Originally Posted by Speed Select

Right. This is also a company that spent $$MILLIONS on several iterations of both FA and pilot uniforms only to go back to the original style and vendor, spent $$MILLIONS on Covid staffing decisions, among other things… Anyone get called into the office for those decisions?

Theres a special category for “pilot expenses” that gets extra extra scrutiny from the company. It seems that these “special interest items” are often the brain child of pilots who also have a desk on VA Ave. I doubt there’s a GS sheriff in CS.

Originally Posted by Puddytatt

Because they already agreed to that via MOU 25-02. Except that MOU didn't spell out what was actually involved to consider the technology working.

Originally Posted by Speed Select

Right. This is also a company that spent $$MILLIONS on several iterations of both FA and pilot uniforms only to go back to the original style and vendor, spent $$MILLIONS on Covid staffing decisions, among other things… Anyone get called into the office for those decisions?

Theres a special category for “pilot expenses” that gets extra extra scrutiny from the company. It seems that these “special interest items” are often the brain child of pilots who also have a desk on VA Ave. I doubt there’s a GS sheriff in CS.

Originally Posted by notEnuf

They can't cover anything now prior to 8 hours so nothing changes.

Originally Posted by FangsF15

Some folks weren't here for past contracts, and may not understand the special place Pilot Sick has in the heart of the company. They HATE it. With a passion. (At least in part, because we have pilots who abuse it. To what degree is beyond the point). IMO, the company over-reacts to that 'abuse', but the point is the company has an absolute burr up their backside over sick.

It was one of their major gatekeeper issues in C15. At the time, we had voluntary verification of sick (but foolishly gave that back in C19 because somehow self-reporting/documenting was too onerous on their admin folks). C15 required a MD note after 160 hours, but also had a provision where the company could always mandate an MD note. We are the only major carrier (I am aware of) who has GFB in their contract, much less an over-30-day medical records disclosure clause. C15 also tightened up the language on mandating a "bonafide relationship", where your spouse/parent/cousin could no longer write your sick note. It also had exclusion from lookback for 'major bone' or a hospital stay, but not a knee replacement. It was silly. I mean, what valid reason can one give to say that a PA or NP couldn't verify your sickness in some instances? How cynical do you have to be to say, "No, you MUST go to an MD!? C19 did slightly expand the threshold for 'lookback' from 100 hours to 120 hours. All that said, we do have a much larger annual allocation than other companies. We have all these little nuance rules and exclusions, all because the company hates sick and wants to create disincentives to using it.

My point is that for the company to transition from disputing whether MiCrew 'worked' for sick reporting, to now agreeing to waive sick verification is a BIG deal. That's like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi suddenly not caring how you ordered the soup. Or, like the pilot group suddenly saying "we'll waive PB days for the next couple of months". That in and of itself tells me we had some serious leverage/proof hanging over them, and giving that up should not be dismissed as a small thing - not because of how it's good for us, but for how important it was to the company.

Originally Posted by MSP7ERB

Since when? Anything rotation that pops up in open time, < 3 days, out can be manually covered at anytime. Does this MOU change that?

Originally Posted by Valar Morghulis

Couple of corrections in an otherwise good post.

Voluntary verification went away in C15-TA2, and also gave us the ridiculous “major bone” clause, not C19. C19 raised the QHCP threshold to 120, got rid of the major bone, and eliminated the DOC note entirely. With the MOU, any DOC requirement is gone permanently. ALPA has done a pretty good job of boiling the sick leave frog, which is how you have to do it with an item the company is so irrationally hard over on. There’s still work to be done there, but you’re not going to fix it in a day.

Some say the company was in violation so we should have just grieved it. True, but the hearing probably would have been 12-18 months from now, and the result six months after that. And no guarantee of success on the other end. With the MOU, we have measurable gains right now.

Originally Posted by notEnuf

You are assuming they get the 23M7 piece of this right. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt but that means more fishing for seniors and that will drive them right back to skipping and QS. So sure, but now first up on the next ladder step will get the payment. This guarantees no 23M7 gravy for anyone other than the top 3.

Originally Posted by notEnuf

I expect auto accept to filter them to the ones I can actually accept. We negotiated for that and for the batch limits but now we don't have either.

Originally Posted by FangsF15

I submit you are stretching to come to that conclusion, my friend.