fcoolaiddrinker

When you mentioned you don’t know the contract very well. You should have just stopped right there. I’m thinking you might be the problem if you’re just accepting whatever new guy schedualer is handing out. Without challenging or filing a dispute. Your handcuffing the union with that as now your a direct example in the company’s practice argument.
you see now how throwing blame around is counter productive and managements wet dream? If you’re not happy with union representation just get more involved. It’s just that simple.

dracir1

So many questions from this post - to start, why do you have a copy of our contract and you don't work here? Why do you care? And why are you posting?

Nevertheless, I'll assume you mean well and are just here to help. If so, question for ya:

Our contract states in Sec 25.N.1.b that "no less than fifteen percent (15%) and no more than twenty-five percent (25%) of the Reserve lines will be Fixed Day Off (FDO) lines, provided there are at least twenty (20) total Reserve in the Position." As I'm sure you know, pilots like to pair FDO lines w/ vacation months to maximize time away (and credit potential). Let's say Vegas has 21 reserves in the position for a particular month but the company doesn't offer FDO that month. What are pilots to do? Even if there's a grievance, how does a pilot calculate the "damage" suffered by NOT being able to bid FDO (of which, even if they had the lines available, is difficult to tell whether one would've been awarded to them)?

This just happened for the upcoming month. May 2024 - you can go to PBS (or check the bid packets). More than 1 base had 20 RSV lines but no FDO on the CA side. From what I've been informed, a grievance has been filed. But this is just one small example. There are SO MANY LOOPHOLES in this contract, it'd take hours to list them all. We all know about them - in fact, you knowing the contract as well as you state would mean you probably know about more than I do. Yet, you're here defending the last NC who allowed them? Wasn't ALPA supposed to be defend the pilot group better than FAPA at potential traps during the last negotiation? Where were you when the NC clearly stated that PBS was absolutely, positively not even going to be discussed - yet, we have it now? Noone could foresee the average duty period issue resulting in 10 hour 3 day trips (some of which are in OT right now)?

Let's discuss greivances - we have over 1300. Many are duplicates or multiples of the same issue (like reassignment) and can be lumped together for resolution. However, the CBA lacks substantial incentive (or punishment) for resolving them so the company practially ignores them. Yes, the company does meet in the regularly scheduled grievance meetings but according to the union greivance committee, does as little as possible at those meetings to address resolution. This must be true; how else would we have so many. By comparison, our 1300 is about 1 for every 2 pilots. United, w/ over 10k pilots has less than 50. That's one for every 200 pilots. How do you explain that - are we just a more honery bunch?

You not flying but somehow knowing the contract better is like saying you know don't have a car and don't drive but know all of the rules of the road better.

fcoolaiddrinker

I guess that went over your head. I do work at f9 and have for over 15 years. I’ll answer your fdo question. The remedy would look something like this. Step one. File a dispute and ask for whatever you could have achieved credit wise or days off your choice had you been awarded fdo. Step two. Let the grievance committee make an argument on your behalf. It’s that simple.
now when it comes time to pay for the contract violation the union will get that remedy or something similar for the three most sr pilots that filed a dispute. Three FDO’s were required. More than likely you don’t file a dispute you get nothing in this scenario.
Let's do this one question at a time and cut down on rambling on please.

dracir1

Of course you work here - I suppose I did too good of job of pretending not to know that...

There was only one question. Not sure what rambling you're referring to.

And, your remedy is EXACTLY what I mentioned. You fly the (non-FDO) awarded schedule and grieve it. The grievance may or may not ever get to be argued/decided/paid out. Most likely, it (along with the other 1300) will remain until the company offers to "give" us something during contract negotiations in return for cancelling all of the current grievances. The NC will acquiese and your grievance will end up getting you nothing. This is EXACTLY what happened last contract negotiation. The company knows this and is why there are so many grievances in the first place. Think about that - 1300 grievances in about 5 years. That's almost 1 every other day.

You continue to ignore reference to the loopholes. Too much "rambling" for you to keep up I guess. At the end of the day, we're on the same team. I do suppose w/ the interest shown here, you will vote as necessary in order to get industry standard rates at least.

fcoolaiddrinker

Wierd because I got a check for around 8k when my 5ish legit grievances were finally settled last round. Several hundred k was paid out. Stop with the misinformation of we got nothing. We got 100’s of thousands when they were settled.
I am really starting to believe you are lambert talking pilots out of filing disputes.
for anyone experiencing a contract violation please ignore dracir. You will be made whole at some point.

dracir1

Bro, tell me you're not confusing retro payment as grievance payout...I got a nice little retro check as well (no where near 100% of course). Never ONCE did I consider it for anything other than retro pay.

I do know a few pilots who have been actually paid for grievances. The process is running and it does pay out (albeit sporadically and VERY slowly). I never mentioned it was completely worthless - just mostly. According to the March 2, Grievance Update, there are 1478. Most are non-approved hotels (mostly MOU1 violations), non-notification and middle seat deadheads. There are more grievances currently in the "deadlocked" category than any other. Noone I know has received anything in the area of 8k so congrats to you in your case. I can only imagine what those who do have some in the system will get. I only have 2 - if and when they're resolved, I'd be more than happy to share the results of the cases here.

Would you be willing to bet that 8k that ALL of our grievances will be resolved before a TA is produced? I'd bet that we actually have MORE than we do now and that there will be a provision in the TA that nullifies whatever's remaining just like last contract.

You seem so intent on trying to discredit me but provide little counter to the points of # of grievances (and why), the timeline with which they are resolved and the fact that most of our outstanding grievances during last contract cycle were wiped out by the new contract.

If you want to continue to ignore addressing them (or if there's too many mentioned for you to do so), I understand. But the sheer # of grievances should concern you (and everyone else).

fcoolaiddrinker

Pretty sure I’m not confusing my 8k with my 90k.
all grievances must be resolved to have a new agreement. There cannot be a ta without all grievances being resolved. It’s not legally possible. The process takes 2ish weeks. there were roughly 1000 (over 8-12 contract disagreements) last time with sub 1000 pilots over the amendable timeframe. How many language disagreements does that 1300 represent? It’s not many. You resolve 1 disagreement that’s hundreds resolved. That’s how this works. Unfortunately most won’t be till near a ta happens because right now both sides are trying to gain leverage for the argument.
This isn’t anything new with this management. It’s normal. My concern about it is near zero. If you’re concerned maybe give the grievance committee a shout. I’m sure they need the help. I was on the committee for years and I’m out on that. Did my part last round because I wasn’t happy with the previous agreement.

fcoolaiddrinker

The company will settle disputes they cannot win, the language more than likely won’t change, and thier cheap to resolve. They do this to seem like they’re playing nice in mediation. That’s why you’re seeing a few settled. I’m really not trying to discredit you. It’s more like trying to keep the misinformation to a minimum.

dracir1

Perhaps I am incorrect on something...

Since you have more intimate knowledge, just how many grievances were outstanding at the time of the last contract TA? That is, how many grievances were active during last negotiations that the company said, "Hey, instead of taking months to hear/litigate/resolve all the remaining grievances, let's discuss one lump sum payout and call it good" and the NC said, "OK." Was that just for less than 50 grievances remaining? 419? 1000+?

Or did that not happen and EVERY SINGLE active grievance prior to our last TA was litigated/resolved?

Just a few questions for the purposes of minimizing misinformation and a framework for realizing how the current 1500 will be addressed in a few years.

fcoolaiddrinker

As I mentioned before there were around 1000 open disputes. A ta was agreed upon. Next we need to resolve all open disputes. Without that step the ta goes away because we clearly still have language disagreements. 500ish of those were hotel related so those paid somewhere around $100 per for the legit ones. Multiple non legit grievances were withdrawn. Historically speaking around 30% of all disputes under our old contract were not contract violations. I’ll guess that 30% has dropped way down to sub 10%. There’s a few reasons for that. 1-standard Alpa language compared to Fapa language. 2- way more definitions and examples. 3- most negotiation sessions were recorded for language intent recall if needed. Finally gray area disputes were resolved. Several of those paid out depending on old vs new language. That took the longest and there were to many to discuss in detail for understanding without basically writing a book about it. Each one was thoroughly vetted by a committee member. I had one or two withdrawn without payment due to someone sr getting it or another it just wasn’t a clear contract violation.
Just an fyi. Before indigo most disputes were resolved with the chief pilots office monthly. Few became grievances. That was also true for about the first year of our current agreement.