MasterOfPuppets

I'm not advocating sitting at home and doing nothing I don't mind sitting SC and I am a commuter.

What I am demanding is control over my life. Currently, other than the FIFO list there is no transparency. I have seen days where not a single reserve was put on SC and the weather was crap and they started SRM. And I have seen days where every reserve in base was put on SC and there wasn't cloud over the entire country. Where is the consistency? The crew desk on multiple occasions have built reserve periods at 11pm and assigned them immediately to me. Why? what is the point of this? When I ask why they say it is because nothing restricts them from doing it. All I want is more control over my life than a couple hours in advance. I have no problem commuting to reserve, I accept what it is sitting at home waiting for a call is to stressful for me.

There are so many holes in the reserve section that cause us to be abused. These reserve rules were meant to make our lives consistent. Why can't the crew desk build all reserves for tomorrow by noon the day before? Weather doesn't just pop up out of nowhere. If i could see a 6am, noon, 1500 , 1800, and 2000 SC I could pick the one that works better for me. Instead I see 1 1500. Then at 11pm I'm called for a noon that didn't exist until 2 minutes ago.

Did you know that a SC assignment needs 12hrs notice if assigned between 1800 and 2359? So if they build a 10am at 11pm its illegal but if they wait until 0000 its now legal. Thats crap and it is abuse!

Why on earth is a line holders day off more valuable than a reserves day off?? if you work into a day off you need to get add pay period. I know we have 10 day trips and thats what the company needs to roll us, and thats fine but we get Add pay too. If they don't want to pay us then they can use DH's to split the trip.

Conclusion.....Transparency, planning, add pay for rolls and consistency in SC building is what I'm asking for. I'm not asking to sit home on long call. When I was asked over the phone on the survey what I would take for this to pass I said 20% pay raise and better reserve rules. I can accept 19% and current book, that would get a yes from me. But 13% and no fixes is telling me that I have to give on EVERYTHING I wanted. I don't need the money thats being offered what I need is a better QOL. Even when I was a line holder I bid min Schedule and if I was awarded a line in the 80s I tried to drop a trip. I don't pick up overtime, I don't do SRM, I don't pick up a trip if I'm FBOd, I don't pick up SC and I don't do VDOs. Its not because I am a commuter its because I plan my life off of guarantee thats how much I want to work. So for me to bid off of the 777 back to the 756 would be about a 22% pay cut for me. So I can hold out until they offer me something I am willing to accept.

fanaticalflyer

Yes and No Probe. I agree with you that people always complain about reserves. The L-UAL reserve system was actually pretty darn good. The problem with today's reserve system is that they don't build the SCs by 0900 which they used to do on the LUAL side. Currently, the schedulers just make them up whenever they want throughout the day, even as late as 1900. The issue for a reserve, is that you can't aggressively pick up the SC time you want. That affects commuters and those living in base. Years ago when i sat reserve on purpose, i like to bid the late SC's. Some commuters do not want the early ones to be able to come in the day of, etc.... We used to have this issue on L-UAL side until ALPA forced them to build all SCs by 0900. And they also stomped out the blatant misuse of SCs where everyone was assigned one down the list for no rhyme or reason. I've bid reserve a couple times over the past 3 years, and this reserve system has blatant misuse by the schedulers all the time and we have no recourse. It needs to be fixed.

Outside of all this, I would not vote 'NO' against this TA because of it. The reserve rules implementation is being dragged out any way and even with the arbitrator siding with the pilots, the company has no impetus to get it done quicker. If i was on reserve, then at least give me 16% pay raise to put up this crap over the next year or two as they fix it and fully implement everything, which they will get around to.

For those that bid bigger equip or to CAP and are on reserve, please don't whine on the forum. You reap what you sow on that one. Bid off to another airplane as a line holder or wait for seniority to rapidly move up, which it will continue to do for awhile.

For the new-hires, you have no idea how bad reserves were before but not using that as an excuse. I think the reserve system is decent. Need to enforce the SC assignments and to have full transparency by seeing where all the reserves are on a particular day and the monthly reserve coverage for each day. L-UAL used have all of this clearly visible on Unimatic. Unfortunately, this is CAL mgmt and what L-CAL guys were accustom too. Stinks for everyone. But for a newbie, you will move up quickly on seniority.

Probe

MOP and FF;
You are confusing rules, with incompetence. The fact that there is no consistency is incompetence, not the rules, or the reserve system. Voting no on this won't fix the incompetence. 2-6 years of section 6 negotiations won't fix incompetence.

If you bid global reserve, you knew the rules about rolling RDO's. That was part of your decision matrix. Your choice. I would not give up straight pay rates for global reserve to get add pay. I have done global reserve. I get one vote. You get one vote.

Voting no does not fix anything. You just end up with less beer money at the end of the month.

Probe

And possibly, Lufthansa starts flying our SFO to TLV.

MasterOfPuppets

I agree the schedulers are incompetent but if we can't prevent them from being incompetent then don't the rules need to be fixed? Good rules prevent incompetence.

SpecialTracking

That's fear mongering on the level that Donald Trump would appreciate.

Probe

I have been waiting for most of 20 years for United management to get less incompetent. It is a good thing I wasn't holding my breath.

Voting no doesn't fix that. Voting no doesn't make management hate us less. Voting no fixes nothing, and we get no contract improvements, and perhaps we loose some very lucrative flying to Star Alliance. Again.

Hopefully Oscar will get better, and will be our savior.

Until then, my one vote goes into the the "yes" tally. Voting "yes" moves the bar forward.

fanaticalflyer

I've never said i'm voting NO. Quite the contrary. I'm a hardcore YES on this TA. I think anyone voting NO for a single item, instead of voting for the big picture, is clueless. We both have been around long enough to see what full SEC 6 negotiations get us. Just a dragged out new contract, with NO RETRO pay, and losing all the pay increases we could have had, and in this case, 4-6 years of pay raises. No way am I going to say no to that. If they want to drag out the SEC 6, like they always do, then I won't be complaining as bad with hundreds of thousands of extra dollars i'll be getting in the meantime! I'm with you on this one Brutha!!

SpecialTracking

How in the name of Jesus H. himself do we know what we're voting on? Those $$$ signs sure are a panty dropper aren't they ladies?

Jay "LOA 25" would never produce an agreement requiring some educational reading would he? Nope, just read the MEC updates and yer good to go.

Disgusted

Levigarrett

Pay raise? Yes please.

67% thought this contract was just fine. Now it's the same deal with more money? Yeah, this will pass comfortably. Next...