Carl Spackler

And when that resolution passes, then gets killed by MEC inaction or outright ignoring of the policy, you'll say: "hey, the process worked. You tried, your idea didn't carry the day. Lets move on." I know because you said this exact thing when the flight pay loss resolutions were ignored. That's the problem acl.

Carl

Scoop

As was said previously - this is basically the reserve system that we used to have. It was a bummer for junior reserves (I have over a year as the plug to plug +3 with that system) but on the plus side it required more reserves = more pilots.

Basically the junior guys would be finished well before the end of the month and so the company had to carry more reserves overall to cover those days.

Don't worry - the company is not going to go back to a system that requires more reserves. The current bucket system seems like a very good compromise to me.

Scoop

Herkflyr

If anything, it seems like most of the complaints that I have heard over the past couple of years is that the reserve system favors the senior guys too much as it is. Any feedback I have heard from *most* guys on reserve is that they would like to see the buckets reduced (example: bucket one only goes to RAW 0-60 instead of the current 0-80).

This resolution attempted the opposite. It wanted to give even more to the senior guys, and hose the junior guys even more.

Not to worry. I can promise you that the company is never going to go to a pure seniority/no-bucket system absent a huge giveback on our part elsewhere. I for one don't see that happening.

Bucking Bar

Carl,

There are several Reps who advocate greater transparency and democratization of our association. ACL is one of those good guys. My hat is off in his honor because he's one of the few willing to confront our Association's President (as our Reps and Executive Board should in the course of running the association).

At the end of the day it is all of our mutual best interest to accept the deliberative work of the MEC and Executive Board as a whole, and save our fire for those Reps individually directly responsible for the breach or failure that resulted in whatever a majority of pilots in your LEC did not like.

For a "good guy" Rep, it would be foolish to engage in recriminations over things that are past the agenda. Can't change what's been done. Better to save political capital for upcoming fights.

----

P.S. For those who might think I am not taking my own advice on Pinnacle, my reasons why are:
1) Our MEC never met and reached a consensus
2) ALPA Admin got involved in our politics to stop the call for a meeting
3) ALPA Admin then published the MEC's "findings" despite there were no findings from any meeting that never happened, some of my Reps were not in agreement with those "findings" anyway.
4) The findings were the direct result of an opinion from an ALPA National Attorney on the conduct of ALPA National. Of course he found reasons to justify the complete circumvention of the Delta pilots.

Timbo

About Reserve:

You are trying to please 3 groups, The Company, Senior Reserves, and Junior Reserves. Good luck.

The company wants to minimize staffing. If it were up to them, every reserve would fly what he's being paid, or more.

In the 'old days' the senior guys didn't fly much on reserve, while the junior guys would fly a lot, and some would even time out, but very few senior reserves ever flew to 70+, unless they wanted to. Even then, the company would try to send trips out to someone with less time, so nobody broke the cap while some were well below it.

So the Junior guys want to share the love with the senior guys, but obviously, senior guys don't want any part of that. The company wants them all to fly to the cap.

There will never be a perfect reserve system, because those 3 different groups all want something that benefits them, at the expense of the other two groups.

The most you can hope for is some type of compromise, which is why we have what we have now.

The best thing you can do is;

Get off reserve!

Especially if you commute!

The Cavalier

For the record a resolution proposing a shrinking of the current bucket system was put forward by either DTW pilots (or reps not sure) but was unanimously defeated.

As ACL has stated, the MEC has been directed to and will discuss in Aug increasing the RAW score needed to exit bucket 1. IMO this in effect creates a straight seniority system without needing the company to agree to it. Obviously the company won't allow a huge change in the RAW values of each bucket but then again not much change is needed to create what a few in the union desire. The justification is that the original system was a concession so we should actively seek to void it. I understand that but I also understand that not all change is bad and that no one group of pilots should be entirely (IMO anyway) exploited to create a windfall for others.

I'm pretty junior in a slow category. I'm not the most junior so I really don't work all that much. Others are not so lucky. The system we have ensures jr pilots fly more as it should but it's the upper limit IMO of what type of windfall a senior pilot can reasonably feel entitled to.

I have already emailed my rep and I appreciate that he called me back this morning. We agree on a few things and disagree on others but the discussion was reasonable and I felt my input was valued. I encourage each of you to do the same. It remains unclear what tool the pilots will have to be heard on this issue between now and Aug (survey?) so assume nothing and contact your reps. Given the resounding defeat of the DTW resolution and the opposite outcome of the ATL resolution, it's not difficult to see which direction the tide is rolling.

Not acting because "the company won't allow a return to the old system" while probably true is a huge gamble IMO because even small changes to the bucket sizes have the same impact as erasing the bucket system.

GunshipGuy

I would be interested in more details on this. e.g. how many pilots were present? What was the seniority of those who voted? The system is skewed in favor of senior pilots so it's no surprise a resolution that benefits junior pilots would not have much if any likelihood of passing.


I'm fairly certain DALPA can not unilaterally change the RAW values for the buckets. They can decide they want to sacrifice junior pilots' QOL even more than they have for their senior buds, but it requires the company to agree to the bucket changes. Personally, I'm still waiting to see a pilot get into bucket #2 after five days of flying like my rep and a SOT member told me would happen.

acl65pilot

Carl;
FWIW, your DTW CA rep is the one that agreed to the compromise of the FPL resolution. I was not there but that is what I am told.

For your own information. The FPL will be posted on the Treasure's page after each quarterly MEC meeting. Why what you ask? Guess its the same with everything else, they present it to the MEC and then to the pilots. Its also done in open session so any one can watch the Treasurer's Report.

Q 1 is up there if a recall, and the updated one will be up there as soon as its formatted correctly. There were some changes desired by the MEC so that takes time to do.

Also, its FPL period, no break down of 24J v non-24J, but the FPL is up there. Also you are free to check any pilots schedule for this reason. Verify it if you desire.

On the resolution that Bar proposes, one rep cannot move the tide and there is good reason for that. It a dampener in the system. To get the ball rolling on any issue, you must show up and present one. Also if any sort of resolution like this passes it must go up to National and the EC and then ultimately to the BOD.

One offs like Block Representation are approved in the governing documents and there are a few carriers out there that have it, FDX and HAL are two I can think of off of my head. Changes to what a group has now, or any modifications to the current representation structure get approved by the EC.

acl65pilot

Bucket size is mutually determined by the Scheduling Committee Chairman and the company. To date there has been no direction from the MEC on it. SOT I survey results said to increase seniority on reserve, and this was as far as they could get it.

Also remember SOT and its assumptions were based on a hard reserve pay. With a variable guarantee that was part of TA 2012, the RAW number per credit/block hr is not the same from month to month. Even in a slow month, you have 72 hrs of reserve guarantee, and that means it takes more credit/block hrs to get your RAW up. The guarantee is part of the formula to determine RAW value(number)

Going2Baja

LAX ER-A Backdoor open.

Baja.