Where are the reinstatement rights for those of us that are involuntarily excessed? I hold a 3 part bid status; aircraft, seat and domicile. Now I will be force to another domicile with no recourse back to my rightful 3 part bid unless I bid back. Why?? We excess in reverse seniority order and reinstate in seniority order. It’s that simple. If not, once the economy turns around, I/we can be stuck in another aircraft/ seat/ dom for years as someone senior bids our vacancies.

I called the union and was told I must BID back to Mem. ***??????? They have not even thought about this issue. "Screw ‘em their junior!!!!!" I guess they have been concerned about getting their buddies back up front.

 

Interesting issue....

I think your point is that even senior folks have to typically wait for a "vacancy bid" once they decide to exercise their seniority and seek a different seat --- they can't just tap a guy on the shoulder and tell him to move out.

Listing virtually every seat in this bid with an "Excess" of at least "1" effectively allows this "tap on the shoulder" to happen --- and gives the guys who were "tapped" no rights to keeping that seat in perpetuity, as the normal vacancy process allows.

Hmmmm....

What would stop the company from running such a bid every year...or every few years, just to "adjust" the manning/seniority as they pleased?

One would think the company would be against it due to the training costs, but somehow it appears the company really isn't concerned about training costs today.

...a bit perplexing.

 

guys....35 years and no furloughs...9-10 year widebody captains since i have been hired(95)...WB FOs by the second year(or 1st year)...this is the worst it has been and it all hit at once...and yes, seniority rules around here!

 

Your reinstatement rights only exist if you've had to move to the back due to regulated age requirement, they then change the age without the typical two year comment period in the FAA(thanks GW)., and your good friends with the Bubbas. Did you not read the fine print?

 

Notso,

I agree with you 100%. The only guys with reinstatement rights are over 60. Just ask the over 60 727 SOs. You may call it seniority but I call it BS....

 

I always wondered why the over-60 guys could waltz right into an S/O position without a vacancy bid. I was on the panel of the 727 for two years waiting for a vacancy bid to go to the back of the 10 as the NDs piled right in on their 60th birthday.
The contract says they will be allowed to go if there is a position open that their seniority can hold. If there was a position open for them, then why was there not a vacancy bid for it in the first place. ???

 

There wasn't a position for them. The contract says that there doesn't need to be a vacancy for them, that they just had to be senior to at least one person in that seat. Similarly, this is why the company put all of those excesses of 1 on all of the other seats, so they could reduce the potential overmanning on those seats as folks bid them, in essence, allowing them to push guys out the bottom. Rinse and repeat for each seat.

 

There is another situation where you can go anywhere your seniority can hold, and that's long term disability. After being out on LTD, when one is ready to return to work, he calls flight management and they look at his standing bid. If he's senior enough to hold a particular jet and seat, and there's someone junior to him in that jet/seat, and it's on his standing bid, then a training date is set and he goes immediately back to school (if this is a new jet or seat). The only other requirement is that there has to have been a bid between the time the guy went out and the time he returned. At least that's how I understand the process.

JJ