This is SO true, and I'll go further. Taking this down before a vote would show STRENGTH on DALPA's part, not weakness.

Say you and I are taking off from Maui acl, and we lose tires at V1. I take it in the air and tell you I want to dump fuel and land back in Maui. You say, hey dumb a$$ - I mean Carl - why don't we dump fuel and go to Honolulu. If we land on Maui with these blown tires, we'll FOD the only runway they have here, where Honolulu has multiple runways and we won't close the airport. Which shows more strength by me as a captain:

1. "NO, I said Maui and I meant Maui." or
2. "Man I didn't think of that, you're right. Tell them we want to go to Honolulu."

This situation is NO different.

Carl

I think that's right. And there aren't any bigger DPA supporters than me.

Carl

Absolutely. That would be totally within the realm of the MEC's authority.

Carl

Happy Retirement
 

While we wish everyone a long and prosperous retirement, did we have to give up any negotiating capital in order to achieve the following?

Early retirement program
– Targets maximum participation possible while maintaining operational reliability
– Up to $120,000 in Retiree Medical Account
– Up to 39 weeks of severance pay

Sounds great. I hope a lot of people can take advantage of the program. The Company will meter it's application. Thye won't offer it to everyone who appears eligible. It will be fleet specific.

The one thing we all share is the passage of time. Eventually every person who takes advantage of this program will be 65. There is no reason to give anything up for this inevitable event.

Just to clarify your point here.

The Sick Leave Monitoring Program was started by the company to try to curb some of the rampant sick use that was going on. It apparently had the desired effect. I had one office guy tell me that they noticed a serous drop in sick calls the month after it went into effect. Guys hated being called by the CPO and it had the desired result of less sick calls. This IMO is not a good thing because it is a (albeit a mild one) form of intimidation to get pilots to not call in sick.

The new verification program, as you call it, allows the company to satisfy their desire to check on guys with "off-the-chart" sick usage. It will only apply to guys that exceed 100 hours of "unverified" sick usage during the year. If you are legitimately sick, then you have absolutely nothing to fear from this program.

If you get the flu and are out for (just for example) 40 hours you don't have to do anything. In this case you still have 60 "unverified" hours left for the year and go on your merry way. If you decide to go to the doctor because you need to, and get a note from the Doc, you can send it to the company and that sick call won't count against your 100 hours, ie you still have 100 "unverified" hours left for the year.

Let's say you get sick frequently but never need to go to the Doctor. When you go over 100 hours for the year, the CPO can call and ask for you to verify your illness. At this point THEY have to pay for you to go to the Doctor and get a note.

Bottom line, this is a non-issue unless you are abusing sick leave. And while I'm not advocating abusing it, the proposed system actually allows 100 hours of "pilot's discretion" sick leave during the year before you have to prove anything. It's an improvement over the current Monitoring Program without question.

Hope that helps.

The NNP stated that the Monitoring Program had been eliminated. Not true, it has been replaced by a verification program.

The CPO can still call you before the 100 hours.

The CPO can still demand to know the nature of your illness. Forget any privacy. There is no privacy in the CPO. It's none of their business.

Don't you just love how DALPA gave away our right to privacy through contract?

There are certain DALPA adminstrators who have a hard on for sick leave abuse. The way they talk about it, you would think they work in the CPO. DALPA needs to quit giving away our right to privacy.

The new verification policy is entirely at the discretion of the CPO. There is nothing hard and fast about it's administration. These are just the sorts of loopholes that can be and have been abused by the Company.

An interesting side note...HIPPA is a Federal Law. As such, you CANNOT have those rights taken away by contract. You can only waive them personally each time you go to the doc by signing a HIPPA waiver form.

Carl

Carl,

I actually think that option 3 is more likely the correct senario:

3. "Commander" Carl slaps ACL and tells him under no circumstance will he ever question a command that has been given by the commander. After having acl removed from the flight deck, Commander Carl will order the relief FO (FTB) to dump fuel and divert to Honolulu. :D

If you see this as a negative then we'll have to agree to disagree. I read it as the company will now leave 99% of the pilot group alone, except for extenuating circumstances.

Currently they are calling guys and "asking the general nature" of illnesses to honest pilots that are legitimately sick. This is intimidating in nature and needs to be stopped. The new language does that.

Yes, it does leave room for the company to ask for verification of illness if sick leave hits a certain threshold (100 hours, or less given extenuating circumstances) but we currently have that anyways.

So what's better? Having language that gets the company to leave the majority of guys alone about this? Or continuing the policy of "can we do anything to help you get back to work?"

There are some negatives in the TA. I personally don't see this as even a blip on the radar.

Ha, hilarious! Then acl will stay in the seat and say: LOGBOOK!

Carl