November 4, 2016

JUNIOR MANNING LIMITS

Fellow DFW Pilots,

Recently, we have received several reports from pilots indicating a dispute with Crew Scheduling’s handling of junior man assignments. Specifically, Crew Scheduling has been building pilots multi-leg and multi-day junior man assignments, extending their normal schedules. A major contention we have with this practice is, for accounting purposes, Crew Scheduling is considering the multi-leg/multi-day junior man assignments as a single junior man event if the addition of the junior man assignments were added to the pilot’s schedule at the same time, thus attempting to avoid the two junior man per month limitation prescribed in our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Your LEC 083 Leadership Team believes our contract provides clear language on junior manning limits with respect to multi-leg and multi-day junior man assignments and requires Crew Scheduling to treat these assignments as more than a single junior man event. When the Company assigns pilots multi-leg and/or multi-day junior man flights and considers this flying to be a single junior man event, they violate CBA Section 11.L.3 (and other sections of our contract) which states:
Additionally, CBA Section 11.L.2 states, “No pilot will be junior-manned more than twice in any contractual month or twelve times in any contractual year.” All crewmembers should familiarize themselves with this contract section and the requirement to notify Crew Scheduling when the pilot has reached the annual limit. Also, when your schedule is adjusted due to a junior man assignment, we ask that you retain evidence of your schedule each time it is changed.

The present action by the Company represents a non-negotiated modification to existing contract language and established practice. Whether multiple junior man assignments are added to a pilot’s schedule all at once or at different times by Crew Scheduling, every time the junior man flying extends the pilot’s schedule by departing and returning to a domicile or extends into another scheduled day off, each additional assignment which extends the pilots schedule is a separate junior man event. Historically, the Company has complied with CBA Section 11.L.3 but, due to recent staffing shortages, they appear to have reinterpreted contract language to suit their needs.

We need all pilots who were required to perform the non-contractual assignment(s) as described above to file a contract compliance dispute form on the ALPA website and to contact your local union representatives immediately ([email protected] & [email protected]). When completing the dispute form and when emailing your representatives, please provide as much detail as possible, including any collected evidence. The Association has addressed this issue with Envoy Management and we anticipate filing a grievance over the Company’s non-contractual actions.

We also want to remind pilots to not invent “personal reasons” in order to utilize CBA Section 11.K.5 to be removed from junior man flying on a scheduled day off. CBA Section 11.K.5 allows a pilot to have a junior man assignment that was added to his/her day off removed with the placeholder code “UA” when a pilot is unable to accept the assignment due to personal reasons. Please be sure to only use this contract provision if you have actual personal reasons that prevent you from accepting the junior man flying on a day off.

As always, if you experience more than two junior man events in any contractual month or other circumstances that may not be in compliance with the contract, please retain all evidence and contact your LEC 083 Leadership Team immediately. Remember, evidence and thorough documentation win grievances so there is no such thing as too much. It is also important to file a timely dispute because the Contract Compliance Committee has 60 days to notify the Company in cases of contract disputes and 14 days in cases of discipline. While we can't oversee each of the thousands of operations conducted daily, with your help and continued vigilance we can address and ultimately resolve issues such as this.

In Unity,


Captain Neal Spanier
ENY LEC-083 Chairman

First Officer Kyle Flynn
ENY LEC-083 Vice-Chairman

Captain Pat Couture
ENY LEC-083 Secretary-Treasurer

 

More great press for the company. Bravo Tricky Rickey....you're doing great!

In all seriousness, the level to which our contract is continuously violated, with no apparent recourse, is troubling. It hasn't always been like this.

 

OFFENSIVE!
Seriously, you are Tool of the Day!

 

Reading this thread it seems that QOL is deteriorating even more, if so how many (non AA flow) are leaving every month? And where are they going? As a non Envoy pilot, is the CBA somewhere online for us to read.

 

This is what you say, "fluff?"

In my years at Eagle, I hear of this same tune from the union all of the time. In very clear circumstance the company violates the contract. The union says to fill out the grievance with lots of documentation.

The result? After 2 or 3 years you get some small award from the company after the arbitrator decides it goes against the contract. The company wins. They use the contract violation for nearly free during the grievance period.

I'm sorry my friends. This company is reached the bottom and then climbed down 10 more levels. I do not see how anyone can survive months of this with no end in sight.

My recommendation is to stay far away from Envoy.

 

...in that case, why continue to poison yourself(possibly, your coworkers)by working here? why not go to all the other carriers that are offering a better package than envoy?

I can't compare how worse or better envoy is to other airlines nor am I a proponent of management but ive called this place home for the past decade and I make the best of what's available to me.

I know I can't be the luckiest person in this company because I have not experienced any of this aggressive, rude, or combative side of management, including crew scheduling.

I report for my sign in and four days later I commute back home, nothing "exciting". business as usual, I guess!

I've only been JM'd a handful of times due to broken planes at an outstation, mostly from other captains that refuse to write things up and fix the the minor issues - which eventually becomes a larger issue.

you have the ultimate responsibility on how to manage your quality of life, the sooner you realize it, the happier you and your family will be!

 

QOL at envoy is at rock bottom, currently the floor is rusting and soon our QOL will fall to hell. I personally think some have already fell through some holes. New hires especially are learning what a ***** this company can be.

 

Your QOL at envoy depends on which of the four categories you fit into and they are ranked from best to worst;

1. Local Line holder
2. Local Reserve pilot
3. Commuting Line holder
4. Commuting Reserve Pilot

I've been in all four positions and I can say that without a doubt, a commuting reserve pilot is god-awful while the others are very manageable. Unfortunately, both our current management team and union leadership lack any sort of creativity in coming up with a mutually beneficial solution to the reserve problem. Management blames the union and the union blames management, all the while the commuting reserve pilots suffer the consequences.

My advise to potential new-hire commuters is if you can put up with being treated worse than dirt by crew scheduling during your stint on reserve, then come on over. Otherwise I would look elsewhere. If you live in Chicago, Dallas, or the NY area then it's a good place to start your career.

 

...he responds with an insult. By questioning him, someone and/or something is not an automatic membership to the tool of the day club?

we had a captain(retired) that constantly preached to everyone, even condemned his coworkers for not agreeing with him. forcing someone to agree on an opinion and pass it off as facts is OFFENSIVE!


but let's try not to derail this thread.

 

Unfortunately hombre you are the insult to all the Envoy pilots. I will place my guess that you are in management. If you are not, you have the Stockholm syndrome very very deeply.

As to your question about me getting out of Envoy. I have never worked for Envoy. I flowed before the real Eagle will taken from existence. If you cannot see that things are so much worse now than before bankruptcy filing, then you need some very big prescription glasses.