Easy Jet : Safety Culture : Using sickness absence to select for redundancy
I remember back in the early days of the 'cadetship' scheme, that I was doing an early post line training flight with a good female First Officer, who was obviously suffering from a bad cold. I told her that she was certainly unfit to fly and I would get the standby (if we had one! ) called out. She was extremely upset and said she needed the money otherwise had to choose between fuel to come to work or food. I am afraid that I stuck to my guns pointing out that it was likely that other crew members would be infected. I still remain deeply sad that I had to come to that conclusion. There has always been a sickness monitoring system in easyJet, whether a phone call from a 'trained medical person' to check that you were at home and what the symptoms were, to a 'friendly' chat with your Base Captain on your return. I know that Cabin Crew could be subject to disciplinary hearings after sickness and I told one that if she was subject to this to let me know, and I would attend as well and tell the investigator exactly why she had not been able to fly in my opinion. Unfortunately, I was not a 'trained medical practitioner'!!
BA criteria
Airworthiness Notice 47 explains why. For cerifying engineers anyway.
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When a major incident may occur in the future related to sick pilots who were afraid in calling sick the applicable managers should go straight to jail for their fear culture!
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I believe it's calculated by dividing the number of absences by the number of days available for work, not the absolute number of absences. Those with less than two years' service will have their absences divided by fewer working days, so the resulting percentage is both fair and comparable, regardless of time served.
a new SO is very unlikely to have a full ATPL, be command ready and have the helpful experience that is needed to help the day go smoothly. The proposed matrix doesn’t consider any of these things. You might even think it was designed to target the longer serving pilots in favour of the (cheaper) new ones. But only if you’re a cynic.
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I hear you, MT, and I just happen to have had twice as many sick days last year than I ever had in any year prior, all due to illness or injury that I could have done nothing about, but unfortunately a company is not required to go through the reasons for each sick day. They are entitled to retain their most reliable staff and this is how they do it.
If you've only had 'several' days off in two years (assuming you're a UK EZY pilot) then I wouldn't think you've got much to worry about. How's your conduct been?!
If you've only had 'several' days off in two years (assuming you're a UK EZY pilot) then I wouldn't think you've got much to worry about. How's your conduct been?!
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I believe it's calculated by dividing the number of absences by the number of days available for work, not the absolute number of absences. Those with less than two years' service will have their absences divided by fewer working days, so the resulting percentage is both fair and comparable, regardless of time served.
B = Bradford Factor
S = Spells or number of occasions of unauthorised absence – in the formula this is squared (multiplied by itself)
D = Total number of days absent
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As a continentally based easyJet pilot. I would just like to add how deeply unfair this matrix appears to be in my opinion. Using this matrix in my based country would be highly illegal, as I believe would be the case in most if not all other eu countries. My most heartfelt condolences to all of my uk based colleagues.
Do we want, as an industry, another Germanwings?
If an airline elects to use sickness (and that includes mental health) as a determiner for redundancy, then from that point forwards pilots will fear going sick and will tend not to when they should have done. Anyone here who thinks it is in any way acceptable to use sickness for redundancy is inviting another Germanwings, or one of these:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ryan...finds-1.786317
Non-pilots here, please have a think about this. It's a step backwards of 30 years plus.
If an airline elects to use sickness (and that includes mental health) as a determiner for redundancy, then from that point forwards pilots will fear going sick and will tend not to when they should have done. Anyone here who thinks it is in any way acceptable to use sickness for redundancy is inviting another Germanwings, or one of these:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ryan...finds-1.786317
Non-pilots here, please have a think about this. It's a step backwards of 30 years plus.
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Well, isn't the current COO at sleazyjet from Ryanair? Same trick in a different company apparently. And has it ever prevented Ryanair from growing and turning a huge profit? Not really, right. After all, EASA doesn't say anything about stuff like that, so it is legally safe practice.
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Easyjet from time-to-time has made more money per aircraft treating people decently. The conclusion I came to when I compared easy to Ryan, was that having a ruthless employee culture vs looking after and respecting employees produces no measurable commercial difference in profitability at all. That seems to be more the realm of how much are people prepared to pay to fill your aircraft up.
However, I think easyJet recognise this but also knows that it is the cabin crew who primarily ensure the punters become returning customers, not the pilots. Hence why the cabin crew numbers have been reduced to realistic levels and the pilot numbers reduced to winter crewing levels, getting rid off a large proportion of UK contracts (3 months notice vs 6 on the continent), taking advantage of comparatively relaxed UK redundancy law and all with the aim of re-hiring next year.
The other issue is the use of sick days. What else is available to get rid of 727 pilots in the UK? LIFO is not an option as that would mean the majority of women pilots would be out the door. Performance is not enough, as performance levels across the airline seem to range from good to excellent with very few outliers. The individual contribution of pilots can not really be measured.
LFIO would have been the fairest and would meet most people's expectations. But that is not possible. So, how many times you forgot to file a fatigue report, were late to the crew room, called in unfit or sick seems to be an easy low hanging fruit with the lowest risk of recourse to a tribunal.
However, I think easyJet recognise this but also knows that it is the cabin crew who primarily ensure the punters become returning customers, not the pilots. Hence why the cabin crew numbers have been reduced to realistic levels and the pilot numbers reduced to winter crewing levels, getting rid off a large proportion of UK contracts (3 months notice vs 6 on the continent), taking advantage of comparatively relaxed UK redundancy law and all with the aim of re-hiring next year.
The other issue is the use of sick days. What else is available to get rid of 727 pilots in the UK? LIFO is not an option as that would mean the majority of women pilots would be out the door. Performance is not enough, as performance levels across the airline seem to range from good to excellent with very few outliers. The individual contribution of pilots can not really be measured.
LFIO would have been the fairest and would meet most people's expectations. But that is not possible. So, how many times you forgot to file a fatigue report, were late to the crew room, called in unfit or sick seems to be an easy low hanging fruit with the lowest risk of recourse to a tribunal.
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Which is why LIFO, with correction for certain elements, disciplinary for example, but not only, is possible. easyJet initial proposal is only to wind us up, they have no intention to go ahead with it, as they would be destroyed in a tribunal, and they know it.
We have documents as old as 2 months where they openly support people and encourage, in writing, to report unfit or sick for duty if necessary.
We have documents as old as 2 months where they openly support people and encourage, in writing, to report unfit or sick for duty if necessary.
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All UK companies now have to abide by the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and the Equality Act 2010. This Act overrules all contracts of employment that many on here think are still valid, such that LIFO is the sole means of selecting people for compulsory redundancy.
If a company decides compulsory redundancy is required it must identify which employees will be made redundant and make sure they select people fairly and do not discriminate
Fair reasons for selecting employees for redundancy include skills, qualifications and aptitude, standard of work and/or performance, attendance and an individual’s disciplinary record.
Companies can select employees based on their length of service (‘last in, first out’) but only if they you can justify it. LIFO is likely to be perceived as indirect discrimination by the courts if it affects one group of people more than another. Companies should not rely on length of service as their only selection criteria as this will probably be seen as age discrimination.
It is best for companies to have a matrix, preferably agreed with unions and their employees that include all the fair reasons for selection of compulsory redundancy.
For those of you who use sickness (attendance) as a rostering tool, think again. Companies and their crewing departments know exactly who uses sickness for their own ends and I suspect it will be those individual’s attendance records who are targeted.
If a company decides compulsory redundancy is required it must identify which employees will be made redundant and make sure they select people fairly and do not discriminate
Fair reasons for selecting employees for redundancy include skills, qualifications and aptitude, standard of work and/or performance, attendance and an individual’s disciplinary record.
Companies can select employees based on their length of service (‘last in, first out’) but only if they you can justify it. LIFO is likely to be perceived as indirect discrimination by the courts if it affects one group of people more than another. Companies should not rely on length of service as their only selection criteria as this will probably be seen as age discrimination.
It is best for companies to have a matrix, preferably agreed with unions and their employees that include all the fair reasons for selection of compulsory redundancy.
For those of you who use sickness (attendance) as a rostering tool, think again. Companies and their crewing departments know exactly who uses sickness for their own ends and I suspect it will be those individual’s attendance records who are targeted.
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Not so sure Easyjet and Crewing will be able to pick n mix / target. Their HR will use the Bradford scale which hopefully BALPA will get sight of. I saw it in use at a previous Company and it showed up the crews with dodgy sickness records before I'd even opened up my little black book (joking)
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Exactly.
LIFO as a sole criteria is not allowed. LIFO where it is used in conjunction with other metrics is perfectly legal which is why BA, Ryanair and others still have it in their redundancy matrix.
Using sickness (unless an individuals sickness has resulted in disciplinaries) is down right dangerous in a safety culture.
LIFO as a sole criteria is not allowed. LIFO where it is used in conjunction with other metrics is perfectly legal which is why BA, Ryanair and others still have it in their redundancy matrix.
Using sickness (unless an individuals sickness has resulted in disciplinaries) is down right dangerous in a safety culture.
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Is that actually true though if it can be demonstrated not to discriminate against any one group?
Where I am nearly all of the first officers are 'young' so whatever criteria are used it is going to affect mainly youngsters. In this case LIFO would be no more discriminatory than anything else. Likewise, there have been lots of DECs in the last few years of all ages, so it may not be as discriminatory as you think.
I'm not suggesting solely LIFO because I think it's right for EZY to recognise other factors but I think there should be an element of it included and the weighting for absence reduced somewhat.
Where I am nearly all of the first officers are 'young' so whatever criteria are used it is going to affect mainly youngsters. In this case LIFO would be no more discriminatory than anything else. Likewise, there have been lots of DECs in the last few years of all ages, so it may not be as discriminatory as you think.
I'm not suggesting solely LIFO because I think it's right for EZY to recognise other factors but I think there should be an element of it included and the weighting for absence reduced somewhat.