Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner. In order for a physician to state you are unable to perform flying duties they must be a flight surgeon. An FAA flight examiner only qualifies the doctor to certify if you meet the medical QUALIFICATIONS required by the FAA. They may not certified or trained to provide a medical diagnosis of your ability to actually perform your flight duties. That is why as pilots we self certify that we are physically able to perform our required flight duties.

The military flight docs go and fly in the aircraft and familiarize themselves with the aircraft and missions the pilots they treat operate. That way they are better able to evaluate the ability to perform the mission. The flight docs in the military or those civilian flight docs providing flight surgeon service to government agencies cannot be sued for their aerospace fit to fly diagnosis. Unless it's changed, a civilian doctor cannot get regular malpractice insurance to cover aerospace medicine beyond the basics of FAA flight examination. As a result no civilian doc should ever give you a fly or no fly diagnosis, unless they are very specifically trained including completing a residency in aerospace medicine and were previously board certified as aerospace surgeon. (the vast majority of military flight docs did not complete an aerospace medicine residency)

This is a very, very small group of possible physicians that can provide us with a note stating that we are or are not physically capable of performing flight duties. Of course all of that assumes when we see that doctor, we are actually still suffering from whatever made us unfit for duty. If we get asked for a note a couple days after we call in sick, then we make an appointment for a week or so from then; I'm not sure what limb the company wants the doctor to go out on to speculate on whether or not we were fit for duty at some time in the past.

This latest policy almost smells like the company has an outside insurance policy to cover "sick" expenses beyond a certain threshold. If I had such a policy, I'd want the ability to document the sick so I could collect. Just like the Miami Heat have coverage to pay for Chris Bosh's paycheck now that he is "sick". Hmmmm

 

Seems pretty straightforward. If sick, relate the general problem in the note. The Dr only needs to stipulate the general problem, not whether it qualifies as a nonflying ailment. The CP or the Dr will determine whether it qualifies. If speeding, don't give a note and take the loss of pay.

 

The point is, the CP or company Dr. should not be able to determine if the sick note from a doctor is "good enough".

If you have a note signed by an MD, that should suffice.

It should only have to say I was sick or under his care.

The details are none of their business.

 

......................

 

If "our" union agreed to this, that is not acceptable either.

 

Does anyone else find it disturbing that ALPA sent us an email, stating they were blindsided by the company releasing the details to this agreement? WTF? I guess it was supposed to be a big secret? And now they want to administer our retirement? Holy Sh!t Bat Man, we are in trouble!

 

It wasn't a secret. The sick leave arbitration happened over a year ago (5 Jul 16). The arbitration is a good thing and better than what we had. The recent news item on PFC is the company saying how they are going to implement the sick note process that was outlined in the grievance settlement that was published a year ago. I can imagine that the Union didn't get a heads up on this. I don't think it's the Union's fault that the company didn't consult them before publishing this email. If you haven't read the settlement, do so and see that this was an improvement from the BM days of sick leave witch hunts. In fact, I haven't heard of anyone getting asked for a note since the settlement came out. I've called in sick a couple times since then, once in the field, and haven't been asked for a note. Haven't even heard a peep except for the Crew Notification saying that I may be entitled to FMLA leave.

Maybe I'm just a sheep, but the thing that everyone is gnashing their teeth about with the doctor's note is so far down on the flowchart to get there, I'm not too concerned. I call in sick when I'm sick, any perceived threat that they are going to recode my trip from SCK to DRP doesn't change my obligation to myself and my fellow coworkers to not report to work when I'm sick.

 

The guy being honest with his CP in HKG thought that management was above board and open up until he got fired. It is not a matter of is the system onerous, because frankly it is not as currently enforced. But can management decide to adjust the system during peak or contract negotiations and take a couple hostages? Can they decided that you have too many head colds and demand you see an ENT. I am tasked with determining fit to fly, and it is supposed to be a subjective decision were I err on the side of caution. Bottomline think of it as an optimizer were the company holds all of the inputs. Has management earned any good faith recently? The reason we don't have our last 5% is because they are playing productivity games with seniority and Passover pay.

 

Quote:

7. Nothing in this Settlement Agreement shall be construed as an erosion of the Company's existing authority to conduct Section 19 proceedings concerning the circumstances of a pilot's use or attempted use of sick leave where the Company has the reasonable cause to suspect sick leave abuse, which circumstances include, but not alone be, a pilot's failure to provide Section 14.A.6 statement when required to do so. Likewise, nothing in this Settlement Agreement shall be construed as an erosion of the Association's ability to challenge the Company's action in doing so.

Unquote

The above paragraph makes it sound like you could put yourself in jeopardy if you don't provide a sick note to their satisfaction.

If I am not understanding this correctly, I'd sure like an explanation regarding what this paragraph means.

 

What's all this talk about? Didn't you guys recently vote in a new contract 😂😂😂😂