Sick leave analysis and the amount of literature the company is producing may the idea of the industrial psychologist. It distracts and is meant to muddy the water. While we should be targeting restoration, we're talking about sick leave.

20% behind our old pay rates with NO pension, vacation and training pay need to be improved, DC percentage. Too many things to list, but sick leave is pushed to the forefront. Simply put, no concessions and restore the contract PLUS.

Exactly. In negotiations, the company needs to find some leverage. With huge earnings, falling fuel prices, $6 Billion in stock buybacks, they have NO LEVERAGE! So, what do they do? They invent some.

Even though we are the ONLY major airline that has a Use it or Lose it sick leave policy, and there really is No Way to measure our use against any other carrier with a bank system, THAT is what they want us to focus on. Not the fact that we are still being paid 18% LESS than in 2004, or that we still have very little in the way of a retirement plan, compared to the value of our 60% FAE DB plan value.

How many flights have they had to cancel because of sick pilots? None? And they are making how much money?

Well I guess sick leave usage isn't really a problem at all, is it?:rolleyes:

The root of sick leave abuse is supposed to be the abuse of it by a select few. They say they are unable to target the few so the whole must be targeted. That is nonsense the whole must be targeted because they want better productivity metrics.

If the argument is integrity then it's an even poorer argument. The questioning of the integrity of the work force while doing everything to minimize the contractual obligation to pay profit sharing shows THEY have no integrity. The manipulating pay to prevent a historically normal increase shows THEY have no integrity. What happened to Richard Anderson's "we always keep our deals" quote during the investor day presentation?

A double standard from a two faced man makes me four times more certain he has no integrity.

If we went to a bank system (like every other legacy) this problem would disappear -- but unfortunately for the Company they would have to eventually pay the bank out upon retirement or deal with pilots cashing out their last year (like every other airline.) If it's about manning the smart thing to do is switch to a bank system.

But, this is all about pilot costs.

Or just wipe out your bank in the next merger or BK

that is the truth. I had about a year saved up in long term sick, plus a bunch of short term stuff. If we went to a bank system now it would be hard for me to accumulate sick time because I'm older and have some issues now that requires time off now and then.

Yep, had approx 2200 hours which would pay out at 80 hours per month, and we got what...DPMA, oh boy! Oh yeah "Top Off":rolleyes:

With the deal that you lost in BK, would you have had to prove you were sick or could you just call in and say that you were not coming for your last two years?

Did not lose in bankruptcy, North guys lost their sick bank in the merger... 1500hrs poooof! Gone

I heard a few guys who just that, became whale captains at age 55, flew it for three years, went out sick at 58, with bad back and eye problems:

"I can't -see- coming -back- to work!" :D

This was the early retirement plan.

There were numerous tidbits given away from the NWA contract which, as a southie and dues paying member, I cannot believe were not fought for by the union.

Admittedly, at the time I was pretty clueless, because dammit, I was a proud double breasted van admiral. But, after learning more and more about the giveaways, I'm pretty shocked.

Their sick bank, the 75 hr. min for reserve, and the 150% pay for over 80 were all things I would have liked to have seen come over to Delta's contract! I too was amazed at some of the stuff we didn't bring over from the NW contract. At least they (NW) finally got our pay straightened out so we're not getting a HUGE check on the 15th and a tiny one on the 30th.

Another thing I'd like to see here that they had; monthly AE bids with a real training timeline. I've never liked the way Delta does AE's....when ever they feel like it, and trains you...when ever they feel like it!:rolleyes:

And another big loss, is not having one lanyard that says, "Flight Standards AND Training" !!!!!! Still can't believe these are 2 separate groups......

It's shocking at times how separate the two groups are.

I also liked that reserve and block (schedule holder) were bid as separate categories at NWA.

I've gone back and forth on this one. That was sort of a one off in the industry.

If I recall right, it came from the Republic merger.

This one is kinda "eh" for me as well....

Pros:
If you had a line, you had a line. For a commuter, this was HUGE. Even if there was not enough flying, you'd be a "blockholder without a block", and you were given the option to sit "time available" in base at a higher guarantee or ultra-long-call reserve at home (the times I sat it they got me space positive to work half the time, too).

Cons:
Eliminated short term flexibility. If you wanted to play the reserve game over holidays, you could sharp shoot AE system, but it took some work & luck.

Unfortunately, you can't look at just this one aspect of the NWA way of doing things. Part and parcel of the B/R system was the APA system (monthly bidding of permanent positions) and the TDY system. (actually called temp bids). They were all intertwined from a staffing perspective.

The temp bids always went VERY senior, despite the fact that you bid behind everyone who held a permanent position where you temped. Positive space to and FROM work and hotels all month, so you can see why that was popular.

Kinda minor, but along with the above, the company produced what was known as a "pref up list". It was basically a list of everyone bidding a position, and what number preference it was on their "card". Far, far more useful than the "senior preferencing positions" in iCrew. Made scoping the alternatives easy peasy. Coupled with the regular monthly bids, and knowing exactly when you'd be going to training/in your new position, it took the angst completely out of the whole bidding process.

Nu

I know it's history now, but just curious, how, basically, did the monthly APA system work?

What if there weren't any new positions to fill?

Some did, but believe the vast majority did not, we treated it like an insurance policy.

If I remember correctly if there were no new positions than the monthly APA showed no positions avail, but you could have in a perm request for different positions on file. Nu prob remembers the details.

Those hours are still available to you, should you need to use them.

The benefit that you still have is correctly called "Top Up":

Top-Up Benefits:
In addition to receiving value for your sick leave through the reimbursement of the DPMA/DPMA Equivalent premiums, your sick leave may also provide additional benefits to you. Whereas the reimbursement percentage was a one-time calculation, the receipt of “Top-Up” benefits will depend on how you use sick leave through your Delta career.
The NWA sick bank you carry over at DCC is charged 80 hours for each month you receive disability and DPMA/DPMA Equivalent payments, since the combination of these payments is equivalent to 80 hours of NWA sick leave. Top-up benefits will be paid to pilots who have a NWA sick bank balance remaining at the end of the DPMA/DPMA Equivalent payment period after being reduced at the rate of 80 hours per month for each month of DPMA payments. Top-up benefits are paid exactly like sick leave and will be paid until the NWA sick bank is exhausted or the pilot returns to flying status. In this way, a NWA pilot receives value for his sick leave hours.
Since DPMA/DPMA Equivalent coverage will supplement disability payment for up to 12 months, a pilot who has more than 960 hours (12 months of DPMA X 80 hours= 960) at the start of a disability period, will receive top-up benefits until the remaining NWA sick bank is exhausted. For example, a pilot with 1280 hours in his NWA sick bank at the start of a disability period will receive top-up benefits for an additional 4 months; 960 hours were deducted during the 12 months of DPMA coverage, leaving 320 hours for Top-Up benefits to be paid at 80 hours per month.
Summary
The focus of the JCBA negotiations was to identify a way for NWA pilots to transition into the Delta programs. We were very aware of the need to retain the value of our sick leave program, and believe that the two transition mechanisms discussed above—the reimbursement of DPMA/DPMA Equivalent premiums to represent pre-paid sick leave and the top-up to represent additional accumulated sick hours—provides significant, equivalent value to the NWA pilot population.
If you have any questions about this you should contact your ALPA rep or call the Delta MEC R&I Chairman.

And Southies pay for this benefit bi-monthly while leaving hundreds of hours in their annual banks each year. Brilliant. We went with right system? Ha!

In theory, if there weren't any, they wouldn't run one. But there was always some "churn" in the system...people going base to base and what not for one reason or another. I can't remember a month going by without some kind of award.

NWA micromanaged the staffing, so there were always awards as they tried to balance things out. They would also try to balancing things using the temp system as well.

As to how it worked, easy peasy:

Bids were for positions effective 4 months out. The company would publish something about it around the end of the month prior, and bids closed on the 5th of the month. Awards were posted on the 20th of the month. From the date of the award, your new position was effective in 3 1/2 months.

They had to have you trained and/or in that position by that time. No random conversion dates. No guess as to when you went to training. The timeline was pretty tight from the award.

Temp bids also ran monthly. I want to say Temp bids closed on the 25th of the prior month, and your award would show up as a Temp position when bidding opened for the subsequent month (so a bid that closed on Jan 25th would be for the March flying month).

You could do a Temp bid from block to reserve (and vice versa) in your base, or block or reserve in any other base that had your equipment. The caveat was that your present position had to be one of excess, so they didn't need to replace you if you Temped somewhere else.

For the bidding month at your temp category, you bid behind everyone with a permanent position, but in seniority order with other temp holders. Positive space from home and back, and hotels/per diem for the month.

The pros of the system was predictable bidding, non-random training dates, and rapid conversion into a new category. Since there was always some churn in the system, you could almost always go base to base. If the flying in your base turned bad, or the commute turned sour, you could egress fairly rapidly without waiting for the AE gods to spin their wheel of fortune. The pref-up lists gave pretty good intel as to which way the tide was rolling, and if you didn't want to go to training over your vacation, summer, holidays, etc, you could just pull your bid for a few months, until the training window passed whatever dates you were trying to avoid. You didn't have to worry about missing a bid, because they ran every month.

The only downside I've ever heard postulated by anyone about this system vs our current system, was that if you were in the bottom of a category, you could be subjected to some amount of "flux" by getting bounced around constantly, whereas in the current system, you'd survive at the bottom of a category longer due to the longer cycles of AE/displacements. This was true about getting bounced back and forth from block to reserve, but that happens with our current system as well.

True in theory, I suppose, but I never witnessed it. In reality rather than displacing people, they'd offer up temp bids in categories of excess, and they always went pretty senior. That would soak up excess fairly quickly.

The problem with all of this is that it was tied fairly closely to the way management staffed the airline, and it took a pretty good amount of micromanaging on their part. There were some other tidbits, but that's the short version.

Nu

Re the top up it would have been nice for the pilots to have the option of keeping the NWA balance or going to the top up system. Oh well : )

Let's review. C2012, pay raises of 8, 6, 3, 3%. Back then, pay was referred to as pay rates, not total compensation. We also gave up some profit sharing and sick leave rules.

They should have done it once, done it right. No more concessions.