Pay sheet / pay check audits
 

Has anyone had any successes or failures (owing money back) auditing their pay stubs? I’m wondering if it’s worth the time. Also, is there a time limit as to how far you can go back?

It's easy enough to get a basic idea what you should be paid each month.

78 hour line
Trip trade a 20 hour for a 19 hour
Now you're getting 77 hours.
Per diem is in HI1
Cancelled a turn, so there go your overages.
= I should roughly get this.

I could be more indepth but that's all I do. If I'm off $50 here, meh so be it. Not worth my time to be so anal. But if I notice it's off a couple hundred, now it is time to go more indepth.

Some guys have found substantial gaps in the past. A couple of years ago when ALPA started the big pay audit campaign after lots of pay issues arising, tens of thousands of dollars were found by audits. I never found any issues with my pay. And I'm not sure if pay comp has gotten their act together since then, but you don't hear about it much these days so I tend to think they got their act together.

I think a lot of it depends on your auditor, too. Mine seems to do a good job - I've only had a couple issues in over 10 years, and neither were the fault of the auditor...it was the fault of scheduling not coding something right. Also, I almost never pick up OT. I think most of the issues for pay arise for the guys that pick up a lot of OT, because premiums weren't paid and/or miscalculated.

After spending a few hours trying to figure out the union’s spreadsheet and instructions, I’m settling into being more of this style. I do WANT to be more anal about it though after being screwed out of several hours of pay by an agressive pay auditor re-interpreting contract language. Will probably start printing HI3 at the start and finish of each sequence.