FA Sick numbers

[AC AA LA FA]

Is this a canned response? Obviously no F/A at AA is "intimidated" if the sick list has increased 84% in three weeks.



Flight Service would like to run Crew Resources, but they haven't succeeded yet. Reserve percentages have always increased in December, but I doubt they increase at the rate you state. With the current contract, there's nothing else to do than increase reserve. On AVBL, you have to be plotted on a trip by noon the day prior. Since fa's on the sick list can't be removed until 1600 the day prior, your AVBL fa's are worthless from a sick coverage perspective.

Remember when they gave away Ford Explorers for perfect attendance over the holidays? Didn't work...at least that is for crewmembers, can't speak for agents or the ramp.

What I find funny is that Thanksgiving usually goes over without a hitch, very small increases in sick counts. However, people flock in droves to call in sick to celebrate the birth of Jesus. A perfect example of the hypocrisy of the modern American Christmas.

Ford Explorers..?
Must have been such a convoluted incentive I didn't notice or choose to quickly forget..
Any incentives for Flight Service in the last 20 years have been complete jokes..

Flight Service and Crew Resources this year have joined forces in the threat and intimidation front.
It came in the form of a letter in all F/A mailboxes complete with threating verbiage eluding to Med Certs and FAML ReCerts..

More of the same BS viewed by line F/As as another management tirade....

And so it goes...


As I said earlier, find me another topic on this or any BB regarding Holiday SK the the degree its discussed at AA.....

This might all be stuff for Section 6 negotiations..We shall see.

 

[Garfield1966]

I remember the Christmas they actually paid holiday pay, didn't theat alleviate the situation? I know we didn't hit the goal the company wanted but it was much better....?

No.

They built reserve lines with both Christmas and New Years on! Why not give a break on one of the days?

Isn't that a good thing? AA put extra reserves on duty for the holidays to try and anticipate the increase, the rest were given the day off. What's wrong with that? Domestically this year has been a cake walk so far. Intl has been a cluster screw up.

 

[AAStew]

No, it is not a good thing. In the past if you worked Christmas, you had New Years off and vice versa (on reserve).

AC AA LA FA is correct in that no other board has the same discussion year after year.... How could AA hire 22,000 employees that have the same problem? Or could the problem be with the company culture? Of sourse it is the company culture! I maintain that if a person is treated with merit and respect he will act accordingly. It is a proven fact. AA from the moment you stepped onto the Charm Farm has treated us as mindless children. They have created their own self-fulfilling "prophecy" for lack of a better word. I had held out hopes when Arpey came into power that there would be a change, but we know the story there.

Nothing will change until company culture changes. Maybe one day AA will get that, I doubt it...

 

[L1011Ret]

No, it is not a good thing. In the past if you worked Christmas, you had New Years off and vice versa (on reserve).

AC AA LA FA is correct in that no other board has the same discussion year after year.... How could AA hire 22,000 employees that have the same problem? Or could the problem be with the company culture? Of sourse it is the company culture! I maintain that if a person is treated with merit and respect he will act accordingly. It is a proven fact. AA from the moment you stepped onto the Charm Farm has treated us as mindless children. They have created their own self-fulfilling "prophecy" for lack of a better word. I had held out hopes when Arpey came into power that there would be a change, but we know the story there.

Nothing will change until company culture changes. Maybe one day AA will get that, I doubt it...

The company climate could be the most harmonious imagineable and some members would call off sick when they were not sick. That is your belief so you can stay angry at AA and blame them for everything. You imagine that if the climate were more harmonious less would use sick leave for non substantiated reasons. Maybe a few but most just want Christmas off. The old school way will probably be more effective, fire a few. But that creates lots of grievances and ill will.

 

[operaations]

No, it is not a good thing. In the past if you worked Christmas, you had New Years off and vice versa (on reserve).

AC AA LA FA is correct in that no other board has the same discussion year after year.... How could AA hire 22,000 employees that have the same problem? Or could the problem be with the company culture? Of sourse it is the company culture! I maintain that if a person is treated with merit and respect he will act accordingly. It is a proven fact. AA from the moment you stepped onto the Charm Farm has treated us as mindless children. They have created their own self-fulfilling "prophecy" for lack of a better word. I had held out hopes when Arpey came into power that there would be a change, but we know the story there.

Nothing will change until company culture changes. Maybe one day AA will get that, I doubt it...

I think if you work Christmas you should have New Years off and vice versa (on reserve). I also believe that if you are scheduled to work on either day you should not call in sick if you are not sick. But year after year those who do not want to work Christmas and New Years still call off sick regardless.

And in all honesty you mean to tell me that since the day you were hired you were treated like crap. What are you a masochist.

You re correct about corporate culture. It needs to change in every major corporation. Not just this one.

 

[Fly]

At some airlines you get paid holiday pay to work Christmas (and other holidays) to encourage people, perhaps AA should consider doing that and you wouldn't have this problem.

 

[AAStew]

The company climate could be the most harmonious imagineable and some members would call off sick when they were not sick. That is your belief so you can stay angry at AA and blame them for everything. You imagine that if the climate were more harmonious less would use sick leave for non substantiated reasons. Maybe a few but most just want Christmas off. The old school way will probably be more effective, fire a few. But that creates lots of grievances and ill will.

How would you know? How long did you were for AA? Or did you?
Yes, of course some would call in sick, they do anywhere, but they would not have the numbers they have now. Please do not attempt to think for me or to imagine my feelings towards AA. You have no idea as to what my feelings are... ANger though is not one of them. Disgust that they can't get it right and try to resort to intimidation tactics which don't work, possibly.
Hmmm...maybe I should assume you are an angry frustrated man who likes to pick fights. Perhaps you should look for a job to keep you entertained? WalMart is always hiring greeters. 🙄

Operaations, I ask myself whether I am a masochist at times also. The problem is that I have been here too many years to just quit. At the beginning I thought the treatment was just to weed out those that could not take it, but after a year I saw it wasn't. At that time I could not really afford to quit, now I am just waitng to see what this next contract brings about. I love the people I work with and I actually like the "job" itself. As long as I keep out of the company's crosshairs things are okay, and when caught in them I will work the system, the way they have taught me.

 

[FA Mikey]

At some airlines you get paid holiday pay to work Christmas (and other holidays) to encourage people, perhaps AA should consider doing that and you wouldn't have this problem.

They tried and it didnt work.

 

[StraaightTaalk]

Hmmm...maybe I should assume you are an angry frustrated man who likes to pick fights. Perhaps you should look for a job to keep you entertained? WalMart is always hiring greeters. 🙄

Bingo.

He's just a petulant old man with a perpetually bitter view towards others, rarely worthy of a response.

 

[Veritas]

How would you know? How long did you were for AA? Or did you?

It is not exactly a state secret that labor management relations at AA are amongst the worst in the industry.

 

[L1011Ret]

It is not exactly a state secret that labor management relations at AA are amongst the worst in the industry.

If that is so, and it may be, how does that account for the fact that sick leave doubles over Christmas?

 

[AC AA LA FA]

They tried and it didnt work.

I disagree..


We never truly had an equitable Holiday Pay plan we could trend, so we dont know if it would or would not work..

If it were more like UAs we would have no issues I am sure...

 

[Skymess]

I disagree..


We never truly had an equitable Holiday Pay plan we could trend, so we dont know if it would or would not work..

If it were more like UAs we would have no issues I am sure...

I agree. It worked just fine for the one season they gave it to us. They just took it away from us in concessions and now they are back to stupidly wondering why people call in sick.

Simple logic is all it takes. You pay holiday pay and you get people working during the holiday. You pay purser pay and you actually have an abundance of people who want to work the position. I love flying purser but I'm not flying it because you can't drop it, you can't trade it, and I get bid denied to fly holiday trips I would normally hold off. If they want me to be their b*tch it's going to cost them a little more per hour.

 

[Garfield1966]

I agree. It worked just fine for the one season they gave it to us. They just took it away from us in concessions and now they are back to stupidly wondering why people call in sick.

Nothing has ever worked. Not in the 10 years I have been doing this.

I have been in scheduling for nearly 10 years and there has not been a year yet where the sick list has not doubled in 2 weeks. A certain percentage will call in sick regardless. They feel they are entitled to be off. They called in sick after the 'good' contract. hey called in sick when profit sharing was being handed out. They have called in sick every single year I have been there and they will continue to do so until action is taken. Every year it is a new excuse .. no holiday pay, no this, no that... blah blah blah.

Looks like this year they figured out a way to make it work. At least on the domestic side. Intl they screwed the pooch. We told the not to let the folks fall back to domestic but they thought they knew better and let them do it any way. We told them that if they are Intl they can fly domestic, not the other way around. Maybe next year they will listen to us.

They just loaded up the reserves and it worked out pretty good, at least so far. We will see how it looks around Jan 4th or so.

 

[Skymess]

Nothing has ever worked. Not in the 10 years I have been doing this.

I have been in scheduling for nearly 10 years and there has not been a year yet where the sick list has not doubled in 2 weeks. A certain percentage will call in sick regardless. They feel they are entitled to be off. They called in sick after the 'good' contract. hey called in sick when profit sharing was being handed out. They have called in sick every single year I have been there and they will continue to do so until action is taken. Every year it is a new excuse .. no holiday pay, no this, no that... blah blah blah.

Looks like this year they figured out a way to make it work. At least on the domestic side. Intl they screwed the pooch. We told the not to let the folks fall back to domestic but they thought they knew better and let them do it any way. We told them that if they are Intl they can fly domestic, not the other way around. Maybe next year they will listen to us.

They just loaded up the reserves and it worked out pretty good, at least so far. We will see how it looks around Jan 4th or so.

How goes it this year? You have enough reserves? They used to let us pull up the sick list with the SOD code and then they banned us from it. Guess they wanted to ban all of our fun checking the numbers out.

I've been off for awhile and I won't be going back to work until,probably, the last week of January. I might decide to pick up a trip for some extra cash. I managed to turn my vacation into a 43 day stretch and I might just ride it out and relax. It's going to be fun not having to deal with winter ATC holds and storms. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do. I guess I have no excuse left not to go to the gym everyday. <_<