usfliboi
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
- 2,070
- 270
CODE-A-PHONE UPDATE
April 10, 2003
This is Roy Freundlich with a US Airways MEC update for Thursday, April 10, with two new items.
Item 1. The MEC reconvened its special meeting today at the ALPA office in Herndon.
Management informed ALPA that it intends to furlough 52 additional pilots effective June 4. This furlough announcement is not in compliance with the June Restructuring Agreement or LOA 84. The MEC unanimously directed that an expedited MEC grievance be filed on these furloughs which will be in a addition to the MEC grievance filed in February stating that an excess of 200 pilots were being furloughed who were not or should not have been identified for furlough. ALPA believes that the pilots furloughed in 2003 were not or should not have been pilots already scheduled for furlough as a result of Permanent Bid 03-01 and that they should have been protected from furlough by the furlough protection provisions of the July 13, 2002, Restructuring Agreement and/or Letter of Agreement 84.
In response to management’s misinterpretation and misapplication of the sick leave policy, the MEC directed that an expedited MEC grievance be immediately filed. Management is implementing a sick leave policy under the December restructuring agreement that goes far beyond what ALPA agreed to. They are attempting to impose:
forced sick fly back, which means that a pilot would have to fly all sick time back before picking up any additional flying for pay purposes.
forceing a pilot to use five hours of sick leave in each month when calling in sick for a carry-over trip. The result is a 10-hour decrement for one sick event.
sick time balancing, which transfers the hours that a pilot has flown over his scheduled line value during trips and forces these hours into the pilot’s sick flyback time. This is time pilots are normally paid.
At this time, there is no agreement between ALPA and management that outlines how the pilots’ sick leave should be implemented. ALPA had told management that any modified sick leave policy must be delayed until the issues are resolved. Management discounted the time spent negotiating a follow-on retirement plan in their attempt to justify a unilateral implementation.
MEC Chairman Bill Pollock is informing management at its highest levels that serious and immediate change needs to occur in management’s approach to labor relations with pilots at all levels. After the deep concessions and sacrifices made to ensure US Airways could restructure, the US Airways pilots will not accept an untrustworthy and unprofessional management team or style that constantly discredits itself by promoting a corporate culture that aggressively dishonors the intent and provisions of our labor agreement.
On the reconsideration of AI 02-226 Future Stock Distribution, the MEC passed an amendment, clarifying the calculation formula used to allot shares to pilots that retire during the term of the Restructuring Agreement. The clarification states that:
The equity months of each eligible pilot would be determined based on the July 1, 2002 seniority list, by determining for each eligible pilot the number of months between July 1, 2002 and the pilot’s normal retirement date, to a maximum of 78. The total projected equity months of all eligible pilots would be summed. The allocation of each eligible pilot would equal his equity months divided by the total number of equity of all eligible pilots, multiplied by the total number of shares to be allocated. Under this methodology, each eligible pilot will be allocated his ratable share.
This clarification was adopted to properly reflect the original intent of the resolution and ensure that retiring pilots would receive no less than the monthly fractional allocation based on their retirement date.
With the completion of this resolution a membership ratification vote will be processed over the next few weeks to decide the allocation method. The choices will be:
1. A per capita distribution among the pilot group [eligible pilots] as a whole, or
2. An accounting for MetroJet stock options from the 1998 Agreement in the method of distribution where MetroJet pilots receive more stock than mainline pilots in accordance with the original restructuring agreement.
Ballots for membership ratification on the methods of stock distribution will be sent to all active pilots once the ballot materials are completed.
The MEC also unanimously passed a resolution authorizing that the stock to be distributed to the pilots via AI 02-226 will be an immediate stock distribution consistent with Attachment G of the June 2002 Restructuring Agreement and Attachment A of LOA 84, as opposed to any ESOP structure.
The MEC adjourned its meeting this afternoon at 5 p.m.
Item 2. US Airways announced this week that it is suspending its service between Pittsburgh and London Gatwick airport and Frankfurt, Germany for May 2003, due to US Airways’ participation in the CRAF program. In late March, the Company had first announced that it was suspending PIT-London Gatwick flights through April and was reducing service between Pittsburgh and Frankfurt and Philadelphia and Amsterdam through April. The Company has also implemented domestic reductions, which will affect mostly the last bank of flights departing from Pittsburgh and Charlotte, and are in effect through May 3.
MEC grievance 01-10-02, Cancelled Flight Segments, was filed on October 9, 2001, in response to the Company improperly canceling numerous flight segments well in advance of the departure dates that had already been incorporated into the published trip pairings and lines of flying. The Company’s actions were in violation of Sections 12, 22, 24 and 25 of the Contract. Additionally, the manner in which the Company cancelled these flight segments improperly and detrimentally affected the seniority and pay of the pilots who had exercised their seniority to bid on those published segments.
This grievance is now nearing arbitration, and the Company’s new international and domestic flight cancellations and reductions will be included in the grievance. The Grievance Committee is asking all affected pilots to submit PE-39 forms to claim the difference between their actual flying and what their original line value was for the affected months. It is ALPA’s position that all lineholding pilots affected by these new cancellations should be pay-protected from these cancellations to the original value of their lines that the Company published. Please document all relevant information for the Grievance Committee to include in this grievance and forward to the MEC office.
Please remember we have 1,827 pilots on furlough with 52 pilots scheduled for furlough on June 4, 2003.
Thank you for listening.
April 10, 2003
This is Roy Freundlich with a US Airways MEC update for Thursday, April 10, with two new items.
Item 1. The MEC reconvened its special meeting today at the ALPA office in Herndon.
Management informed ALPA that it intends to furlough 52 additional pilots effective June 4. This furlough announcement is not in compliance with the June Restructuring Agreement or LOA 84. The MEC unanimously directed that an expedited MEC grievance be filed on these furloughs which will be in a addition to the MEC grievance filed in February stating that an excess of 200 pilots were being furloughed who were not or should not have been identified for furlough. ALPA believes that the pilots furloughed in 2003 were not or should not have been pilots already scheduled for furlough as a result of Permanent Bid 03-01 and that they should have been protected from furlough by the furlough protection provisions of the July 13, 2002, Restructuring Agreement and/or Letter of Agreement 84.
In response to management’s misinterpretation and misapplication of the sick leave policy, the MEC directed that an expedited MEC grievance be immediately filed. Management is implementing a sick leave policy under the December restructuring agreement that goes far beyond what ALPA agreed to. They are attempting to impose:
forced sick fly back, which means that a pilot would have to fly all sick time back before picking up any additional flying for pay purposes.
forceing a pilot to use five hours of sick leave in each month when calling in sick for a carry-over trip. The result is a 10-hour decrement for one sick event.
sick time balancing, which transfers the hours that a pilot has flown over his scheduled line value during trips and forces these hours into the pilot’s sick flyback time. This is time pilots are normally paid.
At this time, there is no agreement between ALPA and management that outlines how the pilots’ sick leave should be implemented. ALPA had told management that any modified sick leave policy must be delayed until the issues are resolved. Management discounted the time spent negotiating a follow-on retirement plan in their attempt to justify a unilateral implementation.
MEC Chairman Bill Pollock is informing management at its highest levels that serious and immediate change needs to occur in management’s approach to labor relations with pilots at all levels. After the deep concessions and sacrifices made to ensure US Airways could restructure, the US Airways pilots will not accept an untrustworthy and unprofessional management team or style that constantly discredits itself by promoting a corporate culture that aggressively dishonors the intent and provisions of our labor agreement.
On the reconsideration of AI 02-226 Future Stock Distribution, the MEC passed an amendment, clarifying the calculation formula used to allot shares to pilots that retire during the term of the Restructuring Agreement. The clarification states that:
The equity months of each eligible pilot would be determined based on the July 1, 2002 seniority list, by determining for each eligible pilot the number of months between July 1, 2002 and the pilot’s normal retirement date, to a maximum of 78. The total projected equity months of all eligible pilots would be summed. The allocation of each eligible pilot would equal his equity months divided by the total number of equity of all eligible pilots, multiplied by the total number of shares to be allocated. Under this methodology, each eligible pilot will be allocated his ratable share.
This clarification was adopted to properly reflect the original intent of the resolution and ensure that retiring pilots would receive no less than the monthly fractional allocation based on their retirement date.
With the completion of this resolution a membership ratification vote will be processed over the next few weeks to decide the allocation method. The choices will be:
1. A per capita distribution among the pilot group [eligible pilots] as a whole, or
2. An accounting for MetroJet stock options from the 1998 Agreement in the method of distribution where MetroJet pilots receive more stock than mainline pilots in accordance with the original restructuring agreement.
Ballots for membership ratification on the methods of stock distribution will be sent to all active pilots once the ballot materials are completed.
The MEC also unanimously passed a resolution authorizing that the stock to be distributed to the pilots via AI 02-226 will be an immediate stock distribution consistent with Attachment G of the June 2002 Restructuring Agreement and Attachment A of LOA 84, as opposed to any ESOP structure.
The MEC adjourned its meeting this afternoon at 5 p.m.
Item 2. US Airways announced this week that it is suspending its service between Pittsburgh and London Gatwick airport and Frankfurt, Germany for May 2003, due to US Airways’ participation in the CRAF program. In late March, the Company had first announced that it was suspending PIT-London Gatwick flights through April and was reducing service between Pittsburgh and Frankfurt and Philadelphia and Amsterdam through April. The Company has also implemented domestic reductions, which will affect mostly the last bank of flights departing from Pittsburgh and Charlotte, and are in effect through May 3.
MEC grievance 01-10-02, Cancelled Flight Segments, was filed on October 9, 2001, in response to the Company improperly canceling numerous flight segments well in advance of the departure dates that had already been incorporated into the published trip pairings and lines of flying. The Company’s actions were in violation of Sections 12, 22, 24 and 25 of the Contract. Additionally, the manner in which the Company cancelled these flight segments improperly and detrimentally affected the seniority and pay of the pilots who had exercised their seniority to bid on those published segments.
This grievance is now nearing arbitration, and the Company’s new international and domestic flight cancellations and reductions will be included in the grievance. The Grievance Committee is asking all affected pilots to submit PE-39 forms to claim the difference between their actual flying and what their original line value was for the affected months. It is ALPA’s position that all lineholding pilots affected by these new cancellations should be pay-protected from these cancellations to the original value of their lines that the Company published. Please document all relevant information for the Grievance Committee to include in this grievance and forward to the MEC office.
Please remember we have 1,827 pilots on furlough with 52 pilots scheduled for furlough on June 4, 2003.
Thank you for listening.
