Lobaeux

Actually, FLL Terminal 4, Floor 3 classroom is an approved training location, but the crew room isn't designated as one.

JoeyMeatballs

Great, so we are going to let the company bully us into voting yes on this? Why does it have to be either we vote yes or the company will do their best to make our lives miserbale?

Why can't we meet in the middle? I think this LOA is close, but it's not meeting in the middle. It's less days off with less money

EricJ320

I see many of you have stumbled on what I was in the process of posting, but I'll post my opinion anyway.


I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this position, but there are a lot of assumptions being thrown around here that just aren't factual. I'm not telling you how to vote, just that many of your ideas of what a no vote means to the company are not as devastating as you suggest. We don't get to vote it down and everything just stays as it has been.

The notion that a no vote puts all the iPads back in the closet is nonsense. It is a huge gain for the company regardless of how we vote, that ship has already sailed and there's no getting her back into port. You will be getting an iPad, and you will be doing part of your recurrent training on it. The company does not need union approval, or our ratification to implement this program. They need only consult with the association before any change to the training curriculum, which this LOA shows they have. The only questions this LOA needs to answer is how much will you be compensated for additional distance learning and how to mitigate our liability for carrying a company owned device.

The company is responsible for defining the training program, with FAA approval, to include the curriculum, the medium in which it's presented, and the location in which you will do it. Take a look at the FOTM revision 14-02 from last October, they added the FLL crew room as an approved training facility. If this gets voted down, mark my words, all the other crew rooms will be added to the FOTM list of approved facilities, and you will be required to come do your CBT guided training on the iPad in your base crew room. The CBA only says ground training must be done in a classroom or any place approved by the FAA. Ask the LAS based crews how their training credit has been affected since we added the LAS sim. This will be the same thing, except it just won't be a sim, it will be an approved facility to do your self-guided recurrent training.

Our CBA doesn't say we have to go to FLL to do our training, nor does it stipulate it needs to be instructor-guided training, it doesn't even require it to be scheduled on days on or restore lost days off unless you will go below min days off. Believe me, I agree it sucks we will lose out on potential credit from training conflicts, but a yes or no vote isn't going to change that now. They finally commited to the EFB program because they found a way through this new technology to save money by utilizing it as a training device as well. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the old way of training, and getting huge training conflicts is gone, regardless of the LOA vote outcome. The only things you need to decide, do you want to do this training on your own schedule, in a location of your choosing? Or do want it to be in your base crew room on their schedule? And how much do you want to be paid, the current 8 hours per the CBA, or the 10 hours per the LOA?

Again, vote as you will, but do so on the merits of the LOA, not what you are used to crediting when it comes to recurrent training, because, unfortunately those days are soon to end, one way or another. Also, it's up to each person to decide how a no vote would impact section 6 negotiations, that's a whole different discussion.

GoMountaineers

I can't undo what was agreed to before I got here, but I surely don't have to agree to perpetuating the practice of essentially working twice as many as hours as I get paid for. Think of this vote as a rare chance at a "line-item" veto.

Remember.....this isn't a choice between getting paid 4.5 hours for 9 hours in FLL verses getting paid 5 hours for 9 hours of "distance work." Distance learning is going to happen. The iPads Appearantly have been bought already. Now it's just a matter of negotiating how much we're going to get paid for it. Personally, I think we're not over-reaching by asking to get 9 hours of pay for 9 hours of work.

Normann

Good post EricJ320...

We don't have to let them bully us into this LOA. This may not be the middle either. Who knows? We might get a better deal. But we might not. I personally was operating under the assumption that we have leverage. I was wrong. We have no leverage here. How are you going get a better deal when you have no leverage?

JoeyMeatballs

Apparantly that isn't an option with this company, lol.


+1 on EricJ320, good points.

I have ground school in March, what are the chances I'll be heading down to FLL For GS vs distance learning?

ovrtake92

This might be a battle that isn't worth fighting if we have no leverage anyway. Perhaps our collective resolve should be better put to use come contract time when we actually do have leverage. Just a thought, but wars are not won or lost on battles alone and why waste resources and time on something so small in the grande scheme of things. In fact, a little give now could strengthen our position when we ask for an industry leading contract in a few months. In other words, what will a no vote accomplish in this case, besides further loss of pay. Believe me, if I thought a no vote would help us, Id be all about it but is seems like it could actually hurt us. Sounds like a turd sandwich or a double decker turd sandwich either way. Am I off base here?

ManFlex

Voting yes or no on this LOA isn't going to influence how 'nice' the company will be in section 6 negotiations. I'll say it right now: they aren't going to hand us a dime out of the goodness of their heart. I don't think this is a terrible LOA, but the majority of the value in it goes to management. And now we are being told vote yes or the company is going to shove something else down our throat? If that were the case, why would they have agreed to this LOA in the first place? Because of their benevolence or that our NC is so persuasive? Give me a break.

ovrtake92

I agree completely. But if We vote no, will we get hosed even further? That's what I want to be clear on.

ManFlex

There's no way to know. And you better believe that the same excuses will be out in full force come contract time if we don't like what we see.