, we somehow have managed to work through an outstanding record of enforcing the contract without swamping the CA folks with useless paper trails. If CA needs more paperwork, they will send out an alert asking pilots for it.