Wheelswatch

You're splitting hairs, but yeah, and I guarantee you during this latest staffing crisis here at F9 a few months ago, we would have been mercilessly unstacked if we had PBS.

Unstacking was cruel. You'd open your award to see min days off and nothing you asked for and everything you wanted to avoid. Sometimes it would only unstack half or 3/4 of the way up the list, but that's bad enough.

Mugatu

What is unstacking for those of us who haven’t worked under PBS?

Mesabi

It effectively allows the company to completely ignore seniority when building schedules.

http://mag.alpa.org/LinkClick.aspx?f...0935&mid=32051

DENpilot

It's the process that occurs after the award has been awarded according to seniority order. Typically at the end of any PBS award, there is a "stack" of open time over the same weekend/holiday/transition period. It's usually pretty severe because everyone wants weekends and holidays off. So the system starts working backward and trying to place the stacked open time into pilots schedules. Keep in mind, because training and vacation have already been placed into pilots schedules, the unstacking process can reach into the top 50% of pilots in a base. This entire process is called globalization, aka the point where the system has essentially failed to honor seniority.

Leslie Chow

Sounds fun! When can we get started???

Gary et al

Globalization and unstacking are different. What your mentioned about unstacking is more or less correct. Globalization happens in the normal awarding process to reduce the amount of open time.

Globalization is something that can be omitted from a PBS system. You simply don't allow it. Its that simple. Unstacking though is almost required, as with normal line building, the trips nobody wants over weekends and holidays are already built into the lines and drops are protected by drop limits. With PBS pilots could "fill" their month with trips outside of these pairings and leave a large amount of pairings over one period uncovered, something that would never happen with line bidding. Strong unstacking language must be present in any contract that uses a PBS system for bidding. Holiday weeks are typically listed specifically and allow a greater percentage of the seniority list to be unstacked during that specified period. Normal unspecified times the amount of unstacking is more limited and requires a clear need to be present for the union to allow the company to unstack.

See page 3 of this thread for my opinion on PBS. It is not a bad thing in and of itself. It is just a different way to submit your monthly bid. But I do agree that with the current management and Chief DBag Pat Ryan that the language necessary to protect us from management would be unlikely to be agreed upon and we would be severely taken advantage of.

However, once again, as of yet we have heard no communication to suggest that PBS is something the union is remotely considering. If we do, then it would make sense to further educate each other on the intricacies of the system from those who have used "good" systems and those who have no experience. My response is to educate against some of the inaccuracies being posted. Right now, again, lets wait for communication before we keep blabbing about PBS when all we've been told to date is that it is not something the union is willing to entertain.

Notarealpilot

We will probably know more after tomorrow. The union email said they were meeting again on Tuesday as far as we know it’s just one day so I doubt they will be able to accomplish much.

CantStayAway

“Mediation will recommence next week on Tuesday, October 30.”

I’m guessing it will be more than 1 day. They just gave a beginning date, not and end date.

FlyingR6

I've heard at least through Thursday fwiw

Mugatu

Thanks Denpilot and Gary et al.