Avg Calendar Day, LOS approved
#231
MIA VC email
Why Will This Time Be Different?
How did APA get here? Why are President Carey and Chief Negotiator Bob Duma so willing to take another “leap of faith” by trusting the company to comply with another partially written and hastily-made agreement, rife with loopholes, soft implementation dates, and superficial analysis? Has the company ever proven trustworthy of complying with our past agreements?
Why, after the decades of sacrifice that our pilot group has made to keep AA afloat, and the record profits AA is making, do we still have to “give in order to receive”? We are no longer in bankruptcy; but apparently, we still have a bankruptcy mentality!
It has been more than three years since the JCBA was agreed upon and yet there are still major portions of the agreement that aren’t implemented, aren’t complied with or violated on a daily basis. A reasonable person must conclude the company has no plans to comply with our agreements at all.
President Carey remarked that he gave away the leverage we had during our “Green December” to “establish the credibility of APA’s negotiating team”. However, in light of our history it should be the company, and not APA, that needed to establish credibility. We could have demanded immediate reciprocation. We could already have LOS. We should have had a professional negotiating team do the bargaining.
The fact is that the company is not motivated to comply with our current agreements because they benefit from NOT complying, while APA hasn’t made it a priority to force compliance. The grievance process, which is meant to force compliance, has become impotent. This agreement further weakens the process by allowing the company to escape binding arbitration regarding those contractual violations. To make matters worse, APA has been effectively operating with only one overworked grievance lawyer, Tricia Kennedy, for much of the past year while the backlog continues to build. Where are President Carey’s priorities?
How hard can it be to automate our pay system or staff Pay Comp correctly so that the hundreds of errors and huge delays we experience are eliminated? “Direct Connect” is merely a band-aid on an already flawed process and doesn’t help to fix the source of the pay errors. Some of our pilots have yet to be paid their 200% for “Green December” flying performed more than a month ago. The multiple manual pay calculations that Pay Comp performs every month should embarrass a Fortune 500 company! The only reason one can conclude the process HASN’T been automated is that the company benefits from the errors, not the pilots. Can anyone really make sense of our paychecks? If you are underpaid would you know it?
How hard can it be for the company to implement simple contractual provisions like 15.J.2.c.(3)(e), that specifies a reserve pilot who signs in before the WOCL and flies more than 2 hours into the WOCL can’t be assigned a RAP for the next calendar day that starts prior to 0600 or a sequence that signs in prior to 0800? We “bought” this provision in the JCBA, have flagged the repeated violation of it, asked for immediate rectification, and received nothing for three years. Why not? The company can’t seem to figure out how to program it while APA has stood by idly and watched!
How hard can it be to give our reserve pilots a “prospective notice” of a 30-hour break BEFORE they take it, thus complying with the letter and spirit of both our contract and FAR 117? This is an area of continued contention between the union and the company and the basis for one of the Presidential grievances we will withdraw if we sign this agreement, thus allowing the company to continue the practice without the threat of punitive actions.
The company still hasn’t implemented many other contractual rights that improve our QOWL and which are contained in the JCBA, and yet President Carey is hell-bent on creating new agreements. For example, commuters living near different bases than their home-base still cannot consistently take advantage of out-of-base pickup IAW 15.L to fly trips near where they live (you guessed it……the company can’t seem to program it). When will the company come to the realization that assigning pilots who WANT to fly is better than forcing trips onto pilots who DON’T WANT TO FLY?
As the time draws near for the vote on our “global settlement (AIP) agreement” and the rhetoric from both sides increases, I would ask that we step back from the debate for a second and ask ourselves; “Is there any indication at all that the company will comply with a new set of rules when they have proven so reluctant to comply with the old set of rules?” I guess that President Carey has learned the company will be more likely to comply with the rules if the company is allowed to unilaterally write them!
Let’s start with the most onerous portion of the agreement; the acquiescence to Crew Scheduling’s made-up rules for scheduling us. Unlike President Carey I have never felt that the statement “They’re doing it to us already” is sufficient grounds to allow the company to KEEP doing it to us. Do you? If President Carey was directing the union to do the job it was chartered to do IAW its objectives, and acting like a bona-fida labor union, it would be fighting tooth and nail to fortify the grievance process and accelerate grievance hearings instead of allowing them to backlog and then trading them away for a fraction of the loss.
Some of those grievances being sold back to the company for 50 cents on the dollar (mine for instance) have been delayed precisely because the pilot filing the grievance has refused to take payment for crew scheduling’s violations on a “no cite, no precedent” basis at the initial hearing level. They have chosen to defer payment on thousands of dollars precisely BECAUSE they want an Arbitrator to hear the grievance and rule that AA not only violated the contract but CAN’T DO IT AGAIN! They want the decision made on a “cite and precedent” basis!
Now President Carey has offered to sell these grievances back to the company at a fraction of what they are worth on a “no cite and no precedent” basis, thus giving the company the "green light" to do it again! His justification is that the grievances might not have succeeded anyway. What kind of message is this signaling to the company? What motivation will the company have to comply with our contract in the future? What message does this send to our pilots who have flagged AA’s non-compliance with our contract, called APA for advice, and been told to “fly it and grieve it”? Will they ever follow APA’s advice again?
Also, what happens if we cannot come to a mutually agreeable solution regarding new Crew Scheduling rules in the timeframe contained in the AIP? Answer; we will continue to operate on Crew Schduling’s playbook until we capitulate, or a new agreement is put in place in the next Section VI. Is that the position we really want to be in? We had better get ready to live with these rules for a long time.
If we vote “yes” on the AIP, what happens to our ability to grieve Crew Scheduling violations contained in the 14 Presidential grievances, for example the company’s repeated failure to provide reserve pilots “prospective notice” of a 30-hour rest break? That grievance (and 13 others just like it) represents hundreds if not thousands of crew scheduling violations that will be withdrawn with prejudice. We won’t be able to grieve them again until some undetermined future date, if at all. Crew Scheduling will have received the ultimate “get out of jail Free” card and be given the “green light” to continue doing this with no further penalties.
Changing our Duty Rigs is an example of APA’s propensity to rush into an agreement without thoroughly examining the issue and thinking through the implications it will have on our Quality of Work Life (QOWL). These changes will have a profound effect on all of our schedules. It will affect every pilot on the seniority list. But let the buyer beware! There are always unintended consequences to every change we make. We need to take a step back and analyze these changes thoroughly BEFORE we agree on them. Only then will it be possible to mitigate any bad effects they may have on our QOWL before we have “buyers remorse”.
It is an over-simplification to state that the Duty Rigs will result in a quality of life improvement for ALL of our pilots. Many will probably spend less time AT work, but more will spend time getting TO work given the increase in long un-commutable trips. Many pilots who have situated themselves close to their home base to minimize their commuting time, and enjoy bidding shorter trips to increase the number of nights they spend at home, coach the kids sports team, or work on other interests, will have to increase the amount of time they spend away from home and on the road. Many of the shorter trips will be turned into 4 and 5-day trips if we don’t put restrictions on the solutions the Optimizer spits out.
It is deceptive to demonstrate how current sequences will pay under the new Duty Rigs, when we know the Optimizer will probably not create these types of sequences in the first place under the new Duty Rigs. Most of the 3-day slash trips will be absorbed into longer trips that work multiple legs on either end and possibly have embedded all-nighters.
Andy Weingram, the scheduling committee member who is featured on the DFW Vice Chairman’s “Straight Talk” video, doesn’t really know what will result from the new Duty Rigs because they were never sufficiently studied! APA has only analyzed ONE WEEK’S worth of scheduling under the new Duty Rigs. Many questions still remain unanswered. Was the test run performed on a high-time flying month like July’s schedule when the number of longer trips increase or on a low time-time month like February? What do the actual sequences look like? Why hasn’t that detailed information been provided to the BOD and the membership so that we can decide if we really want them? Why were the MIA domicile scheduling committee members specifically excluded from witnessing the tests? Why the secrecy over the results of the abbreviated test runs? APA only provided a statistical analysis summarizing the system-wide schedule. We won’t know what the Miami sequences actually look like until we buy them and have to fly them. Are we really willing to take that risk?
Why has the President restricted the committee members who witnessed the tests from discussing the results directly with individual BOD members? This is an intentional effort to control the flow of information, so the BOD and the membership is forced to debate from an informational disadvantage. Andy Weingram professes to know what pilots really want, but the results of the last scheduling survey were never released to the pilots so that WE know what we really want. Let us make that decision for ourselves. We don’t need Andy to tell us.
The new Duty Rigs can probably be negotiated into a “win” for both our QOWL and our paychecks IF they are implemented correctly. Hence, shouldn’t we take a step back and analyze these more thoroughly BEFORE we rush into an agreement? Perhaps it is prudent to put restrictions on the distribution of sequences like Delta’s limitation on the number of 5-day trips. There is no harm in thoroughly looking under the “hood” at this agreement BEFORE we “buy the car”. Remember, under the current agreement, depending on the vacation float, the rigs might not even be implemented until next year.
Another example of APA’s inability to negotiate a beneficial agreement can be found in paragraph D of the agreement. This paragraph penalizes the company for delaying implementation. However, it contains and obvious “poison pill”. Any additional mutually agreed upon changes releases the company from that penalty. For example, imposing restrictions such as Delta’s limit on the number of 5-day trips removes the penalty the company must pay and allows them to push off implementation indefinitely. The prudent course of action is to analyze the rigs more thoroughly and mitigate out the bad parts BEFORE we rush to an agreement. We have already learned the foolishness of allowing the company soft implementation schedules with the JCBA.
As if that wasn’t enough, there is the issue of our long-forgotten LTD pilots. At the beginning of December, the BOD was informed that this AIP would remove some of the onerous bankruptcy provisions we were forced to accept regarding our disabled pilots and contained in letter KK. Specifically, APA would negotiate to remove the “offset provision” which penalizes our disabled pilots by subtracting any social security benefits from their LTD benefits thus further reducing their income while out on disability. President Carey now reports that this item was “traded” for the $1.5 million dollar a month penalty the company will incur if they delay implementation of the Duty Rigs past January of 2019. Given the loophole in paying the penalty associated with implementing the Duty Rigs that already exists in paragraph D, this is probably wasted money and should have been spent improving the lives of our most disadvantaged pilots.
If APA had professionally negotiated this agreement, had thoughtfully considered all of the ramifications of the proposal BEFORE it putting it up for a vote, had avoided another contentious proposal that pits one pilot group against another, and had weighed the proposal against a reasonable expectation of the company’s actions based upon their past behavior, this AIP would have been dead-on-arrival before it ever reached the BOD floor. If our negotiators are unable to reach an acceptable solution, they should follow the advice broadcast out to the membership in the recent Dallas VC’s Blast (at a cost to every APA member); “Saying “No” is easy! Just say “No”! We cannot afford to take another “leap of faith” in the hopes that THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT!
If you are as adamant as I am that APA not allow a further degradation to our scheduling rules, that you won’t tolerate a further reduction in our already abysmal QOWL, that APA has a duty to preserve and fortify the grievance procedure and not trade it away, and that we need to stop “giving to receive”, please help me by Sounding OFF now! Click here; https://www.alliedpilots.org/Services/SoundOff . Only after hearing from an informed membership will the BOD be able to gauge the true temperature of our pilots to give even more than we have given over the last decade.
I have attached a link to a recent Base Blast by the CLT Chairman Bob Frear. https://www.alliedpilots.org/News/ID/5776/ITS-OUR-TURN . I encourage all of you to take the time to read it. It echoes my sentiments and misgivings over this agreement. Please make your make your voices heard.
#233
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2014
Posts: 1,238
APA, caught with their pants down, AGAIN!!!
#234
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2016
Position: 6th place
Posts: 1,826
And thats the way you think of us LUS....just shove a shiff in our backs, why don't you??? Typical LAA...you guys simply don't ever plan ahead and do your homework BEFORE the "culture change" mantra that has come from the company.
APA, caught with their pants down, AGAIN!!!
APA, caught with their pants down, AGAIN!!!
I’m LUS genius.
#235
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Position: MD-11 FO
Posts: 2,180
And thats the way you think of us LUS....just shove a shiff in our backs, why don't you??? Typical LAA...you guys simply don't ever plan ahead and do your homework BEFORE the "culture change" mantra that has come from the company.
APA, caught with their pants down, AGAIN!!!
APA, caught with their pants down, AGAIN!!!
And by new hire, I mean anyone hired after 1989.
#236
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2016
Posts: 400
#237
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2010
Posts: 404
#238
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: May 2014
Posts: 1,681
This is a crap agreement. We have no business giving any concessions in this environment.
#240
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: May 2014
Posts: 1,681
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post