BrianH

I just tried to email contract enforcement about an issue, here was the response:


"This email address is not monitored and is being deactivated. As a result emails will not be answered. Please submit your issue via the DART system (link below), and Contract Enforcement will respond. Thank you."


So since insight has worked so well, the union is copying the idea? Where is this written in the C&B, admin manual or Policy manual? Is this Fair Representation? Will they take my call, when they are open? Don't we pay a crap ton of money to ALPA for representation and defending the contract?

If dart was just another way to communicate, that would be no problem, but to force us to it?

Please tell me what I am missing.

Jamo

Luckily no FedEx pilot has yet needed a quick response outside bankers hours M-F.

JustAGuy

I think of DART as just another email system because noone at the Union will reply to email anymore. So, the only way to write with them now is to put your email in the form of a DART.

It ****es me off that the people I pay to represent me won't respond to email. But the DART system looks like it's for complaints or something more official than email. I'm only guessing, but it feels to me as if they were overwhelmed with emails and couldn't keep up so they setup this DART thing and made it look like a "complaint system" which has reduced the amount of email they get because its look and feel leads you to believe it's something more official than just an email. So, you want to just email your Union rep or an MEC office but the DART thing looks like it's made for something else, so you send an email, but they never reply. You get frustrated and walk away or you find out from another source (buddy, more research on your own) and you walk away. Either way, the Union just reduced its workload = win for them.

So now I just send my email comms to them as I did before the DART thing existed but I put them in the form of a DART and submit it. They respond to that.

FXLAX

Does anybody know how to reply to a DART reply?

JustAGuy

I'd just submit another DART and reference the previous one in the first sentence.

Noworkallplay

Isn't the DART system for organizing and tracking also? If all you had was emails all over the place to numerous different emails I think it would be hard to track. DART also has drop down menus so it goes to proper people. Seems logical as a one stop shop. I have used it to contact CE on scope questions and duty questions and have had good luck. By having the data organized it can then be used against the company when they say “no data no problem”. We had the same system at my previous legacy. Its a ALPA national system I think that every airline tailors for themselves.

Noworkallplay

24/7 365 hotline. Great idea. Who is going to staff it? If I remember correctly in 2016 or 17 the union asked for volunteers to staff such an idea. I actually sent in an email saying I was interested in helping. The problem is almost no one else did. So once again everyone wants everything but doesn’t want to volunteer to do it. This “hotline” would probably take 25-35 people to staff it. They would all have to be trained so they had an in-depth knowledge of the CBA. Once again no one wants to volunteer just sit back and collect benefits. So the idea failed due to lack of involvement.

As another example I talked with someone on the mentorship committee a few weeks back. They are struggling to get enough volunteers to keep it going also.

Jamo

So you volunteered “but almost no one else did.” So have we spoke on the phone? Or did they not take you up on your volunteerism? Or is this story fiction? How do you figure 35 people to staff one position? I may be wrong but the numbers you use just seem ‘fantastical’.

Noworkallplay

It was a female pilot if my memory serves me correctly that was doing the organizing, so if you are the female who was setting it up in 16-17 we exchanged emails. Are you claiming you tried to set this up? She emailed back stating not enough volunteers. Simple. They needed something like 25-35 they said, which makes sense when you account for pilot group size, bases, time zones, work schedules, etc. I would assume you would want a paralegal or attorney also involved to make sure the legalese are covered as contract advice and direction would be given.

Jamo

I see your confusion. I could have worded that better. I was saying if the union was looking for 25-35 volunteers, and you actually volunteered, I would have surely spoke with you by now. But all I’ve ever spoke with is that female you emailed. Why didn’t they take you up on your generous offer to volunteer?

I don’t need a paralegal. I just need a person (not even a pilot) that knows our contract in and out because I don’t. There’s been a lot of agreements between the company and ALPA that I’m unaware of. And that group size doesn’t make sense. MD11 ANC pilots have the same contract as EUR 75 pilots. It doesn’t take 35 people to man 1 line 24/7. Over staffed would be 10.