Contract Compliance going into week 3

[Shep69]

What--it's been just a few weeks and we have people whinging--and this even during the lull before Christmas and NY/CNY ?

There have been many threads here (and elsewhere) talking about what CC is and what it is not. It is a reduction in labour supply (ours) and flexibility by working to contract and nothing more. There is no 'cure' for this; it's a loss of units of labor at an operation that's already undermanned (by taking new deliveries and lack of recruiting going to be even more so) and depends on people to go above and beyond to cover for this. And that it takes time to ripple through. We haven't even got to the discretion issue yet--at least in terms of no discretion--so there's still more cards to be played as necessary.

The company WILL be able to fill its schedule without disruption if it chooses to. Now a large part of this might be canceling/juggling flights, contracting to other carriers, moving people around (with associated costs AND associated reduction in monthly availability), sending oversales to other carriers, and even leasing crews and airplanes. ALL of these options are tremendously more expensive (as are parked airplanes which bleed cash when they're not flying) than an inflation adjustment with pay and negotiating as an adult and hit the bottom line. And as said before it may take shareholders and others with interests in profitability to force the company to do the right thing.

We also have the self-serving (who hurt themselves as well as others) G/L day workers and nonparticipants. These will cost more money in overtime and will have to be forced to 'time out.' Again this hits profitability which IS the key to CC. It's unfortunate we are forced into a position of demonstrating what our goodwill is worth--no one wants this or to see profitability decline--but the situation is not of our making nor do we have any blame whatsoever in it. If anything we've bent over backwards to bargain in good faith. There has been absolutely NO movement toward any real negotiation in any way. None. A rational company would have seen this coming and fixed it. But we apparently are dealing with folks who place ego, power, and position over profit and it will take time for others (who have their money tied up in them) to convince them this is not how a for-profit business behaves. At the end of the day here--just like everywhere else--Money Talks.

For the cry in the beer types what's the worst that can happen ? An imposed pay 'rise ?' Showing up on time where you're supposed to be and doing your job just like you always have ? Crew Control potentially learning how to roster people more efficiently ? Ignoring a few red lights, sheets under the door, third parties telling them they have someone on the line ("I'm not contactable yet" works for this), and phone calls ? Not pulling the lever on crew direct ? Is this really that much of a burden ? And maybe some will find out they like being contactable only when required, and that there's not any reason to feel guilty about ignoring someone you're not really keen to talk to anyway. Days on the road might be a pain, but then again how different is this than the previous status quo ? And maybe lack of contactability will reveal to Crew Control the benefits of hard scheduling, getting away from crisis management all the time, and sticking to something close to a published roster--benefit to all.

And if CC doesn't go as expected there are still a few jokers in the deck which can be played later if such a thing becomes appropriate.

Reserve exacerbates the manning problem and will work itself out (and again as a resource limiting situation decreases personnel availability vice simply flying a hard schedule). Crews held off station on reserve cost money to put up; those held at HKG or on bases severely limit what lines they can fly. ANY of these can cost overtime when a maxed out roster is busted. One thing that we did do wrong in the past is 30 days free reserve; now that the company has unilaterally violated the A day agreement maybe we can fix this in the future by holding out to have credit for ANY reserve, and (real--not some sort of 'monitored' BS that excludes much of the membership by its travel limitations) A days chosen at a lesser credit factor (it should be obvious to everyone by now the A day thing should have been simply left alone). Onshore entities maybe ought to remember this too when they negotiate THEIR contracts where both parties are required to bargain in good faith.