Originally Posted by
tsquare
At DAL, the company will junior man the trips for premium pay. The trips WILL get covered. So you are asking a senior pilot to forego his contractual rights to premium pay and watch that same premium pay go to a junior pilot. IF you are going to go down this road, the contract needs to be modified to say that any flying with pilots on furlough is done at straight pay. Other than that, you cannot tell a senior guy to not exercise his contractual right. If there is no premium pay, there might be a point to do this.. otherwise... uh.. no.
Also note, I am very junior in my category, so I would be the beneficiary of premium pay while being junior manned...
Fire away
[/QUOTE=tsquare;912097]OK.. I am not really wanting to get involved in this discussion.. but I keep getting sucked in.. Do you have any hard proof that it is your campaign that has resulted in the stoppage of furloughs? Not sayin that that isn't the case, but I sense a bit of hyperbole here. I have no clue how things work at UPS, so I am a complete outsider here, but I think you need to be honest about the cause/effect of the campaign...[/QUOTE]
Tsquare,
We were faced with a threat of up to 300 furloughs. Everyone was asked to forgo open time (straight pick up) and JA (x1.5) except the bottom 300 (most in the bottom didn't pick up either). At UPS we traditionally man thin and pilots do (did) pick up a lot on their days off. It's a design I believe that works well for UPS. They don't have to hire as many pilots. I truly believe with the history of pilots here, UPS thought we would pick up excess. They counted on their (250 pilot) management group as well. The management group stepped up to the plate and have been flying to FAR mins at times. The pilot group got fed up and didn't pick up.
I honestly think things could have gotten a lot worse in total number of pilots furloughed had it not been for solidarity. I don't think it's hyperbole. We have a strange assortment of flying as well that I think was underestimated. Take a 12-14 day, around the world tour on a 747-400. Cut the staff down to the bone and take a sick call after the first leg in Hong Kong. It might take 2 or 3 reserve pilots to pick up the rest of it.
I think the bean counters at UPS thought they really could save more and at the same time our upper management types could have hostages going into future negotiations. They didn't get the savings but they now have their hostages.
I don't know how it is at DAL for a JA but there are a few circumstances where we are forced into it but for the most part we can say NO. If you can't at DAL you should at least think about not answering the phone.
I thank the senior guys at UPS. Yes they had a contractual right but most saw through UPS'S games. They've seen it before. We also put it in our contract that if we furloughed that the union would have the right to call for an open time ban.