I've been on property about a year and a half. I haven't called in sick yet. I'm a mil background so I've never dealt with "calling in sick."

All this letter did for me was confuse me how to call in sick. I guess my question is, what is the companies preferred method/timeline to call in sick? >24hrs? That's about the only metric that I can think of that would be remotely reasonable for them to ask of the pilot force.

So,
did any of the paranoics lose their pay?

Sick timeline, if I know I'm not going to be healthy enough to fly the trip then I call in 24+ hours prior to show (by now I hope we all are sufficiently in tune with our health to have an idea how long recovering from a cold or flu takes)

I've called in sick after show (trip was a DH into a 24'sh hour layover). Scratched cornea, on that one company asked for a Drs note 7+ days later after I'd already called in well and went back to work. For that one I called scheduling and asked them to list me sick and why as well as emailing my FC expecting that it might trigger questions.

I've called in sick during the drive into the AOC 4-5'sh hours prior to show. During the Capt "0" days and oddly enough no questions on that one.

I've dealt with food poisoning in flight and that's just not a fun place to be...FE at the time (notifed company, no questions asked)

Prior to BM's reign of terror, Mgt contacted me twice with questions re my sick leave. No qualms on my part of telling the company my rationale for being sick.

They don't get a vote

UPS pilots are always welcome on our threads. What affects one pilot group can easily affect another.

I'll give you a rundown on what happened a couple of years ago, and where this all stemmed from. I think the settlement's entire goal is to stop the dreaded "advisory letters" from the new tracking system that management implemented.

A couple of months before peak, was it 3 years ago, maybe, they implemented a new sick tracking system without giving the pilots any notice or information about it. Now many (seemingly random) things triggered a high points value, and at a specific number, they required a letter from your doctor. Okay. But you know how they notified, at least some people? By company email. Brilliant. Who reads their company email when they're sick? And we were getting multiple emails daily about the new iPads, so if you didn't read your email daily, the request for a doctors note could easily get buried.

Instead of calling people or putting in a VIPS notification, the first thing they did is FedEx a bunch of very nasty advisory letters to people's front door. It chastised them for not sending in the requested doctor's letter, and gave themselves permission to discipline you for further incidents. Some genius really thought that people were ignoring requests for letters (like, who actually does that?). :confused:

Some of the pilots who got letters hadn't called in sick for years. Some of the people sent the requested doctors letters when they actually knew they were wanted, with evidence of serious issues, and the letters were not retracted. I don't know if the company got the intended result or not (people being afraid to call in sick during peak). But I do know that they managed to **** off people who are normally gung ho, anything for the company types.

This is a pilot group that does not react well to being threatened. But give us good coffee, free popcorn, sleep rooms and positive feedback, and we'll do anything.

I don't know my guess is yes. But the point is the company has never had written unilateral procedures for docking my pay if my Doctor is not loquacious enough for them. Up until they unilaterally decided to turn up the heat it was spelled out fairly clearly what required a note. It still is. I guess I should be grateful they decided to dial it down a notch for now.

The company should get more productivity out of the pilots with money, not intimidation.

BM's reign of terror began late summer/early autumn 2013.

My guess on the paranoics is that NO they didn't lose pay, but were irritated (rightfully so) about being questioned for using SL with minimal use of it in recent history.

Have to wonder what some of us thought the company would do prior to BMs reign of terror when they felt they had a good faith reason (or Holiday, or DSA use) and requested a note and the answer given was pound sand-it's a HIPAA violation and I'm not telling you squat.

Wonder if it's a subset of the people who think fatigue calls or JS failure are pay protected

That wasn't about people being irritated about being questioned. It is about people who were threatened with discipline, who had never gotten an advisory letter in their file before, who had valid sick calls......getting a nasty letter from management plunked down on their doorstep purely because they hadn't read an email.

That would make anyone paranoid.

New guy here, but has the Sick Call Point System ever been clearly described to the Pilot group or is it super secret like the the Application Point System?

The latter.

Actually, I think there is more public data about the hiring process. We at least had the opportunity to attend briefings by the qua... umm, doctor. :rolleyes:






.

I'll tell you what ... how about if Management has the same criteria in order to call in sick?

I wonder what the FAA would think about this program?

MM

:confused:

As I said previously, if Harvey Watt is reviewing our sick notes, there is a conflict of interest. We are a customer for disability insurance and the company is a customer for sick note review. Harvey Watt meanwhile creates a profile on its insurance policy holders that provided actual medical diagnoses..that the company gave them through our submission.

Harvey Watt then has a file that could potentially be used to drop us from insurance coverage or deny us further coverage. My point is, they are not an uninterested neutral third party as the company wants us to believe! They are obviously in bed with each other and we need legal intervention now! I'm not a lawyer but it probably violates an ethical code of conduct in the insurance industry.