Fly the contract. Work to rule. Read the Company's own policies and adhere to them. You'd be surprised the effect it has when pilots stop timing out in November.

“Fly the contract” is a great battle cry except that premium pick ups, non premium pick ups, extensions, etc. are all part of the contract. Instead of everyone beating the, “fly the contract”, drum, maybe we shift our stance to demand ALPA “enforce the contract”. Same beat, slightly different rhythm.......No more fly, THEN grieve. No more grey area, no more rolling over saying, “they’re not gonna accept this grievance”....how can we be asked to “fly” a contract that’s not enforced?

Only applies when we are in “Status Quo”....Which we have not been in since the JCBA arbitration “failure” date. Past practice comes from behavior outside of negotiation periods. Alaska Airlines does it all the time. So can we.
Any pilot at Alaska Airlines that is “helping” at this point is a effing fool, a greedy self-serving slob or too dam dumb to be flying airplanes.

Be careful what you wish for.... lol

I'd be happy if Spirit bought us. The brand is already sh@t, might as well have good work rules.

And you’ll be swinging gear for 2016 hire captains!

I never said anything about slmu; in fact I'm a fan of it because it allows us to adjust our otherwise unadjustable schedule without financial penalty.

The MEC keeps saying that the pilot group is angry. Do you think management is ever going to believe them with the ways things are going? Maybe we should act a little angry and stand up for ourselves once in awhile.

You responded to my rebuttal of Mudhens post that included SLMU amongst the things pilots should avoid in order to achieve an improved contract in 2020. So with your response I assumed you and Mudhen were of like mind. I don’t think SLMU is a negative thing that helps the company. I said exactly the same thing you’re saying now. If used correctly, it’s a great tool and is not a detriment to the pilot group. As far as standing up for ourselves, yes, of course we should. My point is that chanting, “fly the contract”, rings hollow because someone can always point out, that all the things most of us agree are detrimental to the group, ie, pick ups, extensions, premium, etc. are in the contract. Someone picking up premium trips is flying the contract. Someone accepting extensions is flying the contract. I think a more effective measure of standing up for ourselves is having ALPA enforce the contract to the letter. Do you think management is ever going to take the pilot group seriously if our representatives continue to roll over on our current CBA? Things like caving on the lanyards, the mountains of unsettled grievances and now, most recently, not demanding the company pay for our REQUIRED uniforms, are all examples of ALPA not enforcing our contract. You and I are on the same page here and as many have stated, a pilot either understands and abides by the rules favorable to the group as a whole, or doesn’t. While yes, we are the Union and we hold much of our fate in our own hands, I believe at this point the difference maker is going to be STONE COLD REPRESENTATION THAT STOPS GIVING THE COMPANY A BREAK AT OUR EXPENSE. If my union speaks for me, then they’ve been saying a lot lately.

So what is SMLU?

Sick Leave Make Up. Allows you to fly a trip and credit the time to your sick bank instead of getting the pay for it. It’s helpful if you’re short on sick time and maybe won’t get paid for the trip you just called out for. You can grab a trip of ANY length at ANY time during the month and put that time into your bank, ensuring your going to get paid for your original months credit. Maybe you have a surgery coming up and want to pad the sick bank for all the time you’re going to be away from work? There are many uses for it. It’s a great tool and I can’t see how it’s harmful to the pilot group or the fight for a better contract.

Not to rain on your parade, but I would hope you aren't living paycheck to paycheck anymore, so it really should not matter if a trip is paid into checking or your sick bank.

I don't get it, can you expand on this? Say you have a 80 hr line and you call out sick for a 2-day worth 10 hrs. You still get 70 hr regular pay and 10 hr sick bank pay.

Now assuming you have no sick time, SMLU allows you to pick up a 2-day trip to pay into your sick bank? What's the difference between that and just picking up a 10 hr 2-day at just normal rate/normal schedule? You get 70 hrs regular + 0 sick + 10 hr pickup. I guess I'm not seeing the advantage. You're still picking up and flying a trip. Does it matter if it's going into sick bank or regular pay, either way, you're getting paid.

I just think it sounds weird that you can do a trip with the purpose of padding your sick bank. Don't we already get rapid sick re-accrual if you did call in sick? The bank should fill back up quickly right?

Go back two pages and reread what you wrote about no having to spell it out, pilots either get it or they don’t, then read my post very slowly. Let the words soak in. If you still don’t understand, we can discuss in pm.

What’s this got to do with living paycheck to paycheck? It has to do with using our contract to my advantage without negatively affecting the group.

Coming from somebody that doesn’t work work for Alaska... this makes absolutely no sense. The only thing I can attempt to make sense of here is that picking up a SMLU trip helps meet your absurd requirement to credit 70-something hours per month. This wouldn’t be an issue if you didn’t have a minimum credit per month requirement. All of this is quite silly if the choice is between getting paid and crediting your sick bank... what’s the difference?

Welp, if you don’t work for Alaska and this doesn’t affect you, then don’t worry about it. If you did work for Alaska and you knew how to use this particular part of our contract, you’d know how helpful it can be. Has nothing to do with min monthly credit.

SLMU: call in sick for trip that our disasterous contract and MOU won’t allow you to trade or drop.

Pick up anything you want. Check box for sick leave makeup. It will be restored to your “secondary bank”. Secondary only means they don’t have to pay you $.25 on the dollar for that time when you retire.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on retiring with any sick leave if I’m only getting paid for 25% of it.

Dangle gets it. I won’t be retiring with any sick bank either. Shoot, I barely have any now!

Yes, it's a wonderful benefit; 1,800 hours consumed at 100% pay. :D

For us low timers, we don't want to get caught with too little sick time if something goes wrong. SLMU allows us to call in sick and then replace the time if we choose too. I think the magic number that will carry you through until disability kicks in is 200 hours. Once I get that there won't be any more need to use sick leave make up.

For now I can call in sick on a 11 hr three day (yes we have them but only junior people fly them so no one cares) and make it up with a 2 day of my choosing in the next 3 months.

That’s the key, you don’t have to pick it up in the same month. You have 3 months after the sick to make it up.

When you end up not fit to fly(stupid pilot tricks, cancer, whatever) you have to remain on the payroll to get to short term disability. At Alaska it takes around 230hrs of SL to make it. If you drop off the payroll before than your benefits go away. Period. SLMU helps restore your SL balance to that magic number. Thats all

Why 230 hrs?

You need 37.5 to stay active per month. A combination of sick and unused vacation in that year may be used. Our leave experts are great at this. Depending on your financial needs or sick balance, a middle ground can be made by using future vacation and sick combined to get you to LTD. It’s a moving target, I’ve heard anywhere between 180-300 hours to get you to LTD. it depends on how long you’ve been here and your financial threashold.

That is the WAG that flight crew admin puts out. Everyone is different.
Supposedly in that neighborhood you will just make LTD

Wait, so if I burn through almost all my sick time using FMLA for a family illness, i'm SOL for STD or LTD if I get diagnosed with my own illness tomorrow?

I'm on the bus and don't think we're eligible for SLMU yet. The MOU we got says that begins at JCTE cutover.

Go on the pilot website. go to links/resources/forms. scroll down to injury/illness/medical leaves. in there are a bunch of contacts who can lay it out for you

I also was unaware of this... I'll have to look into it further as well because something doesn't seem right with that. Why would they recommend that we pay for the additional 20% STD at $13/paycheck if we are ineligible for it for 4 years due to not enough sick time to make it to STD status.

I’m confused too. Why can’t we just use STD before LTD kicks in?

Call any of the contacts listed on the website. Lay out several scenarios and get answers. Each case is different here at the “most regional west coast regional airline company”.......

Having never in 20 years used any of it and having never bothered to track the changes, my info likely is dated....Best if everyone calls and gets absolute clarity to include the name, position, job title, date, time of call and the persons supervisors name. “Elastic Airways” is famous for bait-and-switch not just with their passengers but mostly with their employees......

This is from the Alaska Airlines Employee Benefit Handbook For Pilots (yes it’s really called that :)

When do benefits begin?
Basic and optional short-term disability benefits begin on the first day of disability if the disability is due to a non- occupational accident and the fourth day when the disability is due to an illness.

Long-term disability benefits can begin after you have been continuously disabled as defined in the Long-Term Disability Plan for six months. You are not required to exhaust sick leave and vacation during the six-month waiting period. If you are receiving paid time off for more than six months after your date of disability, then long-term disability benefits will not begin until after your paid time off is discontinued.

———————-

It also said that Short Term disability is payable for 26 weeks which is about 6 months, so it seems to me that STD will get you to LTD no problem. No clue where the 230 hours of sick time comes from... I imagine some sick time would be beneficial since you have to get diagnose, do tests, etc

EDIT: Looks like for STD you submit the request and they have 7-10 days to respond but can get an extension for an additional 7-10 days if they need more time to investigate. If denied for STD you can appeal and they have 45 days to reply by letter that they have received the claim, however they can extend that by an additional 30 days to respond if workload permits. They then have 30 days to reevaluate the claim and can extend by 30 days if they need....

I think I see why you would want the ~230 hours sick time

I seem to recall them saying you only needed about 30+ hrs to carry you through to the start of STD. Dianne is a wizard at working with us and figuring out the best and most financially responsible way to reach STD and then LTD. they’ll use a combo or vacay time, remaining sick time, and if necessary, reduce pay to 30 something hrs to cover your monthly pay and remain on payroll. The additional 20% at $13 a month ensures you get a higher percentage of your guarantee if you go out on STD. She helped me out a couple of years ago with exactly this scenario. So using SLMU to ensure you have enough SL to carry you through is a very good reason to use it and another reason to strike it from the list of negatively perceived pick ups.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Be safe out there

Happy Thanksgiving! I haven't seen anywhere in the disability section that says you must remain on payroll to receive the benefits. It even says in the LTD section there that you do not need to use vacation or sick time during the 6 month waiting period. I'm just assuming people would want to so that they have some income coming in during this process.

Excellent Sleuthing....

As has been already mentioned, the amount of sick leave needed to get to long-term disability is different for each pilot and is based on many variables. The following is just one example:

Assumptions
-12 year Captain payrate: $259/hr
-75 hours of monthly pay
-Excess disability insurance benefit (Additional 20%): $300 per week
-Maximum Washington State STD benefit (12 weeks): $1,500 per week
-Monthly income: (75*259) = $19,425
-40 days of vacation value cash out: 140 hours
-STD begins 30 days after injury

Month 1: $19,425 (75*259)

Vacation used: 75
Vacation remaining: 65
Sick Leave used: 0

Month 2: $19,425

STD benefit: $6,800
Income shortage: $12,625 ($19,425 - $6,800) or 49 hours of vacation
Vacation used: 49 hours
Vacation remaining: 16
Sick Leave used: 0

Month 3: $19,425

STD benefit: $6,800
Vacation Used: 16
Vacation Value: $4,144
Income shortage: $8,481 ($19,425 - $6,800 -$4,144)
Sick leave used: 33

Month 4: $19,425

STD benefit: $6,800
Sick leave used: 49
Sick leave value: $12,625

Month 5 & 6: $38,850

STD benefit: 0
Sick leave used: 150


Total sick leave needed to last 6 months: 232 hours.

Obviously this is a senior Captain at top of scale with 140 hours of vacation pay, excess STD insurance who desires 75 hours of pay. Those with less accrued vacation or those who wish to be payed up to 85 hours of monthly pay will need more sick leave to make up difference.

YMMV

Look into it further. Only a company like Alaska would ask their employees to think they would need to fly extra to "credit" their sick time bank after they call in sick to be eligible for STD and LTD they already have paid for

Lets get this thread back on tract to SWA buying Alaska!

yes, please
 

^^^^^^^^^^