AFA Topic Week of 11/30 to 12/6

[usarsv98]

I read on here all the times about the reserves tired of not flying (who can blame them) and the Line holders upset that many of them are going back on reserve or holding lousy blocks. Well, instead of just complaining on here, write to someone that can make a difference. Demand that management starts offering a substantial number of Voluntary Personal Leaves each month. This will free up blocks from senior people who do not want to work and take more people off of reserve. The problem is that management does not offer any because they want to cover their A-S and have a bunch of reserves sitting around and doing nothing. I have 30 hours this month and they offered like five VPLOAs for Nov and none for Dec and Jan. This is crazy. There is no reason why they can't offer a large number of leaves and make people happy.

So in addition to writing your frustrations here, take some time to write to Mike Finn, Sherry Shambles, Paul Kinsey, Steve Kingsley from the company and Mike Flores and John McCorkle from AFA and demand that they start offering a generous number of leaves of Absences. Their addresses are easily attainable but if you need them PM me and I can send them to you.

I know people don't like to write letters or emails but is truly the only constructive way of brining some relief. This is a fix that we have available in our contracts that does not have to be negotiated. We just need them to offer them. It is just going to get much worse in the upcoming months so lets start trying to get some relief from this now!!!

 

[Richard]

We will try one topic for AFA this week--as a reminder, keep it on topic, and not personal.

 

[2clippedwings]

I just dug up this e-line from October 18, 2006.......Again, 2006
Also, reserves, read the instructions about making sure you get your 3:30 minimum pay for OPR when given a short assignment.



The AFA Newsletter for US Airways Flight Attendants


In this Issue

October 18, 2006


24/7 UPDATE #4
MERGED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT
OPR PAY
MEC MEETING
Accessing The Hub
AFA Local Numbers
Dear Members,

24/7 UPDATE #4

Formal meetings were held last week between the Union and the Company regarding the impact and implementation of the FAA 24/7 ruling as it applies to Reserves. The Union, in the form of the joint negotiating committee, and the Company continued to meet this week in an effort to reach mutually agreeable solutions to the problems associated with the FAA ruling.

The committee believes the ruling causes hardships for both Reserves and Lineholders. The committee further believes the ruling provides the Company with additional cost savings that were not bargained for in our current agreement. Specifically the committee has focused on solving the following three problems we believe to be most pressing:

Loss in Reserve earning power through diminished use of the ETB and the indiscriminant placement of "NFL" (Not FAR Legal) days in a Reserve's line to solve month-to-month 24/7 conflicts.
The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB. The ETB was primarily designed as a tool to replace the various flying options that were given up as part of the 2004 negotiations.
Split trips will be increased as a result of the ruling
Obviously there are other problems related to the ruling but they all stem from the three aforementioned problems. The final solutions to these problems will not be easy or quick to reach. The Union focus is to create more lines, thus reducing the number of Reserves, and to create a Reserve System that provides for more Reserve earning power and a better quality of life for those members on Reserve.

The committee decided the first problem that needed to be addressed was the placement of the NFL day. The Company's initial practice was when a month-to-month 24/7 conflict existed the Company would insert an NFL day, on a day of their choosing, to resolve the conflict. This practice would prevent a Reserve from flying on a day they would otherwise be legal but simply deemed illegal by the NFL day. The Union strongly believed this was a clear violation of the contract. Our position is that if a Reserve is otherwise legal to fly a trip in LTO order or through the quick call assignment process the Company had no right to prevent a Reserve from picking up such a trip. After several days of negotiating the committee and the Company have agreed in principal to a process that would allow the Reserves the option to pick up a trip that either originated or worked over the NFL day. If a Reserve chose to pick up a trip in such an instance, the NFL day would be moved to the day following the completion of the trip and the process would be repeated. We also realize that some Reserves may decide they do not want to fly on the assigned NFL day and therefore we have agreed the Reserve may decline an assignment or split the trip to maintain the NFL day. Any splits for NFL days would be governed by the INV split rules (split does not have to occur in base). At this time we are working out the final details of this process with the Company and will be able to expand this discussion with complete rules and examples in the near future. Both the Company and the committee are working to have the process implemented for the October/November transition period.

The Union made several proposals to the Company that we believe include viable ways to create more lines. Specifically, we proposed the following:

Allow Lineholders to drop trips in SAP down to the SAP floor and have that number be their flying obligation rather than the greater of the original line or SAP award. This would solve two problems. It would allow those Lineholders, who had previously been able to drop trips via the ETB, to achieve a lower obligation and in addition would eventually create more time that could be built into Secondary lines.
Reduce the floor for Secondary lines from 75 hours to a lower mutually agreed to number. This would also create more Secondary lines.
Create a system of partial Reserve lines that would be seeded with trips from some of the remaining trips in Open Time that could not be packaged into Secondary lines. The net effect of this would be to have a system that includes a number of Reserve lines that already contained some agreed to amount of "known flying".
The Company and Union are currently assessing all of these proposals through continued meetings. While the concepts seem easy enough, the reality of creating a practical and meaningful process from proposals is not easily accomplished. Additional meetings are scheduled this week and next to further accomplish the stated objectives.

In addition, the committee made a proposal to alter the split language to reflect more equitable split pay for trips split as a result of 24/7 legality issues. The Company asked for a month to look at the September split data before responding. We agreed and will be reviewing that data as well. The additional splits trips created by the ruling will give the Company a much greater value than what was negotiated in 2004.

We have also proposed the ETB floor be lowered to 40 hours. This would potentially allow more 1, 2 and 3-day trips to be posted on the ETB. Additional proposals regarding the overall Reserve system were made and will either be addressed after we have reached agreement on the above proposals or as part of the merged contract negotiations.

We will continue to keep you informed.

In other news…
MERGED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS

The Joint Negotiating Committee met with the Company last week to continue negotiations for a merged Flight Attendant agreement. We are close to reaching agreements on Moving Expenses and LODO. We reached a tentative agreement on an EAP section that will be included in the merged contract. Open sections that we are currently working on are Uniform and Training. The Uniform section is very different in both contracts with regard to initial uniform compliment and replacement programs. We will not allow this merger to weaken any of our contract language.

The Company counter to our very comprehensive Training Section proposal was a complete non-starter. Our proposal addressed our concerns with pay; long days for non-CLT based members and quarterly-based CBT (computer based training). The Company failed to meaningfully address our proposal so we will fight again at our next session scheduled for October 24-26 in CLT.

The Company continues to bargain as if we were still in bankruptcy. We are not in a concessionary environment anymore and will bargain accordingly.

BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT

MEC Benefits Chairperson, Paul Frishkorn published an update via Eline yesterday detailing the enrollment procedure. He has asked me to reiterate the following regarding enrollment for your 2007 benefits package:

Although your current elections will continue if you do not enroll we strongly recommend that everyone go through the enrollment process. This will allow you to confirm your existing elections and prevent any administrative error that might occur with the transfer of information from the former vendor, BCBS, to the new vendor, UHC.
In addition there are several new choices available to the East employees this year. Most notably we will be offered a vision care plan (optional). Please take the time to visit the BENEFITS US homepage at: http://thehub.usairways.com/benefits/benefitsus_2007.htm for complete Benefits Information and the eBenefits.com enrollment page at: https://www.ebenefitsus.com/uas/uas.do to enroll.
The open enrollment deadline is October 31, 2006
OPR PAY

OPR can never pay less than 3+30. OPR pay is calculated is such a way that on some occasions CATS would read the pay as a lesser amount. For example:

OPR SHIFT 1530-1930

An OPR is assigned an out and back CLT-RDU-CLT departing at 1600.
Flight 1234 CLT-RDU has a scheduled flight time of 00:52

Return Flight 1235 departs RDU at 1725 and has a scheduled flight time of 00:53
CATS would read the pay for the day as follows:

1-2.25 for 30 (1530-1600) minutes = 13 minutes
Flight 1234 = 52 minutes
Flight 1235 = 53 minutes
____________

Total pay = 118 minutes or 1+52

If this happens to you check to make sure you have been credited with the correct pay of 3+30. If you have not, file a claim for the difference.

:unsure:
Looks like they were on the right track over a year ago.
What happened? How many reserves would be happy to have a partial line (reserve/known trips combination)?
I'd love to know what I'm doing part of the month rather than none of the month.
Did you also notice the comment, "The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB." ?

 

[Be Careful What You Wish For.]

Are we always waiting for pilots to end their contract talks?

Is the company dragging their feet because of this?

At the pace of pilots negotiations do we wait for them to finish?

Reserves could address issues with a new merged contract.

We should not be a problem-we work under a BK contract.

 

[N109UW]

I just dug up this e-line from October 18, 2006.......Again, 2006
Also, reserves, read the instructions about making sure you get your 3:30 minimum pay for OPR when given a short assignment.



The AFA Newsletter for US Airways Flight Attendants


In this Issue

October 18, 2006


24/7 UPDATE #4
MERGED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT
OPR PAY
MEC MEETING
Accessing The Hub
AFA Local Numbers
Dear Members,

24/7 UPDATE #4

Formal meetings were held last week between the Union and the Company regarding the impact and implementation of the FAA 24/7 ruling as it applies to Reserves. The Union, in the form of the joint negotiating committee, and the Company continued to meet this week in an effort to reach mutually agreeable solutions to the problems associated with the FAA ruling.


Loss in Reserve earning power through diminished use of the ETB and the indiscriminant placement of "NFL" (Not FAR Legal) days in a Reserve's line to solve month-to-month 24/7 conflicts.
The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB. The ETB was primarily designed as a tool to replace the various flying options that were given up as part of the 2004 negotiations.


The Union made several proposals to the Company that we believe include viable ways to create more lines. Specifically, we proposed the following:

Allow Lineholders to drop trips in SAP down to the SAP floor and have that number be their flying obligation rather than the greater of the original line or SAP award. This would solve two problems. It would allow those Lineholders, who had previously been able to drop trips via the ETB, to achieve a lower obligation and in addition would eventually create more time that could be built into Secondary lines.

We have also proposed the ETB floor be lowered to 40 hours. This would potentially allow more 1, 2 and 3-day trips to be posted on the ETB. Additional proposals regarding the overall Reserve system were made and will either be addressed after we have reached agreement on the above proposals or as part of the merged contract negotiations.

:unsure:
Looks like they were on the right track over a year ago.
What happened? How many reserves would be happy to have a partial line (reserve/known trips combination)?
I'd love to know what I'm doing part of the month rather than none of the month.
Did you also notice the comment, "The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB." ?

I have been telling people this for longer than this letter has been out. The ETB was never created to help a rsv. It was flat out created to help BH's lower obligation, due to the fact the lower flying levels were eliminated. Make the ETB Pay Credit and BH's would end up flying alot more. Why would a rsv pick up a trip that was pay credit? Maybe it would get me to 72 hours for the month. Or god forbid 74 hours, that way I could break guarantee for the first time since LTO was implemented(Oct 2003)

 

[Travelpro72]

The company wants to keep you under guarantee. THAT is the cost advantage they have built in to their labor costs. Also if you reach your monthly set minimum to time out you will be of no use to them. They want you available at all times with no timing out. THAT will not change until a new contract is acceptable and ratified. Until that happens keep b!tching and moaning about it..... You'll see no improvements made by the company that would weaken their bargaining power at the table. Plain and simple.

 

[N109UW]

The company wants to keep you under guarantee. THAT is the cost advantage they have built in to their labor costs. Also if you reach your monthly set minimum to time out you will be of no use to them. They want you available at all times with no timing out. THAT will not change until a new contract is acceptable and ratified. Until that happens keep b!tching and moaning about it..... You'll see no improvements made by the company that would weaken their bargaining power at the table. Plain and simple.

Yes, we understand that. But we don't come close to meeting our guarantee. The company should at least want their rsv's close to the 73 hour mark. No one would still time-out(by the way, what is timing out?). That bargaining position wouldn't be as strong, had the union made the company keep with Pref. Bid. By not agreeing to Pref. Bid, the union gave the company ans unfair advantage in neg. So, yes the bitching is going to continue and just don't be my extra and make a stupid comment like" You rsv's have it pretty good".

 

[Bear96]

The company wants to keep you under guarantee. THAT is the cost advantage they have built in to their labor costs.

You lost me there.

There is a cost advantage to the company to pay reserves the 73 (or whatever it is) hour guarantee, but only fly them 40 or 50 hours?

 

[Travelpro72]

You lost me there.

There is a cost advantage to the company to pay reserves the 73 (or whatever it is) hour guarantee, but only fly them 40 or 50 hours?

YEP there sure is. They don't have to pay any perdiem either. If you are a reserve and only fly 40-45 hours a month you get the 73 with hardly ANY perdiem which can be a good $500.00 to $700.00 a month or more. So yeah it's cost effective. Do you think we would have it this way if they company was losing money? HELL NO! !

 

[flightattend21]

I just dug up this e-line from October 18, 2006.......Again, 2006
Also, reserves, read the instructions about making sure you get your 3:30 minimum pay for OPR when given a short assignment.



The AFA Newsletter for US Airways Flight Attendants


In this Issue

October 18, 2006


24/7 UPDATE #4
MERGED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE
BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT
OPR PAY
MEC MEETING
Accessing The Hub
AFA Local Numbers
Dear Members,

24/7 UPDATE #4

Formal meetings were held last week between the Union and the Company regarding the impact and implementation of the FAA 24/7 ruling as it applies to Reserves. The Union, in the form of the joint negotiating committee, and the Company continued to meet this week in an effort to reach mutually agreeable solutions to the problems associated with the FAA ruling.

The committee believes the ruling causes hardships for both Reserves and Lineholders. The committee further believes the ruling provides the Company with additional cost savings that were not bargained for in our current agreement. Specifically the committee has focused on solving the following three problems we believe to be most pressing:

Loss in Reserve earning power through diminished use of the ETB and the indiscriminant placement of "NFL" (Not FAR Legal) days in a Reserve's line to solve month-to-month 24/7 conflicts.
The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB. The ETB was primarily designed as a tool to replace the various flying options that were given up as part of the 2004 negotiations.
Split trips will be increased as a result of the ruling
Obviously there are other problems related to the ruling but they all stem from the three aforementioned problems. The final solutions to these problems will not be easy or quick to reach. The Union focus is to create more lines, thus reducing the number of Reserves, and to create a Reserve System that provides for more Reserve earning power and a better quality of life for those members on Reserve.

The committee decided the first problem that needed to be addressed was the placement of the NFL day. The Company's initial practice was when a month-to-month 24/7 conflict existed the Company would insert an NFL day, on a day of their choosing, to resolve the conflict. This practice would prevent a Reserve from flying on a day they would otherwise be legal but simply deemed illegal by the NFL day. The Union strongly believed this was a clear violation of the contract. Our position is that if a Reserve is otherwise legal to fly a trip in LTO order or through the quick call assignment process the Company had no right to prevent a Reserve from picking up such a trip. After several days of negotiating the committee and the Company have agreed in principal to a process that would allow the Reserves the option to pick up a trip that either originated or worked over the NFL day. If a Reserve chose to pick up a trip in such an instance, the NFL day would be moved to the day following the completion of the trip and the process would be repeated. We also realize that some Reserves may decide they do not want to fly on the assigned NFL day and therefore we have agreed the Reserve may decline an assignment or split the trip to maintain the NFL day. Any splits for NFL days would be governed by the INV split rules (split does not have to occur in base). At this time we are working out the final details of this process with the Company and will be able to expand this discussion with complete rules and examples in the near future. Both the Company and the committee are working to have the process implemented for the October/November transition period.

The Union made several proposals to the Company that we believe include viable ways to create more lines. Specifically, we proposed the following:

Allow Lineholders to drop trips in SAP down to the SAP floor and have that number be their flying obligation rather than the greater of the original line or SAP award. This would solve two problems. It would allow those Lineholders, who had previously been able to drop trips via the ETB, to achieve a lower obligation and in addition would eventually create more time that could be built into Secondary lines.
Reduce the floor for Secondary lines from 75 hours to a lower mutually agreed to number. This would also create more Secondary lines.
Create a system of partial Reserve lines that would be seeded with trips from some of the remaining trips in Open Time that could not be packaged into Secondary lines. The net effect of this would be to have a system that includes a number of Reserve lines that already contained some agreed to amount of "known flying".
The Company and Union are currently assessing all of these proposals through continued meetings. While the concepts seem easy enough, the reality of creating a practical and meaningful process from proposals is not easily accomplished. Additional meetings are scheduled this week and next to further accomplish the stated objectives.

In addition, the committee made a proposal to alter the split language to reflect more equitable split pay for trips split as a result of 24/7 legality issues. The Company asked for a month to look at the September split data before responding. We agreed and will be reviewing that data as well. The additional splits trips created by the ruling will give the Company a much greater value than what was negotiated in 2004.

We have also proposed the ETB floor be lowered to 40 hours. This would potentially allow more 1, 2 and 3-day trips to be posted on the ETB. Additional proposals regarding the overall Reserve system were made and will either be addressed after we have reached agreement on the above proposals or as part of the merged contract negotiations.

We will continue to keep you informed.

In other news…
MERGED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS

The Joint Negotiating Committee met with the Company last week to continue negotiations for a merged Flight Attendant agreement. We are close to reaching agreements on Moving Expenses and LODO. We reached a tentative agreement on an EAP section that will be included in the merged contract. Open sections that we are currently working on are Uniform and Training. The Uniform section is very different in both contracts with regard to initial uniform compliment and replacement programs. We will not allow this merger to weaken any of our contract language.

The Company counter to our very comprehensive Training Section proposal was a complete non-starter. Our proposal addressed our concerns with pay; long days for non-CLT based members and quarterly-based CBT (computer based training). The Company failed to meaningfully address our proposal so we will fight again at our next session scheduled for October 24-26 in CLT.

The Company continues to bargain as if we were still in bankruptcy. We are not in a concessionary environment anymore and will bargain accordingly.

BENEFITS OPEN ENROLLMENT

MEC Benefits Chairperson, Paul Frishkorn published an update via Eline yesterday detailing the enrollment procedure. He has asked me to reiterate the following regarding enrollment for your 2007 benefits package:

Although your current elections will continue if you do not enroll we strongly recommend that everyone go through the enrollment process. This will allow you to confirm your existing elections and prevent any administrative error that might occur with the transfer of information from the former vendor, BCBS, to the new vendor, UHC.
In addition there are several new choices available to the East employees this year. Most notably we will be offered a vision care plan (optional). Please take the time to visit the BENEFITS US homepage at: http://thehub.usairways.com/benefits/benefitsus_2007.htm for complete Benefits Information and the eBenefits.com enrollment page at: https://www.ebenefitsus.com/uas/uas.do to enroll.
The open enrollment deadline is October 31, 2006
OPR PAY

OPR can never pay less than 3+30. OPR pay is calculated is such a way that on some occasions CATS would read the pay as a lesser amount. For example:

OPR SHIFT 1530-1930

An OPR is assigned an out and back CLT-RDU-CLT departing at 1600.
Flight 1234 CLT-RDU has a scheduled flight time of 00:52

Return Flight 1235 departs RDU at 1725 and has a scheduled flight time of 00:53
CATS would read the pay for the day as follows:

1-2.25 for 30 (1530-1600) minutes = 13 minutes
Flight 1234 = 52 minutes
Flight 1235 = 53 minutes
____________

Total pay = 118 minutes or 1+52

If this happens to you check to make sure you have been credited with the correct pay of 3+30. If you have not, file a claim for the difference.

:unsure:
Looks like they were on the right track over a year ago.
What happened? How many reserves would be happy to have a partial line (reserve/known trips combination)?
I'd love to know what I'm doing part of the month rather than none of the month.
Did you also notice the comment, "The Reserve's inability to pick up ETB trips has a direct impact on Lineholders who are trying to lower their flying obligation via the ETB." ?

Yes that is why instead of 10:00 am pick they changed it to 9:45 so more lineholders can drop island trips. and we reserves should be ashamed on having a direct impact on lineholders trying to lower their obligation...

 

[N109UW]

YEP there sure is. They don't have to pay any perdiem either. If you are a reserve and only fly 40-45 hours a month you get the 73 with hardly ANY perdiem which can be a good $500.00 to $700.00 a month or more. So yeah it's cost effective. Do you think we would have it this way if they company was losing money? HELL NO! !

Actually, the per diem is not that much. Even when I was flying 95-105 hours, my per diem was only about $600 and that was mostly 3-4 day trips. So that really isn't a big factor in the equation. It's the fact that we have too many rsv's on the property. That shows just by the fact that we all avg. 45 hours per month. At the least we should avg. 65-73 hours. That is coming from a sced. supr. Our union isn't going to mention furlough to anyone. Remember, bodies are money to a union. Less bodies on the property+ less money. Even Pat freind mentioned at the last meeting in CLT that it looked like we had too many f/a's, evident by the rsv's only avg. 40-49 hours per month.

 

[Bear96]

YEP there sure is. They don't have to pay any perdiem either. If you are a reserve and only fly 40-45 hours a month you get the 73 with hardly ANY perdiem which can be a good $500.00 to $700.00 a month or more. So yeah it's cost effective. Do you think we would have it this way if they company was losing money? HELL NO! !

You are still not making sense (or I am missing something -- and if so, I apologize for being slow on the uptake).

How is it cost effective for the company to pay a F/A 73 hours when that F/A is only flying 40-45 hours? Isn't the company dumping 25-30 hours of flight pay down the drain? How is that cost effective?

 

[Travelpro72]

You may have to ask someone with more knowledge into the negotiated LTO system. Again do you think the company would be AGAINST changing it if wasn't cost effective for them in their eyes? There is obviously a reason. It sucks for us reserves but it's here to stay until a joint contract is negotiated.

 

[Bear96]

You may have to ask someone with more knowledge into the negotiated LTO system. Again do you think the company would be AGAINST changing it if wasn't cost effective for them in their eyes? There is obviously a reason. It sucks for us reserves but it's here to stay until a joint contract is negotiated.

Now we may be talking about something else. Is the company really "against" changing the current system for assigning trips? Perhaps their attitude is that what was negotiated (which resulted in the current system) is what they will have to live with until the next negotiations. They may be just as happy with a different system, as long as it doesn't result in additional costs.

That is different from saying it is actually cost effective for them to pay a reserve 73 hours for only working 43 or 53 hours.

I have mentioned this before here, although it has been awhile: If it is really true that all reserves are sitting around for significant numbers of hours below their guarantee each month, be careful what you wish for. If I were management, to me that means I have TOO MANY F/As, which means I would be looking at furloughing a bunch of you.

If you really want to push the envelope, make sure this is one outcome you are prepared for.

 

[N109UW]

You may have to ask someone with more knowledge into the negotiated LTO system. Again do you think the company would be AGAINST changing it if wasn't cost effective for them in their eyes? There is obviously a reason. It sucks for us reserves but it's here to stay until a joint contract is negotiated.

Actually, the company knows it doesn't work, the union knows it doesn't work, however, the company knows we want it changed, so they are using that to their advantage, It all stems from the non-implementation of Pref. Bid. This system was not designed to work with a bid sheet, that is why we have excess each month. They are not against changing it, they just know we want it changed real bad, so that puts the advantage toward the company. It's really not even about having us on-duty all month so noone times out, that problem would be solved by either limiting passing or eliminating passing at all, and not letting us fly into our days off or letting us split trips for off days. I proposed this to our LEC in CLT when they were looking at new ideas. Jackass said we didn't want to do anything like that. Yeah, we sure ended up with a great system. God forbid they ask someone who has been on rsv for 14.5 years what he thinks. He no longer is with the company, thanks god.