I will be voting No as well, but would someone like to clarify the line where it said:

A pilot shall be paid five hours per day above monthly guarantee for up to two days of distance learning per calendar month.

Does that mean for every month we're paid 10 hours for distance learning? And, if it didn't, why would it say "per calendar month"?

Also, it says up to two days, but couldn't they just change the estimated time for the complete ground training to 9 hours and then only pay one day of 5 hours?

Obviously any change to the training curriculum would need to be approved by the FAA, but I'm sure they could accomplish that.

 

Yes, but now we all have the chance to fix this practice. Let's not waste it!

 

It says for up to 2 days per calendar month, because the next sentence states. "No more than 2 days of Distance Learning will be administered in any one calendar month."

Just saying they can't overload you with numerous distance learning days, so it can be completed or administered over multiple months.

 

That's what we have now!, isn't it, every grnd school day is a full day with "mmmmk" paid at 4 hrs/day.....but with this LOA/EFB/distance learning toord sandwich we don get the "drops/credits"we used to, days off can't get below guarantee, so our proposal has to comeback with a min pay of 6 hrs a day, and those days have to be scheduled as work days, not on your 22hr layover in Livonia after a red eye.

 

exactly!!!!!!

 

I called some heads and heard some real good counter arguments just now.

Can we stop the company from having you come in on your day off into the crew room and sit for 9 hours, stare at your iPad and call it a ground school? No per diem. No hotel. You live in FLL, are based in LAS, come on fly in on your own time, get a hotel, and sit in the crew room for 2x9 hours.

They could teach us all how to use the ipad and the software during our next regular GS. So you are qualified to use the ipad. Once everyone is trained have fun in the crew room. Make sure you sign in with the intern. Btw doors training will be combined with your SIM in the future.

That changes things. I guess distance learning can be implemented with or without this LOA. I guess we have no leverage here.

 

"Ground training shall consist of all training conducted in a suitable classroom or at any place approved by the FAA."

Don't know if a loud crew room meets this criteria in our contract

 

Actually, FLL Terminal 4, Floor 3 classroom is an approved training location, but the crew room isn't designated as one.

 

Great, so we are going to let the company bully us into voting yes on this? Why does it have to be either we vote yes or the company will do their best to make our lives miserbale?

Why can't we meet in the middle? I think this LOA is close, but it's not meeting in the middle. It's less days off with less money

 

I see many of you have stumbled on what I was in the process of posting, but I'll post my opinion anyway.


I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this position, but there are a lot of assumptions being thrown around here that just aren't factual. I'm not telling you how to vote, just that many of your ideas of what a no vote means to the company are not as devastating as you suggest. We don't get to vote it down and everything just stays as it has been.

The notion that a no vote puts all the iPads back in the closet is nonsense. It is a huge gain for the company regardless of how we vote, that ship has already sailed and there's no getting her back into port. You will be getting an iPad, and you will be doing part of your recurrent training on it. The company does not need union approval, or our ratification to implement this program. They need only consult with the association before any change to the training curriculum, which this LOA shows they have. The only questions this LOA needs to answer is how much will you be compensated for additional distance learning and how to mitigate our liability for carrying a company owned device.

The company is responsible for defining the training program, with FAA approval, to include the curriculum, the medium in which it's presented, and the location in which you will do it. Take a look at the FOTM revision 14-02 from last October, they added the FLL crew room as an approved training facility. If this gets voted down, mark my words, all the other crew rooms will be added to the FOTM list of approved facilities, and you will be required to come do your CBT guided training on the iPad in your base crew room. The CBA only says ground training must be done in a classroom or any place approved by the FAA. Ask the LAS based crews how their training credit has been affected since we added the LAS sim. This will be the same thing, except it just won't be a sim, it will be an approved facility to do your self-guided recurrent training.

Our CBA doesn't say we have to go to FLL to do our training, nor does it stipulate it needs to be instructor-guided training, it doesn't even require it to be scheduled on days on or restore lost days off unless you will go below min days off. Believe me, I agree it sucks we will lose out on potential credit from training conflicts, but a yes or no vote isn't going to change that now. They finally commited to the EFB program because they found a way through this new technology to save money by utilizing it as a training device as well. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the old way of training, and getting huge training conflicts is gone, regardless of the LOA vote outcome. The only things you need to decide, do you want to do this training on your own schedule, in a location of your choosing? Or do want it to be in your base crew room on their schedule? And how much do you want to be paid, the current 8 hours per the CBA, or the 10 hours per the LOA?

Again, vote as you will, but do so on the merits of the LOA, not what you are used to crediting when it comes to recurrent training, because, unfortunately those days are soon to end, one way or another. Also, it's up to each person to decide how a no vote would impact section 6 negotiations, that's a whole different discussion.