saturn

Soon I'll be furloughed, and I'm looking at a barren desert of a job market with no leads. The safety net described would be life changing for my family. However, I suggest upon recall allow us to either payback this assessment to our peers that lent it to us, our let us pay it forward into a fund or trust for future pilots (like DPMA).

p3flteng

Its a good idea in principal, some thoughts:

what do you say to those pilots who are senior on the list that already went through furloughs with no help and then got shafted in bankruptcy and lost their pension? Those guys were called out for trying to get overweighted retirement improvements in the recent contract discussions (precovid). My position was inline with most mid seniority to junior pilots...Sorry, but to take from the young to fund the senior 15 years later is not a viable solution. Hence it’s a hard argument to say to them, well the shoes on the other foot now, so help me now when I was unwilling to support making said dead zoner retirements whole.

second, many guys might have an issue with people getting 40k while not actually doing anything to earn it. Spitballing, but how about you make it a loan to said furloughed pilots, who when theyAre back on property have an additional dues deduction to repay said funds, say 3% until the ‘loan’ is repaid? This money can go back into a special account, and eventually it gets repaid to the initial pilots who had the additional funds withheld to help the furloughed guys.
not sure about the tax implications...for any of this.

its pretty clear the company doesn’t give a sh!t about these guys, and are willing to sacrifice them on the alter of a contract / work rule reset....so anything we can do to help with in reason should be on the table for discussion.

p3flteng

well said, beat me to it while I was typing....
that damn 240 second thing....I clearly don’t post enough, or are posting too much lately, as it’s the first time that’s happened to me😎

LandGreen2

Another out of box idea I thought was interesting, I can’t take credit for it but I heard in crewroom: since so many folks are upset about GSing, maybe we could change IA process (during furlough only) to being a seniority based call out vs inverse seniority. Seems it might make for more palatable relationships between junior and senior folks...???

TED74

I've been saying for a long time that the IA step as currently implemented is no longer relevant in today's connectivity environment. There are plenty of times I've been interested in a trip at double pay (IA), but not as a GS (e.g., won't meet the trigger, or there's not enough credit on reserve X days). Just code up ARCOS to let me give three answers to each GS proffer...1. Yes, 2. No to GS but yes as IA, 3. No. With one ARCOS call, the system has already sorted by seniority the GS and (I)A processes. Subsequent to that, they could actually inverse assign anything else.

marcal

I’m not at risk of getting furloughed for now, but I’ve been balls deep starting a second career over the last six months knowing that our future is going to be vastly different and that the survival of the company and the industry is in doubt. I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing it for my kids. We have voted to fund medical benefits for our furloughed pilots. I won’t be white or greenslipping anything while guys are out which I would normally.

However, every single one of us knows the risks we take in this business. If a single pilot that is UNA is not actively looking for a new gig/job/skill/business/etc, at this point I don’t feel we need to subsidize them beyond the medical. I don’t expect nor should a single furloughee simply wait to be recalled. Get out there and earn. Don’t wait for a job to find you, go find it. Start a business, go to school. Don’t just sit there and wait. We’ve had six months to get our ducks in a row. There shouldn’t be any excuses if you are of sound mind and faculties.

I might be more receptive if this came down overnight but it hasn’t. Everyone has had ample time to prepare and I’m already sacrificing plenty to help get guys back faster as well as pay for medical coverage.

Vsop

Good point on the retirement benefits discussion. I fell into the junior but ok with giving them a little extra camp. I had a lot of peers try to convince me otherwise, so I know I was in the minority there. I can see how a senior pilot might be turned off by the idea of giving to help a junior guy who so recently wouldn’t do the same.

To them I would say this is about protecting our profession. I’ve heard too many times how much better the job used to be. The reason for the degradation of our profession in my opinion is negotiating away our contract in crisis with the losses never to be regained. This is a way out of that box.

We as a group are left with a decision:

1) do nothing and see what happens

2) have ALPA do something to help the furloughed. (Cobra is a great idea and I’m glad we voted it in)

3) negotiate with the company to “save the furloughs.”

ALL of those choices have various advantages and disadvantages, and each of us need to consider what we think is the correct way forward.

From what I’ve read/heard most don’t want to do option 1, but if you are in that camp I don’t besmirch you. As stated each option has advantages.

My proposal is an expansion on option 2.

As for option 3. The last time through this ALPA did negotiate, and achieved a “no furloughs” agreement... until the company had other ideas. Meanwhile some of the givebacks have never returned and others only very recently returned. For this reason I’m more in favor of option 2 than option 3.

So far ALPA has done a lot with voting to providing healthcare. Now I say we can look at expanding to financial care. A lot of the feedback has been to structure the benefit as a loan. When drafting the idea, I had considered this but it seemed improper to ask for what some will view as a lifeline back. I do see the advantages of a loan protecting the recipient’s pride and at the same time being more palatable to the “I got through it so will you” crowd.

This kind of was one of the main reasons for starting this thread. To see if there is a way to make this idea agreeable to most of us. Thank you to all who have had constructive feedback.

Hawaii50

What’s wrong with trying to make things better rather than having to live through the same BS we did? A pending furlough can be devastating. I’m all for anything that’s helps limit the devastation.

sailingfun

Thats the part I don’t get. Many posters want to make this a big DALPA verses the company issue. The basic truth is the contract provides the company a method to reduce pilot costs. The company is going to get that cost savings. The negotiations are essentially how they get that money. It’s not about if the company will get it. We as pilots have to decide if we require the bottom of the list to provide all the money or we want to spread it out over the entire pilot group. The company is getting the money. Our choice is who it comes from. Being furloughed can be devastating. A 68 hour ALV not so much especially considering it would keep many pilots in a higher paying seat. The contract also provides many ways to circumvent that 68 hour ALV.

notEnuf

If it were that simple sure. We are talking about PWA retrenchment and the future which may or may not include more furloughs or bankruptcy, right? Fighting for survival and all. If they have the savings and there's no question I don't see any reason to amend the PWA.