Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooch121
In the short time I've been with the company, each bid generates it's own training letter, listing class start dates and individuals assigned to each class. Following bids generate their own training letters and begin where the preceding training letter stops.
"The" training letter is a bit elusive. It changes from time to time, even between Vacancy Postings. A simulator may break, delaying training. A pilot may have difficulty completing training, delaying training. A pilot may drop out of training, freeing up simulator time. Instructors may get sick, Instructors may go back to the line, new Instructors may be hired -- any number of things may happen that affect the training pipeline. The training letter is a best guess of when everyone due training will receive that training. It is not a guarantee that the training will occur, much less on the published dates. If done properly, the training letter will never be "finished" when a subsequent Vacancy Bid is posted, and awarded. That doesn't result in one training letter that must be finished, and another training letter standing alongside that is also in effect. There is just one training letter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooch121
So in Jake Speed's example of Pilot A & B, how does Pilot A (bid 2/training letter 2) start training before Pilot B (bid 1/training letter 1)? Pilots on training letter 1 should be complete or have entered training before pilots assigned to training letter 2 enter the picture. Remember, in Jake's example both pilots had not entered any training as a result of bid 1 and both originally had slots on training letter 1. Pilot A re-bid on Bid 2 and was assigned a class on training letter 2 earlier than Pilot B's training letter 1 class date. Seems unusual to me. In Jake's case, how do the facts of the situation stack up to the intent of passover pay?
In the case of Pilot A and Pilot B, they were both assigned training dates in two different pipelines, one for Memphis, and the other for Anchorage. When Pilot A recieved the subsequent bid award, the Company had the option of moving him to the Memphis pipeline, or keeping him in the Anchorage pipeline and assigning him a Base transfer date. They chose the latter option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooch121
As for Contract Enforcement stating "we" had no case, anybody who has ever been to an arbitration knows it's not always who has the tightest case who wins. If the client has the backbone, lawyers are trained, good ones anyway, to argue their client's case to the best of their ability, regardless of case's strengths or weakness. I have personally witnessed arbitrators question the substance of a lawyers position. The lawyers response: "It is an argument." In the end, this lawyer saved his client a large sum of money with his "argument."
I'm not an expert in arbitration. If you are, perhaps you should volunteer your services to the committee. My NON-expert opinion is that it would be foolish to grieve everything that ticks us off on the basis that we could form an "it is an argument."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooch121
As I understand our MEC's position on the issue, they didn't want to waste the $$ necessary to grieve the issue. Yet, our Chairman proposes a position on retro which he hopes/doesn't think will pass. His support/position on retro may not have a direct $$ cost, but then how do you put a price on unity??
The money would have only been wasted had the cost been overshadowed by the benefit. That's what they do -- they wiegh the cost versus the expected benefit. That's what we pay them to do. It would be foolish to take every thing we have to complain about to an arbitrator. I think they made a wise decision.
I think this issue has certainly heated some folks up, but I don't think it will fracture our unity. One might assume that everyone is opposed to our Over-60 pilots exercising their seniority rights except members and officers of our MEC and the over-60 guys themselves, but I think that one might be wrong. Certainly that viewpoint has been vocally expressed here, and by a few at recent meetings, but there are quite a few voices that haven't been heard. There are far more people that haven't expressed an opininion one way or another, and the vast majority of our members haven't felt it important enough to show up at any of the meetings. We haven't taken a poll on that particular issue, but I think you'd be surprised at the results if we did.
In any event, I think we'll pull through this all the much stronger for having wrestled with a difficult issue and not poked each others' eyes out in the process. What's that saying, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger? This won't kill us.
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