Cost to furlough
 

I know ALPA has discussed it, and it's been on here from thread to thread, but I have to ask what is the true cost to furlough?

ALPA mentioned that the furloughee would have to be on the street for two years to recoup $$ lost. Why is that?

You would think that if you took a B727 engineer, furloughed him you would only have to have him on the street long enough that his pay and benefits offset his cost to retrain, right?

Looking at the list, the company could furlough the bottom 60 tomorrow, even without having to have an excess bid. Just wondering what I am missing.

And as far as retraining costs go, we own the training building and the flex's doing the training. They are getting paid whether they requal a furloughee or not.

Just trying to figure the true "cost" out.

Thanks

Well, for openers I don't think they could "cut" the bottom 60 off the list. As a B727 S/O, they've called me 3 of the last 4 nights to draft, and 4 nights last month (I politely declined, not wanting to help make myself redundant). If they're short in the back now, it would cause a cascade of training events to cover the seat if they start cutting.

I said it once and I'll say it again......never say never. The economy is showing no signs of life and it's getting worse.

Parking planes could be on the horizon.

However the future is bright (2012) so I gotta wear shades........

I hear what you are putting down.....


But I find it unhelpful to put shades on at 0400L knowing the sunrise is coming soon.

I agree with your observation and can't wait to see the replies you get, but I don't think the company can save any money by furloughing only the bottom 60 or so pilots. Once the company starts furloughing, then they can no longer legally lower our BLGs. With that being said, if there is a furlough then it's going to be significantly larger than 60 pilots. I think that's where the true cost come into the picture as the company has to re-shuffle bodies.

What makes you think so?? I guess "legally" is the word of the day. I think if they do end up furloughing they will keep the blg's the same as they are now and say "don't like it?? Grieve it..." That has been their MO as of late.

What?
 

Go read section 4.A.2.b... Oh, never mind, here it is:

"The minimum bid period guarantee shall be reduced to a minimum of 48/60 CH before any pilot is furloughed. At least a full bid period must follow the announcement of this action. This provision shall only be used to prevent or delay a furlough."

Take the emotion out of this as a mediator would. Where does it say 'lower BLGs equally'? Nowhere, that's where. I'm glad the Association is grieving this based on the intent of this section when it was crafted, but I'm not certain a grievance can be won on intent. According to the CBA as it is written, the Company has not violated one bit of this section. However, this provision is self-limiting. Once one pilot is furloughed, buy-ups for everybody. This section doesn't offer the Company the option of imposing 4.A.2.b to "mitigate" a furlough, only to delay one.

Biotch all you feel necessary about this section, but this is the only thing keeping us all together on property. I, for one, am glad we have it in there.

I don't know why anyone thinks that our BLGs will go up if a furlough. Yes, this is the Union's view. Of course it was also the Union's view that if BLGs were reduced they couldn't be reduced to anything other than 48 (not some arbitrary number between 48-68) and that the reduction would have to be the same across the board. We're losing on that one - maybe we'll win....in several years from now. I don't see anything in the CBA that is cut and dry about BLGs going back up and I certainly wouldn't plan on it.

For instance, say they furlough 250. They could then say, "Hey, we're keeping the BLG's down to prevent or delay the furlough of another 200."

Hope I didn't just give them any ideas . . . .

Umm you need to stop drinking the koolaid bro, trust me I have read it, and I have also seen what the company has done of late, just like the previous poster said, they could be "preventing or delaying a furlough" until the cows come home...50 here, 50 there stretched out over 3 years if they so choose. It is poor language pure and simple.

The unfortunate thing is that in the 2010 negotiations we will have to burn a lot of beans to fix the language that will probably no longer be applicable. Instead of burning them on pay rates...