What AA F/a's Are Saying About Furlough

[kirkpatrick]

Unions were not formed to KEEP your job but to improve the quality of worklife, reducing line hours to keep jobs is totally unacceptable in my opinion.

I'll have to strongly disagree with that. Part of a union's job is to preserve the jobs of its dues payers by negotiating clauses such as furlough pay, recall rights, leave and buyout options, and if necessary, things such as lowering AVL if it can be done in a way that won't unduly harm the senior members.

In this case, a lowering of AVL's by two hours wouldn't cost the senior people since they can still trade and pick up trips if they want more time.

MK

 

[Skymess]

I really am sorry for everyone who is losing their job, I know I am not far behind. At the same time our job has deteriorated enough in the past few years to give up even more hours! When and if I lose my job I will be prepared, I sincerely hope those of you at the bottom were preparing for the possibilityalso.

I'm sorry too and also not far behind.

It's easier to say you should have been prepared than to actually be prepared.

I have to tell you that even though I knew it was coming based on the telltale signs of no flying, leaves coming back, and economic slowdown, I was still kind of shell shocked the day the news came out. I'm on vacation and have been really in a funk for days.

I think seeing how the most senior one to get the notice is not so junior really did it for me. It's just bad news for all of us but really bad if you have to figure out what you're going to do now.

I've been seeing a lot of bitterness related to the senior people and others who people feel should be forced out. I'm just worried that it's going to result in a wild free for all with FAs turning other FAs in to try to keep their own jobs.

I don't agree that someone should be let go because of seniority but I do have to agree that there are SOME people who the FAs and AA have been carrying for years who shouldn't be working here. Everyone of us knows at least one. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of FAs taking the people out and how they might go about it.

I'm also not down with the misdirected anger at APFA. The anger should be directed at AA management. Arpey and his cronies aren't doing anything to bring us out of this hole. It might be time for him to step aside and take on a role in the finance department and let someone with more vision take the reins.

 

[Skymess]

In this case, a lowering of AVL's by two hours wouldn't cost the senior people since they can still trade and pick up trips if they want more time.

MK

I know many people who only fly their line and would miss the 2 hours.

There are no trips now so where do you suppose those trades and pick ups will come from? If we lowered the AVL, people didn't get furloughed, and people came back from leave, I can't imagine what the pick up drought would be like.

As much as I hate the fact we are laying off, there simply isn't enough flying to sustain all of us.

If they lowered the AVL to keep everyone on the property and we all shared the pain and made only guarantee that would be one idea. I just don't agree that picking anything up would be an option if they actually went with the lower time lines idea.

 

[kirkpatrick]

In my opinion. I think if they had to make a decision, most would come back and fly 35 hour average to keep their job...I think it was Kirkpatrick...

Sounds like something I'd say! In reality, I agree completely. A poison pill won't help the situation. The seniority stagnation is due to shrinkage of the airline and low retirement figures and trying to drive people out by making the job unbearable is a desperate move that will do nothing but make the job miserable for those still flying.

Be careful what you wish for! A good friend of mine did manpower planning at TWA and tells how when the restrictions were put in place requiring minimum flying to accrue vacation and sick leave, many people just let the vacation time go. The loss of accrued vacation hours actually lowered the manpower requirement by ten heads, since the company gained efficiency by not paying people for doing nothing! Be careful what you wish for!
MK

 

[jimntx]

Ok, Jim. You keep mentioning all these senior F/A's who drop all their trips for years and never work. How many are there? I thought I saw recently, that it was around 200. That is just a drop in the bucket overall. I really have no idea how or know anyone to ask to get the real facts. You make it out to be thousands. I just don't believe it to be a problem. Also, how do you know these people haven't taken any sort of leave recently? It just seems to be a red herring to continue to use that as an excuse for why AA is furloughing again.

Conveniently dropped qualifier there. It is 200, by the union's own admission, that haven't flown a trip in over 10 years. How many do it, but have less tenure in the "active but not really" category is unknown. But, if the union is willing to admit to 200 with 10 year experience at clogging up the seniority list, surely even you would not be willing to say that they are the only ones.

I will say that there are several at SLT who are diligently working on increasing the 200 number.

 

[jimntx]

There are so very few flight attendants who don't fly that it is a non-issue. Jim, I really believe you need to move beyond that. You see it because that is what you are choosing to fixate on for lack of a better word. There are only 200 or so flight attendants who currently do not fly! We should be thanking them for dropping their trips and enabling us to make a bit more.

See post #20. As usual there is that conveniently dropped qualifer.

 

[FA Mikey]

Mark's line of "be careful of what you wish for" is very apt. Before you try to throw the few people who are not actively flying out, consider what that does for the entire group. It means less high time premium trips for those who fly high time. It means the company will have to establish a rule to require a certain amount of flying to remain active. They could easily say 35 hours averaged, or they could just as easily say 35 hours every month. When you open doors like that, you never know what is going to happen. This AA, never say never and never say that would never happen.

 

[AAStew]

Mark's line of "be careful of what you wish for" is very apt. Before you try to throw the few people who are not actively flying out, consider what that does for the entire group. It means less high time premium trips for those who fly high time. It means the company will have to establish a rule to require a certain amount of flying to remain active. They could easily say 35 hours averaged, or they could just as easily say 35 hours every month. When you open doors like that, you never know what is going to happen. This AA, never say never and never say that would never happen.

I believe the union may have already added something like this in the contract articles they have agreed to. I will be voting no if this is in there! Guys you cannot be so short sighted! The flexibility is ALL we have left! Please, look at my previous posts! I took an entire year off! I needed to! What other job will afford me this benefit!? I will personally sink my own money to defeat the contract if this is thrown in there! Do not throw the baby out with the bath water!

 

[jimntx]

Well, you're probably going to need to start spending that money now. If what I heard is true, the company has already threatened the pilots in writing that if they do not come to heel on their new contract, the company is going to file bankruptcy and drop the pension plans. If they go to the trouble of filing bk and giving up their precious control, do you think for a second that they will lose the golden opportunity to impose a modified contract with further hits on the duty rigs and benefits?

A Democrat may be in the White House, but the majority of Federal judges out there were appointed during the Bush administration. Since AMR is a Texas corporation, I can assure you that there will be ample opportunity for venue-shopping by the company to make sure they have a management-friendly judge.

From what I am hearing (and, yes IORFA, I have contacts at Centreport), the furloughs are just the first step. The company is not going to even consider snapbacks, or pay raises, or improvements in work rules. They are going after further concessions from every union--especially us because we are the largest.

Barring further concessions, they will simply drag out the negotiation process for the time being since the RLA specifies that the current contract stays in force until a new one is ratified. This is very much to the company's benefit.

"It means less high time premium trips for those who fly high time. It means the company will have to establish a rule to require a certain amount of flying to remain active. "
As far as the first sentence, I doubt it. If Suzy Senior retires, that does not mean that the MAD line she bids every month and drops will go away. Only if the person who starts holding that line actually does something weird like fly his/her line every month would the number of trips available be reduced. But, Newsflash, the number of available trips is dropping anyway. With the practice in SLT of trading trips on Facebook instead of using HIBOARD, (to make sure that only the "right" people get those trips), the number of trips in HIBOARD is minimal already. I'm sure this is happening in other bases as well. I doubt we are all that uniquely clever in SLT.

As far as the second sentence of that quote...Oh horrors! Oh the humanity! Requiring people to actually come to work on occasion in order to keep their job. What's next? Slavery? I was told, but can't say for sure, that at US Airways, f/as have to fly 40 hours a month to even have travel privileges. And, when that was imposed during one of their bankruptcies, a number of senior f/as retired rather than have to start flying again.

And, for those of you with 20+ years who have the "too bad about the junior f/as, but I can't (or don't) really care" attitude...before they (US Airways) closed the PIT base, they reached the point where people with almost 30 years were on straight reserve because they were the most junior people in the base. As was said earlier, be careful what you wish for, or are willing to accept as treatment to the people below you.

 

[FA Mikey]

Well Jim if you want this to be about Usair, but I will turn it back to AA. In SAN we had in the 80's people with 30 years on reserve. I remember asking of the ladies why, with your seniority would you not go to LAX or some other base and fly something regular and nice. She summed it up like this. I am minutes from my home and am flying with people I have known and worked with for years. So if I have to do reserve, who cares the pluses far outweigh the minuses.


Ask any flight attendant what they like most about the job and the first answer will be the flexibility. I know you didnt miss my point, I know you are smarter than that. You chose to ignore it. If and when you get the company to start limiting the flexability, you start to lose the very thing people value the most about the job. It becomes a slippery slope and is not easily stopped once the company starts to like what they can limit.

How quickly a 35 hour average can go to a 35 hour monthly min. In either situation you would have to fly over that. Then God forbid you got a MIC, now you have to pick up time from the company or a TT service if the JR people havent got the company to close them down.

People will then regal of stories of a time when you could take a month off, vacation with the family. Now you have to worry about losing time and being AVBL to the company because you had a MIC or had a TM because you couldnt get on a commuter flight, on your last trip before you were taking off. So now have to contractually be AVBL to AA. Mark said it well, be careful what you wish for. There are or can be unintended consequences.

 

[AAStew]

This is in reply to JIm...
Jim, I know you are just one person and thank God that most aren't blinded in this area as you are. I like you so I am not trying to insult you. I just feel that you personally think you are being shafted because some senior f/a's choose not to fly. What we have been trying to point out is that the numbers are minute! The benefits of being able to drop at will and without too much penalty far outweigh the little bit that is abused! Jim, my son was critically shot! I used my flexibility to be with him! The majority of us use it for family purposes, whether it be to care for a sick or injured family member to making sure we are home when the teenagers get home from school! I really hope I am right and you are in the minority....if I am wrong I will be campaigning for furloughed members not to have the right to vote in any APFA election. And believe me there are many more of us than there are of you.

 

[nbmcg01]

This is in reply to JIm...
Jim, I know you are just one person and thank God that most aren't blinded in this area as you are. I like you so I am not trying to insult you. I just feel that you personally think you are being shafted because some senior f/a's choose not to fly. What we have been trying to point out is that the numbers are minute! The benefits of being able to drop at will and without too much penalty far outweigh the little bit that is abused! Jim, my son was critically shot! I used my flexibility to be with him! The majority of us use it for family purposes, whether it be to care for a sick or injured family member to making sure we are home when the teenagers get home from school! I really hope I am right and you are in the minority....if I am wrong I will be campaigning for furloughed members not to have the right to vote in any APFA election. And believe me there are many more of us than there are of you.

There may be more of you but you all don't vote. If you did you wouldn't be "concerned" about the furloughed voting. If you don't think the furloughed should have a say in the very contract that they are going to work under, lose their job under, and hopefully one day retire under, shame on you.

I don't agree with Jim but there is a healthy compromise.

 

[jimntx]

You all mouth the flexibility mantra over and over. I have no objection to flexibility. I've taken more than one bid leave or dropped my hours to below a full line myself more than once in my vast 7 year career. In the case of your needing a year to take care of your son; so be it. I would be the first to step forward and say so. But, you and I and Mikey and IORFA know that is not what I am talking about. You just choose to ignore the reality because you all want to reach that point where you never fly but can still call yourself an AA f/a.

And, you keep saying that it is a tiny minority, and you know it isn't. If the APFA will admit that there are over 200 with over 10 years of no flying, you know as well as I do that there are a lot more. They just haven't been doing it for 10 years yet. Say that out loud. He/She hasn't flown a trip in over 10 years; yet, is still on the active seniority list. You will never convince me that someone can never come to work at their choice and still be called an employee of any company in any job. I've worked too many years in the real world--Not an arena that most AA f/as seem familiar with.

 

[AAStew]

There may be more of you but you all don't vote. If you did you wouldn't be "concerned" about the furloughed voting. If you don't think the furloughed should have a say in the very contract that they are going to work under, lose their job under, and hopefully one day retire under, shame on you.

I don't agree with Jim but there is a healthy compromise.

Nancy, you are right, the main problem is that no one votes and no one educates themselves on what is going on. No I don't feel that way...and truth is, I get worked up with Jim's hardheadedness (really do love you Jim ) and it makes my blood boil!

 

[onthedock]

You all mouth the flexibility mantra over and over. I have no objection to flexibility. I've taken more than one bid leave or dropped my hours to below a full line myself more than once in my vast 7 year career. In the case of your needing a year to take care of your son; so be it. I would be the first to step forward and say so. But, you and I and Mikey and IORFA know that is not what I am talking about. You just choose to ignore the reality because you all want to reach that point where you never fly but can still call yourself an AA f/a.

And, you keep saying that it is a tiny minority, and you know it isn't. If the APFA will admit that there are over 200 with over 10 years of no flying, you know as well as I do that there are a lot more. They just haven't been doing it for 10 years yet. Say that out loud. He/She hasn't flown a trip in over 10 years; yet, is still on the active seniority list. You will never convince me that someone can never come to work at their choice and still be called an employee of any company in any job. I've worked too many years in the real world--Not an arena that most AA f/as seem familiar with.

Does anyone have the real numbers? I'd like to see'em. Flexibilty? I can see changing your trips or letting somone else fly for you at times, but not flying at all and getting benefits? You guys need to get your heads out of the sand -- or where ever you have them.