Did you actually file a lawsuit or did you let others do the ground work and then jump on their class action lawsuit. That's not advocating.....it's more like looking out for yourself.

As far as me filling a lawsuit - well the Military Affairs Committee through ALPA did a good job of resolving those issues and made them none events for the majority of LUAL guys. Not only that but many of the LCAL issues have been resolved by the current Military Affairs Committee. Company says technical problems and record keeping are slowing final resolution. JS lives!

 

So, it's an information technology problem? Well, whatever the company says then right? That's not what Continental Airlines was saying. CAL was saying: "We disagree with the interpretation of the law and we feel that these pilots are not entitled to said benefits." Your "technical problems" and your "record keeping" argument never came up. In addition, why did 7 managers suddenly retire after the CAL suit was filed? You really don't know what you are talking about "again." Management's response was: we feel the suit is without merit. They actually lost that argument.

In today's world of information technology, data is at our finger-tips. The reason our pay-screens/pay claim process was so onerous was because management wanted it that way. Saved them money. It didn't take much effort to change their methodology once the union forced them to. It's better now.

Everyone has a limited amount of patience with this stuff. I think 7 years is pretty patient. 10 years is mucho patient. We have people now that are retired from both the reserves and from CAL/UAL that still have their issues unresolved. At what point in time does the record keeping and technical problem issues need to be solved so that people can actually have confidence that they are being treated squarely?

We're shooting for plus or minus zero at arrival time. That's our goal. Why can't we shoot for plus or minus zero on record keeping? We're shooting for stabilized by 1000 ft. agl. Why can't our information technology be stabilized within one business week of a guardsmen's return from active duty?

It's a matter of will-power and management's priorities, not record keeping and technology. Management should be held accountable when they fall short of compliance. It's pretty simple actually.

 

The reason that CAL was the first ALPA carrier to implement a military affairs or liaison committee was because of the strife of the CAL military pilots post 9-11 in securing their proper benefits. The reason many became frustrated with the process and with management's attitudes towards military pilots was because of said committee's inability to deliver the proper benefits to their military pilots.

You made my argument for me. LCAL management screwed their military guys pretty hard and took advantage of their goodwill and patience. The CAL ALPA MEC chose to allow management to go down a road that was in non-compliance without being checked. This contributed to the angst and anger of many a dues paying ALPA pilot.

I fully believe that all USSERA/ESGR problems UAL is having today is because of the LCAL problems post 9-11 and post contract '02. I think we can fully agree on that. It was easy to read the L-UAL contract and compare language in these areas as well as examine the L-UAL contract enforcement and determine that CAL was doing it differently. Differently isn't necessarily illegal, that is to say until you examine actual enforcement decisions and the law.

Jeff Smizek set the tone on this stuff, and his subordinates followed his lead. What is very odd is that the L CAL Chief Counsel didn't come to UAL after the merger. The only one I believe who came was Jeff Wall. This may or may not be in his area of responsibility, but it is a logical conclusion as to why we continue to have so much difficulty.

It's been refreshing to see people like Abbot, Starley, J. Martin, and a few others be put out to pasture post merger. They were impediments to progress and labor relations. If there are any more "old heads" still in key roles impeding progress then I hope that they are re-assigned, or let go.

It was a mystery to me that L-UAL, which was an ALPA carrier, had so much dissimilar language in the CBA and in the actual transition and process agreement (TPA) then did L-CAL pilots. ALPA National does indeed need to make sure all of it's ALPA carriers have correct interpretations in place. Otherwise your paying for the same ground twice and three times over at various MEC's across the land.

The MEC's may or may not be smart enough to do this on their own, and if you have an MEC led by someone like JP, then you are likely to go down a path that will short change your military pilots. This goes back to what the current (big money) contractual fight is over: the hold back?? I don't think anyone is going to see their money any time soon. It's the same for the LTD over-payments.

We have many pilots trusting that the record keeping, etc. is correct. Now that cases like this are being brought forward, I see plenty of people going into their shoe-boxes and pulling out records trying to compare it to what the computer screen says.

 

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This rant just solidifies what I've been saying but you should try to stay focused.

 

How did UAL break the law? Are other forms of leave of absence different than military leave? A little more detail would be appreciated!

 

Yes, other forms of leave at UAL accrue sick time. Therein lies the USERRA violation. USERRA mandates that MIL leave gets the same benefits as any other leave. It could differ from airline to airline as each contract is different.

 

I think the actual issue comes from post merger treatment.

Regular Leaves of Absence don't accrue Sick Leave, but Military LOAs always have at original United. At CAL they apparently did not. After the merger, the UA side still gave SL accrual to their ML pilots while the CAL side did not. Since we were one company after the merger, you couldn't have one pilot on ML not getting SL accrual while another pilot on ML did get accrual.

 

Partially correct. However, one suit filed against CAL pre-merger is still on-going. So, there is a pre-merger component to it that is different then some of the post merger claims. One pre-merger CAL suit had 5 different causes of action, only two of the causes of action had to do with any sort of benefits accrual or benefit payouts. The other 3 causes of action had more to do with improper conduct amongst CAL managers with direct, and blatant harassment of military members. This case has been up to the US Supreme Court and has some of its causes of action on-going.

However, during the merger, the CAL MEC was made aware of the differences in the UAL contract language as it applies to various forms of leave, to include military leave. The CAL MEC made a decision to continue doing it the old "CAL way" instead of coming in-line with the UAL methodologies. This I believe is the key reason the "hold back" occurred, and is the key reason the "hold back" is still being held back.

Pre merger, I am not aware of any problems that legacy United was having with military pilots or military leave usage. So, I would tend to agree, the problems started happening during the actual merger process, likely due to two distinctly different management as well as union philosophies. Remember, not only did UAL merger with CAL, but the UAL MEC, merged with the CAL MEC. The merger, or whatever word is appropriate between the two union bargaining and contract enforcement agents is fairly important in the issue.

Once people like Jackson Martin exited the process, the layers of the onion could be rolled back to see where the labor relations failures were occurring. Not only did Martin have a total misunderstanding of how the cba should be interpreted and enforced, but he had a fundamental lack of knowledge of USSERA/ESGR issues. Also of note, most of the CAL managers are no longer involved now, or many were relieved on-the spot, and a few named defendants retired on the spot.

A common philosophy of understanding is what it will take to do this right. One MEC on the same page, and one labor relations department that has a willingness and honest desire to do the right thing will set this on the right course. There are/were a whole host of issues to set right. Sick leave, B fund, benefits, harassment, discriminatory conduct,

Managers are on record stating/doing:
1. You take too much military leave
2. Military doesn't work on Thanksgiving
3. It's getting too hard to hire you military guys
4. Your mil leave throws a monkey wrench into PBS
5. We give you RX days to discourage taking of MLLV.
6. extending probation of one pilot to investigate "legitimacy of mil leave."
7. Repeatedly calling Commanders to verify or investigate mllv.
8. "What we are looking for is support from the military command to discourage the use of military leave as fairy dust as a tactical tool to schedule improvement by military pilots."
9. You need to chose between the NAVY and Continental Airlines
10. One CP emailed over 50 chief pilots of other airlines in an attempt to intimidate one pilots use of mllv.


It's not just benefits, it's actual out-right harassment. The list of offenses is fairly long. The above is just a snap shot.

 

baseball:

Outstanding post. Just facts, without divisional rancor or partisan finger-pointing.

As to the quotes: Wow and wow. I had no idea....I knew about some of those in numbers 1-9.

FWIW, I never had any difficulties with mil leave...I kind of assumed it was a given at any major US corporation.