Don't you bid on a set of days for your vacation, and then you're paid a set amount of hours per day of vacation(3 hrs per day or something in that area)? Maybe I'm wrong, but I was assuming it's similar to the way pilots bid and are paid vacation.
No, I don't know what you are referring to, but if NW vacation pay is anything like AA, you never get paid for every vacation day.
Example: (Let's use February where there are exactly 4 weeks in the month.) Now, we bid for 02AB (first two weeks of Feb or 02CD (last two weeks of FEB).
Assume you hold 02AB, and the month starts on Sunday, the 1st and you have 2 weeks vacation accrued.
You have a 3-day trip on the 3-5, another 3-day trip on 9-12. You only get paid for the six days, 3-5 and 9-12. Granted you get paid the actual value of those trips rather than some pre-set amount/day.
If you are on reserve during the month of February, you might get paid for more days depending upon your reserve availability pattern. If you are good for 1-5, 10-14, you would be paid so much per day for 10 days.
Any vacation day that falls on an otherwise "day off" whether reserve or lineholder, is a donation back to the company. You are not paid for that day.
Regardless, I was more getting to the point that with a 14 day work-month, vacation is likely something that was offered up in heavy doses in exchange for lesser pay cuts and no outsourcing. Obviously, that drives a significant reduction in headcount, but at least it's not losing jobs to those evil foreigners.
Maybe, but I wouldn't call a month broken up with 3 days on, 2-4 days off, 3 days on, 2-4 days off, etc easy. I held a line last year of nothing but turns (out in the morning, back in the afternoon/evening). Scheduling built the line with 1 day on, 2 days off, all month. I'm a commuter to STL, and the sign-in was too early to commute up the day of the trip, and I got back too late to get the last flight to DFW. So, I would have had to devote part or all of 3 days for each one day trip. Fortunately, I was able to trade or drop some of the trips, but nevertheless it was a brutal schedule.
P.S. When talking about f/as "only" working 14 days a month, that ain't hard and fast, or a particularly easy month. An office worker at a 9-5 job "only" works about 19 days in February. Other months, he/she works 20-23 days, and is home every night and has a set schedule that doesn't change throughout the day due to mechanicals, weather, etc.
