February 19, 1998
ALPA, Intl
Committees
In order to accomplish this, training displacement will be kept to a minimum by
the creation of training lines. Unlike a similar experiment in the recent past, check
airmen will bid and be awarded their lines in the normal bid process. Each bid period, a
designated number of check airmen lines will be set aside for assignment to trainees
rather than be awarded to first officers. This process will result in a minimum of
training displacement. But when displacement occurs, a displaced pilot will be pay
protected and released. This system will be in place no later than Bid Period 140. More
details will be forthcoming, and copies of the settlement will be distributed to pilot
mailboxes shortly.
Pilot staffing problems
While we’re encouraged by the resolution to the AT/Training Displacement issue, our
ongoing problems with short pilot staffing remain unresolved. As recently as Bid Period
135, the company had agreed to and was complying with
ALPA’s interpretation of the vacation cancellation process required under the contract.
Specifically, it was mutually agreed that there are no provisions for “vacation
buy-back:” there are provisions for voluntary vacation cancellation, with
requirements for one bid period prior notice to the MEC and the affected pilot, and for
cancellations to be volunteered in seniority order.
What was mutually agreed just a few months ago was
conveniently forgotten last week. Requests last weekend by Crew Resources for vacation buy
back are extra-contractual and will be grieved. In the meantime pilots should not
participate in this buy back program as it amounts to an individual deal, outside the
contract, between a pilot and management.
Remember: cutting deals outside the contract undermines the
agreement and masks management’s ongoing staffing problems. Pilots are bound by the
contract just as surely as management. Don’t find yourself on the wrong side of a
grievance. Just say no.
The next scheduled hotline will be Thursday, February 26th.
Fly safe. Thanks for listening.
| MEC Hotline | ||
| Don Steinman for the MEC
“AT” grievance Several weeks ago, the MEC and America West jointly submitted an important, longstanding grievance to Mediation. Mediators from the National Mediation Board worked with the MEC, key committee members and management representatives to resolve the issue of AT assigned to pilots who are displaced from their trips by check airman conducting line training. We are pleased to announce that ALPA and America West, working together in mediation, were able to resolve the AT issue with language that satisfies the core requirement of ALPA’s AT grievance: the practice of assigning AT for training displacement will become a thing of the past. When the settlement becomes effective, any pilot who is displaced from an assigned trip to accommodate line training shall go home pay protected, and shall not be subject to reassignment. |