songbirdstew
Senior
- Sep 10, 2003
- 478
- 51
The question sent in to Bill Pollack was this :
Bill,
You gave the company 60 days to make the pairings worth more.. It sounds like they are worth much less after 60 days. In fact the company is now making block holders fly 19 days a month. A serious change in life style for them too.
any comments? You need to address your answer to the group.
Bill's Response:
Please feel free to forward.
You misstate the application of the 60 day extension of our right to file a “timely†grievance. The 60 days was never intended to give anyone time to simply make the pairings worth more, it was to give the company an opportunity to do the right thing so that we could keep this dispute out of the expensive, time-consuming and occasionally unrewarding grievance process.
When I met with Doug Mowery, Don Hollerbach and Chip Mayer across the table from the four senior managers in the company, we sat down to make our case that the application of the V/M-DH was not what we agreed to and that the trips were non-productive too – the pilots are getting a beating coming and going. One argument we thought useful was that if the company was relying on the value in a “cell†of a spreadsheet to make their argument about the value of this component of the negotiation, we would argue that if the trips were built correctly in the first place, their value to V/M, duty rig, trip rig, etc. would be smaller or negligible, thereby refuting the value in the spreadsheet “cell.†As we opened the discussion, the senior managers from agreed with us that the trips were not what we collectively intended, that they were not as productive as we all thought they would be. They stated that every reasonable effort would be made to fix them. They agreed that if the trips were more productive, the “value†of different rigs and V/M would be reduced. That asked if they could have time to build better pairings and then revisit this issue with us. We agreed to this approach provided that we would not jeopardize our rights to file a grievance to make every pilot “whole.†To protect our contractual right to file a grievance to make our pilots whole, we asked for, and the company agreed to provide us, a 60 extension on top of the contractual 120 day window in which a grievance must be filed to be considered “timely.â€
Now, the trip building process has not been as satisfactory as we all had hoped, I can tell you that it’s not for lack of effort, imagination, energy or commitment. Results are painfully slow and the structure behind the pairing construction process is under total review by management, a hired outside consultant and ALPA’s scheduling members. Money, as tight as it is, is being applied to the problem to include finding the very best programming available to solve this problem. Still, we wait.
The fact that the monthly lines are inexcusable is lost on no one. A grievance on the V/M issues is the subject of two different resolutions before the MEC next week. The resolution I wrote is pasted below. I remain hopeful that management will see this issue our way, fix the trips soon, Pay V/M and other rigs as we are accustomed to, get the lines down to 16 days and move forward to our next challenge.
Bill
My MEC resolution:
SUBJECT:
Satisfactorily Resolving the Dead Head vs. Variable Minimum Pay Issue
SOURCE:
Bill Pollock, MEC Chairman
BACKGROUND:
On October 21, 2004, the US Airways pilots ratified Letter of Agreement 93 (LOA 93). This agreement provided for a change to the pay for deadhead flying but did not change, in any form, the time honored provisions of trip rig, duty rig or variable minimum. In fact, the only discussion related to variable minimum that took place during negotiations involved an ALPA initiative to raise variable minimum in the interest of forcing higher productivity by forcing the trip pairing “optimizer†to reflect the real cost of non-productive operations. Incidentally, as a central tenant of the pilot transformation discussions and negotiations, both management and ALPA determined that more productive trip parings where an absolute necessity to meet both the needs of the pilots and the competitive transformation needs of the corporation. The implementation of the deadhead pay provision produced an unexpected and unacceptable consequence: the corporation began subtracting from variable minimum pay the reduced value of dead head flying and as a result, pilots’ pay has been harmed due to the calculation methodology. US Airways asserts their calculation methodology is correct and we obviously disagree. We are presently working to resolve this dispute short of the formal grievance procedure which could lead to a lengthy, expensive, unrewarding and permanent outcome. However, ALPA has not surrendered any right nor one cent of pay we know our pilots have earned but have not yet been paid. As of today’s date, February 2, 2005, the situation is as follows: our expectation stands that all pilots will be made “wholeâ€. We are working tirelessly to fix the trips so that quality of life improves with better more productive trips, and we are reserving our right to file a grievance if we do not settle this dispute otherwise. Management has asked for the opportunity to assess the potential for reducing the dollar cost of variable minimum claims through the construction of more productive trips thereby limiting their “financial exposure.†In the next several weeks we will either see the restoration of our pilots’ proper pay through a settlement, or we will file a grievance to recover it. As you are aware, we sought, and achieved, a 60 day extension on the right to file a grievance that is “timely†under the terms of Section 20 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This resolution is also intended to address some apparent confusion among the pilots (and some LEC Reps) about the status of this issue.
RESOLUTION:
WHEREAS recently ratified Letter of Agreement 93 (LOA 93) provided monumental sacrifices from the US Airway pilots so that US Airways could survive and compete, and
WHEREAS the implementation of LOA 93 changed the practice of determining pay for dead head flying, and
WHEREAS management’s new pay calculation for pilots has adversely impacted the calculation of variable min (and other rigs) in a manner that the Association neither negotiated nor ever agreed to, and
WHEREAS the pilots are rightfully concerned about the resolution of this matter,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that should discussions fail to provide a satisfactory outcome recognizing the contributions and needs of the pilot group, an MEC grievance will be filed prior to the end of the 60 day extension seeking to make “whole†all affected pilots.
Bill,
You gave the company 60 days to make the pairings worth more.. It sounds like they are worth much less after 60 days. In fact the company is now making block holders fly 19 days a month. A serious change in life style for them too.
any comments? You need to address your answer to the group.
Bill's Response:
Please feel free to forward.
You misstate the application of the 60 day extension of our right to file a “timely†grievance. The 60 days was never intended to give anyone time to simply make the pairings worth more, it was to give the company an opportunity to do the right thing so that we could keep this dispute out of the expensive, time-consuming and occasionally unrewarding grievance process.
When I met with Doug Mowery, Don Hollerbach and Chip Mayer across the table from the four senior managers in the company, we sat down to make our case that the application of the V/M-DH was not what we agreed to and that the trips were non-productive too – the pilots are getting a beating coming and going. One argument we thought useful was that if the company was relying on the value in a “cell†of a spreadsheet to make their argument about the value of this component of the negotiation, we would argue that if the trips were built correctly in the first place, their value to V/M, duty rig, trip rig, etc. would be smaller or negligible, thereby refuting the value in the spreadsheet “cell.†As we opened the discussion, the senior managers from agreed with us that the trips were not what we collectively intended, that they were not as productive as we all thought they would be. They stated that every reasonable effort would be made to fix them. They agreed that if the trips were more productive, the “value†of different rigs and V/M would be reduced. That asked if they could have time to build better pairings and then revisit this issue with us. We agreed to this approach provided that we would not jeopardize our rights to file a grievance to make every pilot “whole.†To protect our contractual right to file a grievance to make our pilots whole, we asked for, and the company agreed to provide us, a 60 extension on top of the contractual 120 day window in which a grievance must be filed to be considered “timely.â€
Now, the trip building process has not been as satisfactory as we all had hoped, I can tell you that it’s not for lack of effort, imagination, energy or commitment. Results are painfully slow and the structure behind the pairing construction process is under total review by management, a hired outside consultant and ALPA’s scheduling members. Money, as tight as it is, is being applied to the problem to include finding the very best programming available to solve this problem. Still, we wait.
The fact that the monthly lines are inexcusable is lost on no one. A grievance on the V/M issues is the subject of two different resolutions before the MEC next week. The resolution I wrote is pasted below. I remain hopeful that management will see this issue our way, fix the trips soon, Pay V/M and other rigs as we are accustomed to, get the lines down to 16 days and move forward to our next challenge.
Bill
My MEC resolution:
SUBJECT:
Satisfactorily Resolving the Dead Head vs. Variable Minimum Pay Issue
SOURCE:
Bill Pollock, MEC Chairman
BACKGROUND:
On October 21, 2004, the US Airways pilots ratified Letter of Agreement 93 (LOA 93). This agreement provided for a change to the pay for deadhead flying but did not change, in any form, the time honored provisions of trip rig, duty rig or variable minimum. In fact, the only discussion related to variable minimum that took place during negotiations involved an ALPA initiative to raise variable minimum in the interest of forcing higher productivity by forcing the trip pairing “optimizer†to reflect the real cost of non-productive operations. Incidentally, as a central tenant of the pilot transformation discussions and negotiations, both management and ALPA determined that more productive trip parings where an absolute necessity to meet both the needs of the pilots and the competitive transformation needs of the corporation. The implementation of the deadhead pay provision produced an unexpected and unacceptable consequence: the corporation began subtracting from variable minimum pay the reduced value of dead head flying and as a result, pilots’ pay has been harmed due to the calculation methodology. US Airways asserts their calculation methodology is correct and we obviously disagree. We are presently working to resolve this dispute short of the formal grievance procedure which could lead to a lengthy, expensive, unrewarding and permanent outcome. However, ALPA has not surrendered any right nor one cent of pay we know our pilots have earned but have not yet been paid. As of today’s date, February 2, 2005, the situation is as follows: our expectation stands that all pilots will be made “wholeâ€. We are working tirelessly to fix the trips so that quality of life improves with better more productive trips, and we are reserving our right to file a grievance if we do not settle this dispute otherwise. Management has asked for the opportunity to assess the potential for reducing the dollar cost of variable minimum claims through the construction of more productive trips thereby limiting their “financial exposure.†In the next several weeks we will either see the restoration of our pilots’ proper pay through a settlement, or we will file a grievance to recover it. As you are aware, we sought, and achieved, a 60 day extension on the right to file a grievance that is “timely†under the terms of Section 20 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement.
This resolution is also intended to address some apparent confusion among the pilots (and some LEC Reps) about the status of this issue.
RESOLUTION:
WHEREAS recently ratified Letter of Agreement 93 (LOA 93) provided monumental sacrifices from the US Airway pilots so that US Airways could survive and compete, and
WHEREAS the implementation of LOA 93 changed the practice of determining pay for dead head flying, and
WHEREAS management’s new pay calculation for pilots has adversely impacted the calculation of variable min (and other rigs) in a manner that the Association neither negotiated nor ever agreed to, and
WHEREAS the pilots are rightfully concerned about the resolution of this matter,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that should discussions fail to provide a satisfactory outcome recognizing the contributions and needs of the pilot group, an MEC grievance will be filed prior to the end of the 60 day extension seeking to make “whole†all affected pilots.
