More Leaves
 

All the bids are over at CAL. Here at ol' UAL it's more leaves..even through Christmas and January retirements. But it's ok, nothing funny going on. I trust CAL management.
;)


9/11/2012
November - December – January Voluntary Personal Leaves
A limited number of voluntary personal leaves will continue to be available for November, December and January. All categories will be considered for leaves during this period.
Leaves will be granted for up to three months in seniority order by fleet/seat/domicile. Leaves longer than 3 months will be considered on an individual basis, please contact your domicile for information.
The November flying month begins on October 30th and ends on November 29th. For pilots with inbound trips in the leave month, the leave will begin on the first day after the scheduled trip ends. Submit your request using ‘absent no-pay (ANP)’ DIS*41971. The deadlines for submitting a request is Noon (Central Time) Wednesday, October 3rd.
Due to the holiday and fluctuations in flying levels, only full month leaves will be available in December (November 30th through December 29th). We will continue to offer partial month leaves for other months. However, if requesting less than a full month leave, the maximum number of blocks the leave can be split into is two and each block must contain a minimum of seven days. Example - If requesting a 14 day leave, the leave can contain one block of fourteen days, or two blocks of days with each block containing seven days. This restriction has been implemented to avoid granting weekend-only leaves to those who otherwise could not hold weekends off.
If you have a future award, ANP will not be awarded for the month(s) when training is scheduled or may be scheduled, nor will ANP be awarded for 2 month(s) following completion of training at DENTK. ANP may be awarded for the month(s) preceding the training. ANP will not be scheduled over an awarded PC or PT.
A renewed MOU, once again, enables the company to continue medical and dental benefits for leaves up to 3 months. For leaves in excess of three months, medical and dental benefits may be retained if paid for by the pilot via COBRA. Full pass travel benefits will remain in effect for one month leaves only. For leaves of two months or more months, United and United Express pass travel benefits will remain in effect for the employee and eligible family members, but you will not be eligible for interline or companion travel benefits.
If you request and are awarded ANP that conflicts with an assigned vacation, that vacation will be cancelled and replaced with ANP and re-assigned later. If you are awarded a vacation after ANP has been awarded, that vacation will replace the ANP on a day for day basis unless ANP is requested for the entire vacation period. For leaves of two months or more, vacation accrual will be reduced by one-twelfth (1/12) for each full month beyond the first month per section 11-B-1-b, which could affect your splits per section 11-B-2-a-b for the 2013 vacation year.
These voluntary Personal Leaves are unpaid. Please contact the pay desk at [email protected] if you have questions about your pay or the timing of your paychecks.

That's just grim.

Yep. Retirements on the way, and evidently UCH will park our jets as fast as we can retire pilots. But hey, new hires over on the CAL side!! How exciting. At some point, we need to wake up. The UAL side can do some serious damage before we get wiped out. The nuclear option may have to be visited in the near future, depending on what the grand plan is.

Sled

Won't it all be a moot point once we have an SLI?

SURE. But we don't have an SLI, and will not until about 6 months after both MECs accept a TA. Do we have a TA? nope. And if the pilot group votes the TA down, the SLI process is haulted. I will expect the worst, hope for the best. Mr. Smisek has proven he is full of sheet. Talking about culture and being fair to coworker's while dragging ass on our CBA. If he is talking, he is lying. Nothing would surprise me.

Sled

The sky is not falling! These are SHORT term LOAs..as little as 7 seven days or as long as 3 month BUT no more...United offered these last year about the same time ( reduced WINTER Hours). I took last December off through one of these offerings. United is not granting any long term LOAs and as a matter of fact is denying pilots with expiring long term leaves, any extensions to their current leaves. In the past United would offer us surplus lines worth 60 hours to stay at home but I guess they learn it is cheaper just to offer these short term leaves during the winter scheduled reductions.

Lee

Lee, That was last year. No retirements. These leaves are thru Jan. We have 200+ retirements coming up in 2013 just on our side. I see that there are 450 bids at CAL. Nothing here. Don't bury your head in the sand.

Sled

Dec 13 th the retirements begin but have you seen the numbers? How many are you expecting to depart on that one day? ALPA has said one every 18 hours for the combine carrier. It will take time to go through any meaningful number.
I am just trying to tell you that we went through this drill last year and it just a function of reduce winter hours . These LOA were not offered during the summer. Back to the sand, talk later.

Hey sled, I agree with you 1000%. This is #%$@ed. LUAL are BOHICA'ed again. But, I have always asked this when fellow pilots complained: what can be done about it? There has always been blustery talk by guys on the line and ALPA reps in the press. I recall when the gas prices were spiking out of control, mgmt announced to the press that UAL will park the 737s, starting with all the older ones and the newer ones too if gas prices continue going up. I recall reading in the papers, an MEC rep responding to the press that "we won't let the company do that! That is in violation of the block hours agreement" (paraphrasing). I don't know how they got around the block hours thing (if in fact a part of the CBA) but we all know what happened. That was just one example that I thought was the best example of ALPA/MEC's all talk, no action threats. So, besides voting NO on this TA and continue to vote NO for future crappy TAs, what can we do about it? I feel like we are fighting with both hands tied. Unless we as a national union really start to make waves to the point of declaring we will do "whatever it takes" regardless of whether it's legal and in accordance to the RLA, we won't get anywhere. It's almost as if the labor movement has to happen all over again. After all, it wasn't legal to do a lot of the things that were done back in the days when labor was first fighting for the right to organize and be represented, and strike if necessary.

BTW, I have always liked the nuclear option.

We need to just vote - YES on ANY T/A.... At least that is what the company wants us scare us into doing. (For the EXTRA slow among us, that is a description of the company tactic, and NOT a voting position I would advocate). The company wants to paint a grim picture to the bottom half of the UAL side.

Sadly we have had the nuclear option available all along, but we have decided not to use it. We had it before we let 1437 go, while those among us said it was "just part of working in this industry". We had it when Glen laughed at us while paying out hundreds of millions in special dividends. At some point if we continue to allow our numbers and pride to shrink we will not have that option anymore....

SP

Worth watching again, and again...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...=frol02s4baq79