rickair7777

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...ve-2023-02-01/

This could be a big deal. It does make sense... USERRA specifies that mil leave gets the same benefits (including pay) as other types of leave offered to other employees. Jury duty pay is the obvious example, but there are others.

The A4A argument that "pilots posses a unique ability to deconflict airline and mil schedules" is blatant hogwash IMO. Not everybody has the seniority for that, and they don't expect people to use their bidding horsepower to deconflict jury duty, pregnancy, etc.

Beech Dude

I don't agree with this guy. He has his right and can go to court, but mil leave is not the same. When someone gets sick they have paid sick leave from the company; they don't go and then also get paid by the doctor they see for being sick. When we go on mil leave, we're still getting paid by John Q Taxpayer. You get your pay from your company and get pay for your time on orders. We all continue to serve and the flex it allows us is great for most, but you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Coolbrz

Not trying to argue but just to look at it from a different perspective...if the intent of these types of leave (and laws) is to encourage people to pursue things that are in the communities "best interest" (child rearing, military service, jury duty, etc) wouldn't that apply here? Jury duty...civic responsibility (paid, albeit a small amount) still gets paid from the company. As Rick said above that's fairly obvious. Now what if someone makes less in the military than they do at their airline gig? Should they have to decide between serving their country and their livelihood? The government has decided that they want to reduce as many barriers to military service as they can (whether on the backs of private enterprise is right or wrong is another discussion). If the company is in a position to offer paid absence for one thing they don't want them to cherry pick out military service.

I say all that to say it will be interesting to see what the jury decides. I think it's likely this ends up in two places. 1) Companies do away with all other types of discretionary paid leave. and/or 2) there is a cap on the number of days or payment amount. I.e you get your 12 drills and Annual Training paid but then uncle sam can pick up the rest. Or some companies will make up pay differential between mil and civ. As a data point the federal technician program has this where they will pay "military leave" for up to 15 days every year. Which seems reasonable. I've also worked for a company that will be the difference between base pay and your civ salary. Meets the intent without "unfairly" burdening the company with expecting them to provide a salary to an employee that doesn't generate revenue and has SOME discretion over their schedule. As in most things there can be a middle ground if both sides are willing to be reasonable. Doesn't have to be binary.

rickair7777

Sick / disability leave is different IMO, you could reasonably have a carve-out for that.

But jury duty is the same, civic responsibility. USERRA does NOT require that you get to double dip, simply that you get whatever people on other leaves get.

If the company makes up the difference between jury duty and regular pay, then that's what mil are entitled to under USERRA. If they pay you full pay on top of whatever you get for jury duty, then USERRA would mandate that.

Also keep in mind... pilots are serious outliers, USERRA *mostly* protects folks who have less disposable civilian income and also make less military pay, often quite a bit less for enlisted. You can't exclude pilots just because everybody loves to hate us for what he have, but suppose you could cap the company's responsibility to a certain reasonable dollar amount.

That would be a congress thing though... this lawsuit appears at a casual glance to be a perfectly legit claim based on the way the law is written now.

Lifeson2112

So during the first year they should give back any mil pay that is in excess of year 1 airline pay? Lol

Wonder if/how this would affect hiring of military.

Coolbrz

Not sure I follow the point you’re making?

as a general statement though I don’t think this is about fairness per se. Just the argument about what is entitled vs spirit of the USERRA protections.

How it affects hiring is a valid concern though. Can’t be any obvious hiring bias of course but that is easily circumvented either consciously or unconsciously.

rickair7777

???

I don't think you understood what I said, it was nothing along those lines.

Lifeson2112

Was not going by what you said necessarily, merely the article but I may have misunderstood it. I thought this pilot was looking to have the airline pay the difference between his (lower) military pay and his (higher) airline pay. So my intended joke (fail!) was that in that case, during year one of airline when his military pay is presumably higher, he needs to give back some military pay in order to get back to the level of his civilian pay, if equaling the civilian pay is the intent.

I also didn’t fully process that this case is seemingly only about short term military leaves, not someone dropping full time orders for like three years.

RC26flyer

I hear some aviators flying part 121 are also on full time orders....anyone have issues with this?

If you bid around your military schedule and fly A320 on the weekend?

rickair7777

All airlines that I've worked for did not allow you to pick up any trips while on orders. I could see some lower tier 121 like maybe ACMI doing that if they're in a pilot crunch.

But technically nothing wrong with it, if an airline chose to allow it. Many pilots have side gigs, only difference is that USERRA makes the side gig the full-time gig when Uncle needs you.

Your free time is your free time, regardless of what your primary job is.