Originally Posted by
myturn
I think you will find that the ALPA team are working pretty hard behind closed doors with the company structuring the inevitable next round. Surely the reality is that you cant have a significant part of the workforce sitting at home on 6 figure salaries with no productivity opportunities for the foreseeable future. Something has to give...............
Honestly that's a piss poor excuse. It doesn't take long to draft an email to the troops, even that email is "we're working hard behind closed doors". There are a lot of assumptions and rumours going around right now and at least one Council member has had enough of CM and walked. For the last few years ALPA has had a real "
PR" problem in terms of it's membership and COVID has amplified it. Instead being informed of the meetings with the company and topics being discussed we simply hear nothing for weeks or months on end and then get a "this is what we've agreed to" email. As someone else said, either in this thread or somewhere else, ALPA runs the risk of losing a lot of younger members to the federation over their handling of COVID-19, let alone the Tag & Release cluster. For example, many of our younger colleagues, at ALPA's advise, burned through all their annual leave by waiving the notice period to only then be made redundant.
Anyway, as for the topic of Pilots on 6 figure salaries doing nothing, more redundancies won't solve that. They could chop another 300 Pilots and it still wouldn't touch the 777 Crews waiting to be moved. A retrenchment takes time. We only have so many Sims, so many line sectors and so many hours in the day to move people. If the Exec have an issues with 777 Crews not working, then perhaps they shouldn't of grounded the fleet... a fleet which just last year was carrying the International Airline thanks to RR engines. I a recent communication, they said the A320 Fleet should be back to 65% shortly. The Tasman bubble might be pushed out to next year, but the Islands are pushing hard for a bubble with NZ and it's about time the Government (our major shareholder) gave it serious consideration.
Air NZ have actually scored a few own goal with their handling of this pandemic, and taking another swipe off the bottom before they've even started to replace the first round of redundancies would be another one. I mean, who thinks grounding the Domestic fleet right now would be a good idea?
Perhaps in time, once they've down-trained enough C20's to F20 they'll take another swipe off the bottom. But that's not without it's problems. The notional list will require re-writing and the entire process will start again. We all know if there's another 100 Redundancies, those 100 places will come from the 787 Ranks, so that has to filter down and they run the risk of double-training... then re-up training again in 2022 (assuming the 800 day plan works out).
It's outside the CEA, but I strongly suspect they're working on a deal with ALPA where Pilots on non-active fleets take larger pay cuts (50% or even LWOP) until their down-training course... or something to that effect. They can't enforce it of course, as our CEA doesn't allow it, but they can make a deal then put it to a vote.
Sadly, if my assumption is correct, history will repeat itself. ALPA will agree on a "deal" with the Company without consulting the membership, They'll simply put it a vote and get defensive when everyone revolts about back door deals and the lack of consultation.
Or perhaps I'm just cynical.
Sooooooooo... if the internal jet operation hits 60 hours (even if the external jet operation is less than 60 hours), does this trigger re-hiring?
I believe this where the CEA comes into play.
11.5.2.1 The Company will not operate any higher equipment category positions above a roster average of 75 incentive hours when any lower equipment category positions are projected to fall below a roster average of 60 incentive hours in three consecutive roster periods.
C8/F8's are doing 80+ hours at the moment. They are required to bring that average down within 3 rosters due to the Airbus doing less than 60. They will achieve this by moving 777 crews.
How the CEA and AFFA interact are a bit unclear.
If after 3 rosters the 787 is still doing 60+ IP, but the A320 and 777 are <60, technically they should be re-hiring. However, we all know it takes more than 3 rosters to move people.
Hypothetically, we could be a situation where the re-hire clause in the AFFA is triggered, because they simply cannot move people fast enough onto the 787, so we re-hire redundant Pilots. Then, 9 months or so later, as more Pilots have been moved, we trigger the redundancy clauses in the CEA again and those re-hired Pilots lose their jobs again. Obviously, this wouldn't happen.
This is where I think the company (from a contractual perspective) has stuffed up. They're flogging the 787 crews in breach of section 11 of the CEA and run the risk of triggering the re-hire clause. Not because we're short on Pilots, but because we're all on the wrong fleets due the 777 grounding.