Originally Posted by
Hoss
Mesa used to (and perhaps still does) absolutely abuse reserves by assigning them to 12 hour ready reserve shifts with eight days off a month. Nice huh?
It's been a while since I was at Mesa (furloughed) but this (the quotation) is old info, but not incorrect. We had 11 days off, per the last contract, and there have been several iterations (and still ongoing) of reserve LOAs to make it less abusive and more contract adherent. Our MEC has been pretty proactive with reserves and before I got furloughed was doing a good job of working for the reserves with PBS and other stuff.
A positive thing about the furlough and downgrades was that a lot of folks who were never touched by furlough policies have been thrown into the grinder and are now more sensitive to how it is to be screwed around by Crew Tracking, I think.
I'm hoping the new contract negotiations we're starting will do more to strengthen the reserve language in the contract and improve QOL as much as it can be improved given the general crappy-ness of reserve life. I'm pretty pleased with what I have read from various MEC communications and talking to my friends still on line that this has been an area that the MEC has taken to heart and been working on improving.
Not to say that management won't mess with it anyhow at their whim, but then that's what happens in AirlineLand, isn't it?