What if you couldn't sleep all night and you are facing a 13 hour duty day with 5 legs and bad weather everywhere?

These desk jockies don't understand what we do. THAT IS THE UNIONS JOB.

As usual they will push until we have a fatal crash. Then all this pilot pushing will surface in the trial.

You sellers are destroying our profession. And selling your souls.

You disgust me. Shame on you.

 

Luckily Slowplay we have not any close calls in the last 3 years.

Luckily Slowplay we won't have hundreds of new captains flying with new hires.

Luckily Slowplay the line pilots will do your job for you and reject this TA that severely lower our level of safety..

What's is ALPA's motto? Schedule with whatever management wants to fill their pockets with money.

 

Maybe because since bankruptcy, my pay has gone up about $90,000 per year and this TA will add another $50,000 or so. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is simply riding on our shoulders. That's reason number one.

 

So you were not here prior to BK or you are just conveniently disregarding all the pay cuts prior to and during BK?


Scoop

 

PROLOGUE

Remember in C2012 when new medical note requirements came up? DALPA said, “The Company can already ask for a note. [So don’t worry].” DALPA went on to say that there were transcripts of the actual agreement with the negotiators so this would not be a problem. Remember what happened? The company went on a rampage demanding notes from many sick calls. In the end, DALPA resolved this issue and we currently are in a steady state.

I do not know the answer to this question, but the question to understand is “Under our current contract, how many pilots are subjected to Section 15B review annually?” My guess is that it is a very small number. (BTW Section 15 is not in the published TA. You should read it.)

We have precedent in both of these situations that will be subject to change as soon as the contract changes. Think about this change and what you would do if you were on the management side.



MY QUALIFICATIONS

MBA Wharton School of Business, Ex McKinsey consultant, Current manager of small New England Psychiatric practice, Current Delta Pilot



PRESENT DAY




WHAT IS IN A MEDICAL NOTE?


This chart below is part of a reminder card handed out to all doctors in our local hospital. Any doctor will recognize this as the first part of a standard initial visit medical note. When you go to the doctor’s office, someone documents many of the things below. The important part to understand is the PMH (past medical history – which can include whatever you or other doctors share with this doctor – Of Note: IT IS HIPAA NOT HIPPA and doctors do not need you to sign a release to share your medical information with another doctor associated with your treatment under HIPAA), PSH (past social history – which can include almost anything about your past that the doctor asks about or you share), MEDS (all current meds and many times past medications), Family History (where you share all your family medical history), Social History (which can include employment, incarceration, military, and many other things), ROS (review of systems) where you tell the doctor about what hurts, and then any outside medical reports.





When you sign a release under Section 14 G 2, your release for a “specific sickness” gives DHC potential access to your entire medical and social history.


There is no doctor’s office that is going to redact sections of your medical note and any serious problem requires you to be honest with your doctor about everything if you want proper treatment. Your medical history should be between you, your medical doctors and your AME. Delta has absolutely no place in this.


DALPA will argue that this release is already in Section 15. Remember, section 15B is only for very specific situations related to your FAA certificate, not about justifying a sick absence. You must think like management. By moving this release to Section 14, it will become commonplace for Delta to ask for a medical release and therefore you automatically release your entire medical history to Delta. I cannot foresee the end game in this change, but it is most definitely very bad.


If I were on the other side (DHC), I would start to question every pilot’s medical justification when that pilot breaks the medical threshold. I would question the validity of the content of the doctor’s note justifying a sick absence (allowed by section 14G3). I would require additional information every time.


I audit or read about 80 medical notes a week – granted, many are not what we may experience in our own medical situations, but many are - and I can tell you that in any given note, there is a ton of information that is not related to the “specific sickness” for which you are seeing the doctor. I also spend a lot of time communicating with disability companies. Disability companies almost always question the treatment of the physician and their “standard of care.” It is a very low threshold to disagree with a doctor’s treatment or diagnosis when it comes to a disability company or in this case DHC. Literally any doctor can question some part of another doctor’s note and disability companies do this all day long. Your doctor has absolutely no skin in the game except his or her pride when it comes to justifying your illness for sick pay. No doctor wants to spend time writing more letters just so you can get paid for your diarrhea. I believe it would be best to think of Delta (DHC) as a disability company in that, in the end, their sole purpose is to save the company money.


By changing this section of the contract, we are opening a can of worms. In addition, we, the pilots, are responsible for all medical costs under the new verification unless it is under the “good faith” basis. The cost and time will be significant.


This was the most poorly negotiated section of the TA and is enough to vote NO regardless of any money involved. Anyone over 50 will probably already have encountered a medical problem that has required FAA review. Anyone under 50 will encounter this situation sometime in their career. You do not want to spend countless hours and dollars defending yourself to Delta while trying to get back your medical from the FAA or trying to get paid for a legitimate sick leave. And you certainly do not want Delta deciding that they are “not able to satisfactorily assess the medical basis for the use of sick leave.” (Section 14G3) If you believe for one minute that there was not a purpose in moving the medical release to Section 14, you are sadly mistaken. This will become the mother of all harassment programs for Delta pilots.






Name withheld by poster. IM for details

 

deleted...

waste of time...

 

But Jerry, how could that be....many of our leaders all graduated from the same highly esteemed institution. A highly respected institution with core values of "Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do."


Just to name a few....

MEC Chairman
Shadow MEC Chairman
Chairman of Negotiating Committee
SVP of Flight OPS
MEC treasurer
Several Yes voting Reps

 

Where does the accommodation of management's sick leave program(s) stop? When we hire the next Andreas Lubitz?

The SVP of Flt Ops calls us leaders, but his actions in this section of the contract demonstrate what he really thinks of us.

Alpa needs to wake up on this issue. ENOUGH is ENOUGH.

 

Yeah, I was here, bankruptcy sucks we all got the T-Shirt. For me the issue is once bankruptcy is over how do you recover. This MEC has led the way since 2008. US Air sat for a decade with nothing. American 5 years or more. Continental and United 3 years or more. All I know is that I have made a lot more over the last 5 years than my friends at American and United and they are eternally p-o'd at coming to work every day. I like my job and my company and I can read my W-2's.

We were driven into a ditch by crappy management. This MEC has drug us out of the ditch better than anyone else. Not perfectly, but I am not perfect either so I forgive those who trespass against me. This TA is not perfect either but if we wait for a perfect contract we will all be dead first. This is a lot of money for people that need it. I am an optimist, I concentrate on the good, some always concentrate on the bad.

 

And there you have it....the sales pitch. MONEY. Nothing else matters. Thanks for summing it all up.