Company imposes New Sick plan on Flight attendants

[usfliboi]

AFA US Airways MEC E-Line
April 9, 2003
Involuntary Furlough/New Sick Policy Update
=====================
AFA HOTLINE UPDATE APRIL 9, 2003

INVOLUNTARY FURLOUGHS

This is an update to the information which follows
on the April 8th Hotline. The numbers of flight attendants
who will be involuntarily furloughed has increased.
The numbers the Company provided previously were active
flight attendants. To reduce the total number by the
active flight attendants, additional flight attendants
who are inactive will also be involuntarily furloughed.
The new numbers are 261 furloughs in May and 629 in
June. We still expect the class of August 15, 1999
to be the most senior involuntarily furloughed and
not the entire class.

NEW SICK POLICY IMPLEMENTED APRIL 1ST

The Negotiating Committee met with the Company yesterday.
After more hours of hearing examples the Company put
together, it became even clearer that what the Company
has implemented is in no way what AFA negotiated last
December. Please note that the Company advised us that
the new sick policy went into effect on April 1st.
The Company has not notified anyone of that. The Inflight
Supervisors have not been instructed on how to explain
the policy.

IF YOU CALL IN SICK AND NEED TO FILE A SICK CLAIM,
YOU MUST CONTACT YOUR INFLIGHT SUPERVISOR. AFA CANNOT
EXPLAIN THE NEW SICK POLICY TO YOU SINCE WHAT THE COMPANY
IS IMPLEMENTING IS NOT WHAT AFA NEGOTIATED. WE WILL
BE FILING A GRIEVANCE AND ARBITRATING THIS ISSUE.

Be advised that what the Company is going to implement
is not what you voted on last December and not what
your Negotiating Committee agreed to.
=====================

 

[USAirBoyA330]

Wow. Just got back from the crew room and you want to talk about one unhappy, angry and pissed off group of Flight Attendants. I have never seen moral so low. They just keep kicking and kicking and KICKING. Relentless and Ruthless. They seem not to give a flying crap about employee moral here. It''s so sad and pathetic it''s almost humorous.

 

[NAPAUS]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!! What is left for them to take..im scared to even ask...Just off the phone with a TWA friend who said this is EXACTLY what happened after BK...they kept taking and taking and violating the contract.. Its official.. WE ARE THE NEW TWA!!!!!!!! Does AFA have any real response for this, other than grievance? Grievances take take years to be heard and resolved.... Hate to be saying this, like a broken record, ITS TIME FOR RECALL!!! ASAP

 

[usfliboi]

A RECALL OF WHOM??????????????????? What would anybody else do? SLowing down arbitration etc other than that whats the options ???? A RECALL????

 

[PITbull]

----------------
On 4/9/2003 346 PM NAPAUS wrote:

UNBELIEVABLE!!!! What is left for them to take..im scared to even ask...Just off the phone with a TWA friend who said this is EXACTLY what happened after BK...they kept taking and taking and violating the contract.. Its official.. WE ARE THE NEW TWA!!!!!!!! Does AFA have any real response for this, other than grievance? Grievances take take years to be heard and resolved.... Hate to be saying this, like a broken record, ITS TIME FOR RECALL!!! ASAP

----------------​

NAP,

Don't know who you are, but what do you hope will be gained by a "recall" or decertification"? Do you think any union we bring in can neotiate reasonably with this management? Have you seen any signs, I mean a tinsy, winsy, hint of "good faith" from this new mangement? If so, in what and when?

We are not in Section 6; THERE CAN NOT BE A JOB ACTION, IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SUCH A THING.

Therefore, what do you propose, outside of grievance? Your anger is misplaced.

 

[PITbull]

----------------
On 4/9/2003 4:28:48 PM oldiebutgoody wrote:

Can anyone explain just what the company is trying to impose?

----------------​

Oldie,

It is so convoluted, but I will make an attempt.

The sick policy that was proposed was to only translate into a 5 hour penalty for everyone; same language as ALPA. However, what is being presented is much worse for many groups of f/as who have different flying options and are in different divisions. It could as much as a pay loss as 40 hours. And, even if you hav the bank to cover this, you can''t access your bank to cover your sick in order to be pay protected when you are ill.

This is a terrible thing. And, on top of the wage concessions (both of them) and increase in medical.

 

[CLTBWIDAYSYR]

Wonder when they plan to tell us what the policy is? Wonder what the punishment will be for contracting SARS? Will they turn off the O2 supply in the hospital to make sure we don''t live long enough to file sick time?

 

[oldiebutgoody]

Can anyone explain just what the company is trying to impose?

 

[oldiebutgoody]

I don't really understand it all, either. In ALPA's case, I have not heard about not being able to access pay bank time to complete the month. It could be there, I just haven't heard. Also, at least in ALPA's case, all you have to do is fly back that extra 5 hours sometime in the month, so the only time you should get "stuck" with the 5 hour loss is if it is the end of the month. One positive thing is that you are not charged for that extra 5 hours from your sick bank. I don't know how all this works for the F/A's, with all the different options, etc. I really don't know if this will help or hurt the company's sick time usage, since now there will be plenty of incentive to stay home another trip or two, just to make sure you're not sick anymore. Also, this could be seen as encouraging folks to fly while they are ill, quite possibly with contagious illnesses (like SARS or flu). I think this whole thing stinks, but it's probably there because of a small number of folks that tend to abuse sick time, and ruin it for everyone. You can bet that this will be a big issue come contract time (in 6 years or whatever it is).

 

[NAPAUS]

The bigger question nobody is raising...why NOW do u have to go through your supervisor to claim the sick time? What purpose does that serve? Let me guess, so they can question the validity of your sick claim? Monitor sick usage? DENY claiming if they dont agree.....
Think Sherry must be getting one hell of a bonus for this...!!

 

[Atlantic]

As I understand it, if you call in sick for a two day trip worth 10 hrs.,you loose 5 hrs. If you are sick for more than half of the month, you are not docked anything. Thats as a block holder. I can''t see how you would loose 40 hrs. of pay in two weeks.
I have no idea how it works with the resrs.

 

[diogenes]

Folks, there''s more of this to come! I have good info the company wants to meet with the powers that be at IAM-fleet ASAP to ''discuss'' the implementation of the ''to be announced'' section of our contract regarding mainline express and MDA. That ''to be announced'' section regards how seniority will work if you go from mainline to MDA or express. I''m betting now it will not be a favorable ''discussion'', and if the union does not give in, force majuere will be forced up our six.

 

[airlineorphan]

----------------
On 4/9/2003 5:57:20 PM NAPAUS wrote:

The bigger question nobody is raising...why NOW do u have to go through your supervisor to claim the sick time? What purpose does that serve? Let me guess, so they can question the validity of your sick claim? Monitor sick usage? DENY claiming if they dont agree.....
Think Sherry must be getting one hell of a bonus for this...!!

----------------​

Let management reap what they sow. Let them try to explain this ridiculous nonsense. I''m glad our union isn''t going to try to make something up about a policy members didn''t vote for. I''m glad our union isn''t going to help cover management''s a$$ on this! It''ll be interesting to see how management explains something I don''t think even they understand!

-Airlineorphan

 

[NAPAUS]

----------------
On 4/9/2003 433 PM PITbull wrote:

----------------
On 4/9/2003 346 PM NAPAUS wrote:

    UNBELIEVABLE!!!! What is left for them to take..im scared to even ask...Just off the phone with a TWA friend who said this is EXACTLY what happened after BK...they kept taking and taking and violating the contract.. Its official.. WE ARE THE NEW TWA!!!!!!!! Does AFA have any real response for this, other than grievance? Grievances take take years to be heard and resolved.... Hate to be saying this, like a broken record, ITS TIME FOR RECALL!!! ASAP

----------------​

NAP,

Don''t know who you are, but what do you hope will be gained by a "recall" or decertification"?  Do you think any union we bring in can neotiate reasonably with this management?  Have you seen any signs, I mean a tinsy, winsy, hint of "good faith" from this new mangement?  If so, in what and when?

We are not in Section 6; THERE CAN NOT BE A JOB ACTION, IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SUCH A THING.

Therefore, what do you propose, outside of grievance?  Your anger is misplaced.

----------------​

PITBULL, First and foremost ive read MANY of your posting, PLEASE dont tell ME about anger...reread some of our own responses...Secondly, i never suggested ILLEGAL actions, work slowdowns etc. Im simply getting the f/a group to respond and wake up! We can do the bare minimun required onboard...minimum staffing gets minimum service. Guaranteed our illustrious marketing dept wont be removing service from Transatlantic...Yet we will be expected to do the full service in coach with only 4 f/a''s and then do the JUICEand WATER dance ....HELLO!!! Wake up call...do the minimum.. Get out of ur J/S when we fully level off...etc.. u know the drill... Do u think Mr Hayes could get out of MOON and rally the rank and file... We shall see what our WONDERFUL MEC LEADERSHIP WILL DO.. Stay Tuned.....

 

[SpinDoc]

----------------
On 4/9/2003 2:52:18 PM USAirBoyA330 wrote:

Wow. Just got back from the crew room and you want to talk about one unhappy, angry and pissed off group of Flight Attendants. I have never seen moral so low. They just keep kicking and kicking and KICKING. Relentless and Ruthless. They seem not to give a flying crap about employee moral here. It''s so sad and pathetic it''s almost humorous.



----------------​

What is the root cause of the low morale? Is it finally becoming clear that the contracts that were negotiated in the past were way above what was reasonable? Every person who took a job in this company did so on their own free will and nobody was promised anything. Whatever happened to self pride and doing a good job because that is what is the right thing to do? Many of the loyal Dividend Miles customers who have stayed with us through bankruptcy have done so because we have always provided a superior product and service versus the other major carriers. Having crew members report to work on time every day should be a morale booster, because it makes everyones job easier to perform and translates into a more friendly and professional environment to work in. Now, the flight attendants are upset because they are being asked to evaluate their sick time and report to work when they are healthy. Good employees should not have to be forced to report to work by restrictive rules, they should want to come to work and serve the customer.