M&R Sick Time Policy

Bob Owens

Veteran
Sep 9, 2002
14,274
6,112
I hear that as part of the PLI the company is considering reversing its policy where M&R workers only get half pay for the first 16 hours of sick time.

What could be their motivation? Possibly the fact that sick time use is costing the company more than ever before thanks to their stupid punitive move of cheating M&R out of half pay for the first 16 hours when they get sick.

Of course top company officials would never admitt to this even though you can see it on the floor and lower level management admits it.

It seems that prior to this policy workers would average one or two days out per occurance and most had three or less occurences per year, but ever since the company started docking M&R workers, and M&R workers only, they usually take 5 or more days off per occurance. While occurances may have declined the first year, durations increased dramatically, more than offsetting any savings from reduced occurances, and over the years, occurance rates seem to be heading back to where they were. The policy itself makes this happen and there can be many reasons why.

Lets say a worker is ill, but feels a little better after a day or so, goes back to work and has a relapse, now he loses two full days of pay for the one illness, so instead he stays out the whole week, because after three or four days a relapse is less likey. I know because this once happened to me many years ago, I had Bronchitus but after a couple of days I felt better and returned to work, well by the end of the shift I was hacking all over again and the doctor told me to stay home for at least a week. If this happened now to somebody under the M&R agreement the company would punish the worker by docking them two full days pay for the one illness. Now even if you think you're feeling better you're not going to take the risk of a relapse, you're going to stay out until you're sure that the illness has past. Why risk losing another days pay if you return to work too early?

Another possible reason for the huge rise in sick time use in M&R could simply be that the longer you stay out the lower the percentage the penalty. For instance if you stay out just one or two days you are penalized by 50%, however if you stay out 5 days the penalty drops to 20% and 10 days it drops to only 10%. After 10 days of rest you should be fit to cs an extra shift and make up for the 8 hours you lost.

Yet another possible reason could be the loss of a week of vacation.Some workers only have a week of vacation, most workers in this country get at least two weeks plus 10 paid holidays. 20 paid days off a year, AA offers 5. That means low seniority AA workers have 15 less paid days off than most workers, even non-union Walmart workers! Sure they can buy a week through Flex Vacation, pay 40 hours for it,and take it in February or late October if they are lucky(Flex vacation actually buys senior workers, whether they buy Flex or not, better picks). That would only leave them with 10 less days off than everyone else and a weeks less pay for the year. Or they may call in and only lose 8 hours pay. So the choice they have is lose 40 hours pay through Flex and take it when the company dictates or lose 8 hours pay and take it whenever they want it with the risk that they could be disciplined from a job that gives them less time off than Walmart.Hmm, what do you think most workers with only one week of vacation would do? The fact is if they do both, buy a flex week and dial in a week they are still short 5 days compared to most other workers.

The company, thanks to their punitive act of penalizing just one group of workers for getting ill, has created a monster. The scheme has not only hurt morale but it increased costs. The morale they could obviously care less about but the fact that they are losing money is intolerable. So now the TWU is going to dress up bailing the company out of this poor decision as a gain and proof that PLI can get us something, (more than likely the TWU will give management an added bonus and agree to changes in the language to penalize workers for staying out more than three days). I say keep the sick program the way it is, instead, if they want to reduce sick time, improve morale and give a token give back then stop penalizing workers who have to work the holidays for half pay. That has a positive impact on workers who dont use their sick time and encourages workers to show up on the holiday. At the very least, since the contract says we are entitled to 5 paid holidays, pay those who have to work the holidays holiday pay plus full pay for the hours worked instead of half pay like they do now. They could fix this without officially reopening the contract, they could cite the fact that the language is contradictory in that it says you are entitled to 5 paid holidays off and that by assigning people work the 8 hours on the holiday due to a lack of sufficient volunteers and only paying 4 hours more for the extra eight hours worked they are in fact only giving half pay for working the holiday.

The fact is that if you have perfect attendance changing the sick penalty policy will do nothing for you. If they at least pay you a full days pay for the five holidays they recognize it would put an extra $600/year in your pocket, correct a huge injustice and likely save the company much more than a change in the sick leave penalty would due to the high percentage of sick calls that occur around the holidays. What happens now is because they have to work for half pay on the holiday it makes sense financially to call in sick, instead of losing eight hours its a wash. For the company the cost would be minimal since it would only apply to around 4000 line workers five times a year, at most $2.4 million a year. But then again that would make too much sense, the company doesnt want to really give anything, they just want to pretend like they are. The opportunity to screw the workers over by pretending to give them something that really gets the company out of a bad deal is just too tempting. Get the $90 million in savings, and cut sick time costs while selling it as a give back, greed is good, and the TWU is more than willing to help.
 
That must be the company's BIG concession in lieu of any other monetary gain for going along with the PLI.
 
Bob, I don't know who you are pulling stats from, but many companies only offer 7 paid holidays per year. Many places only pay time and a half for working on the holiday, and nothing if you don't work it. And a great deal of companies only start out employees with one week of vacation.
 
Seven or eight recognized holidays seems to be the norm. But Bob's logic isn't based on what the rest of the country has for working conditions. It's all about restoring what was in the pre-2003 contract.

Given that different workgroups didn't get dinged with the 50% for sick time, I think that's fair enough to try and restore, but I think you're due for a drug test if you really expect it to fix attendance.

The reduction in longer outages described by Bob will simply be offset by people calling in sick for just one day, regardless if it is because they're truly deterred by the existing policy, or because they know it is more convenient to call in sick than to try and arrange for a CS.
 
The reduction in longer outages described by Bob will simply be offset by people calling in sick for just one day, regardless if it is because they're truly deterred by the existing policy, or because they know it is more convenient to call in sick than to try and arrange for a CS.
With a CS, you lose all the pay because it is next to impossible to get a payback. With half pay for the first 2 sick days, you've all but forced people to call in 3 days instead of the old customary 2 days. Same payout on the company side for sick pay, but they are now forced to cover someone for 3 days instead of 2, so their costs go up. They have also eliminated the 4 hour early self-CS, and now have tightened the 2-hour early self-CS to require a level 5 to sign it and it must be signed at least 2 days in advance to get it. PV's on my shift are limited to 1 for over 70 people on the combined crews. Holiday offs are also only 1 allowed off. Vacation time is strictly limited to the weeks you bid the year prior with no flexibility.

Basically the company has put themselves in this position by allowing almost no flexibility for the many legitimate situations that arise in peoples lives everyday. If you could call in a late start CS or a VC day, or even a couple hours of VC when needed, sick time would decrease.
 
Basically the company has put themselves in this position by allowing almost no flexibility for the many legitimate situations that arise in peoples lives everyday. If you could call in a late start CS or a VC day, or even a couple hours of VC when needed, sick time would decrease.

Totally agree.
 
Bob, I don't know who you are pulling stats from, but many companies only offer 7 paid holidays per year. Many places only pay time and a half for working on the holiday, and nothing if you don't work it. And a great deal of companies only start out employees with one week of vacation.
What does SWA start their ground workers with?

Basically the company has put themselves in this position by allowing almost no flexibility for the many legitimate situations that arise in peoples lives everyday.

Thats because they act as if they are still paying what they used to. There was a time when people would give their left nut for an airline job, not anymore.
 
What does SWA start their ground workers with?
Thats because they act as if they are still paying what they used to. There was a time when people would give their left nut for an airline job, not anymore.

Come on Bob the SWA contract only applies when it makes the twu/AA look good
:D
 
I prefer the 50 percent sick policy.
Now it is a guarenteed 3 days. Befor 2003 it was all ways 2.
And with the 1 week less vacation that 3 can easily go to 5 days.

Seven or eight recognized holidays seems to be the norm. But Bob's logic isn't based on what the rest of the country has for working conditions. It's all about restoring what was in the pre-2003 contract.

Given that different workgroups didn't get dinged with the 50% for sick time, I think that's fair enough to try and restore, but I think you're due for a drug test if you really expect it to fix attendance.

The reduction in longer outages described by Bob will simply be offset by people calling in sick for just one day, regardless if it is because they're truly deterred by the existing policy, or because they know it is more convenient to call in sick than to try and arrange for a CS.



The rest of the country does not concern me.
But since you seem to know what the rest of the country has by all means enlighten me. If we have it so much better than the rest of the country I am sure AA will be looking to bring its workforce down another peg on the class scale. After all why would AA want to treat thier employees better than the workers at K-mart.
:huh:
 
I prefer the 50 percent sick policy.
Now it is a guarenteed 3 days. Befor 2003 it was all ways 2.
And with the 1 week less vacation that 3 can easily go to 5 days.
The rest of the country does not concern me.
But since you seem to know what the rest of the country has by all means enlighten me. If we have it so much better than the rest of the country I am sure AA will be looking to bring its workforce down another peg on the class scale. After all why would AA want to treat thier employees better than the workers at K-mart.
:huh:
Notice he didnt say if he would be working on Thanksgiving or Christmas or how much Vacation time he gets. I based my statements on what I've seen, heard and read. One week vacation plus "7 or 8" paid holidays is still more than two weeks paid time off.
 
Notice he didnt say if he would be working on Thanksgiving or Christmas or how much Vacation time he gets. I based my statements on what I've seen, heard and read. One week vacation plus "7 or 8" paid holidays is still more than two weeks paid time off.

I believe FM no longer works for AA but is still compelled to follow the plight of the lowly overpaid and overcompensated AA employee.

Seems we are so well off as compared to the rest of the world we should stop the crying bitching and complaining
and feel lucky AA is keeping us employed.

If I left anything out FM feel free to add to it :D
 
I believe FM no longer works for AA but is still compelled to follow the plight of the lowly overpaid and overcompensated AA employee.

Seems we are so well off as compared to the rest of the world we should stop the crying bitching and complaining
and feel lucky AA is keeping us employed.

If I left anything out FM feel free to add to it :D

How about the TWU saved jobs,
My Full time job
My Part time job

Oh thank you very much TWU.
 
Notice he didnt say if he would be working on Thanksgiving or Christmas or how much Vacation time he gets. I based my statements on what I've seen, heard and read. One week vacation plus "7 or 8" paid holidays is still more than two weeks paid time off.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Bob Owens,

Once AA started with their "stacked deck"--AutoTA,(EVERYTHING is a F/ing OCCURANCE) I found that my overall health deteriorated around the same time.

My occurances "usually" averaged "3" per Year(NEVER MORE THAN 3 :ph34r: ), and on average, I'd wind up using 48 hours, while banking 32 hours .

Pure coincidence I guess


NH/BB's
RETIRED/THANK GOD