Us Airways Afa President Wants Airline To Ease Up

[SKY HIGH]

Like the others, I've seen it happen, too. That SKYHIGH has been protesting so much suggests that it may even be some on this board that are doing the happening.


Sky high states: Protesting? LOL.....get it right, it was only a comment. One comment. You, MWEISS, thrive on your OPINIONATED "I'm right" comments!
Until YOU can comment on current SERVICE PROCEDURES, your critique is ONLY just that. Complaining.

 

[SKY HIGH]

I've seen it happen too.


sky high states: SINCE when do YOU deadhead in first class from or to the WEST COAST?

 

[mweiss]

Until YOU can comment on current SERVICE PROCEDURES, your critique is ONLY just that. Complaining.

[post="249754"][/post]​

I observed; I didn't complain. It doesn't really matter all that much to me most of the time, though I do notice the differences among carriers.

 

[PITbull]

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Almost everyone reading this topic can agree
on one thing, and that is - you have to have
employees who come to work on time and
ready to complete the task at hand. If that
doesn't happen, then the airline ceases to
exist.

In the recent past, the company has been
burned by employees who have been less
than reliable. As a reaction to this, the
company has resorted to draconian policies
that are designed to "send a message" to
those who would seek to cause harm to the
company.

PITBull has asked the company to meet her
in the middle with a policy that everyone
can live with. Fine. No problem with that.
The only way to convince the company that
a middle ground will work is to agree that
abuses will not be tolerated, and that the
union will not try to keep chronic abusers
on the property.

Nothing is ever black and white, but with
a little bit of work on the contract language,
I'm sure things will work out as necessary
for both sides.

Having said that, unions are not the only
targets in the "battle of the unreliable".
Management employees have had their
vacation/sick time merged and placed into
a common use bank. On top of that, if
a management employee chooses to use
a sick day, not only do they lose a vacation
day, but they get penalized for it in the
form of an occurence. 3 occurrences and
it is level 1. Each succesive occurence
leads to the next level. After 7 occurrences
in a rolling 12 month period, it's time to
go. Not only is it unfair, but it leads to
people coming to work sick to infect the
rest of the employees. Some crazy policy.

I hope the unions understand that it is
not just their members that are facing
draconian policies.

[post="249721"][/post]​

Fair enough and understood.

If the company reduces the sick for every employee (which flight crews do have sick occurences and its the nature of the beast because of exposure to infection by the general public when flying) it will lift spirits, give some relief to f/as who have anxiety over being on a DCP level, and allow for a fresh start.

For those that abuse, they will be right back where they left off, it just take a little more time.

Its comical to me that managment accuses the unions of protecting those 10% that abuse policies and don't want to do their jobs...and senior managment that are in the "good ol'boys club" up there in CCY land, do the exact same thing they accuse the unions of doing; by protecting those managers and senior execs that fail at their jobs or don't do their jobs e.g., PHL operation, numerous business plans, 2 bk filings.. etcetera... B)

 

[SKY HIGH]

I observed; I didn't complain. It doesn't really matter all that much to me most of the time, though I do notice the differences among carriers.

Sky high states: Fair enough, but this flight attendant had to DELIVER 26 DRINKS TO THE FIRST CLASS CABIN. Just on the initial beverage service.................
SHE passed the poster's(flyertalk.com) row many how times? She passed MANY, MANY TIMES to serve DRINKS, pick up empty cups, PASS OUT Lunch (Inflight Cafe) boxes, MANY TIMES..............lets not forget refills. more garbage. And the occasional, "got any chips?"
Plusssssssss, as you pass through the cabin, YOU LOOK AT PEOPLE'S DRINKS and visually assess if THEY have enough to drink. If they have HEADSETS on, you dont want to BOTHER THEM......they generally let you know if they NEED ANYTHING. WHY INTERUPT their movie?
I think what you see is that flight attendants have LESS SERVICE to do, the appetizers are gone, linens, nuts, sundaes, etc....etc......and that flight attendants are WORKING MORE to cover paycuts.......hence, they take opportunity to SIT DOWN and escape the stress of everything that has happened in the past few years.
and, yes, MWeiss, you observed. My apologies. SERVICE can be excellent when done as "procedure" BUT, it's only excellent when your customers leave the aircraft, THANKFUL.
I recently spoke with a frequent flyer. I said, "I dont get it. You are my company's BEST CUSTOMER, yet, we charge you the most!" THANK YOU FOR YOUR BUSINESS. I didnt serve him anything, but I give him GRATITUDE.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Agreed! But like our parents used to say "Two wrongs don't make a right". All you can do is keep your group as "Clean" as humanly possible.

The tighter the AFA ship is run the less CCY can say or do. You holding up your end of the bargain puts pressure on them to "Walk the walk"

[post="249782"][/post]​

Bob,

PitBull has proven time and again that she can hold her own, but I've got to stick my nose in here. I think you're letting your distaste of unions color your judgement.

In a perfect world, I'd be the first to agree that everyone should undertake their responsibilities to the best of their ability - no shirking, no cheating on the rules, no dropping the ball. The other half of that perfect world would be that no one would be accused of shirking their responsibilities because their manager didn't like them, wanted to put "buddy Bob" in their position, or just wanted to thin the ranks.

Until we live in that utopia, however, what you suggest is balderdash. Would you suggest that defense lawyers help the DA determine who is guilty of a crime and who is not? Would you suggest that accusing someone of an infraction is all that's needed to prove their guilt? In the real world we live in, I would certainly hope not.

I think you will find that all the contracts spell out punishable offenses for the employees that are covered by that contract, just as criminal law spells out punishable offenses. All the company has to do is prove that an employee is guilty of one of these offenses and there's nothing the union can do.

What the company would surely like, and you suggest, is that the union - the employee's representative just as much as a defense attorney is the defendant's representative - do the company's job for them. What the company has actually done is even worse - treat every employee as guilty until proven innocent.

Suspect that employees are calling in sick when they're not - make it so onerous to call in sick that many of those who really are will come to work anyway. All that matters is that sick calls come down. Everything else is the employee's (and their co-workers and possibly customers) problem. It's certainly not the problem of those in the upper reaches of CCY who seem to believe that intimation and fear are the only traits that count as leadership and that "Do as I say, not as I do" is a credo to live by.

Jim

 

[BoeingBoy]

Bob,

You'll never get me to say that unions are all good or all bad - they fall somewhere in between depending on the situation, the cards they're dealt, etc, etc, etc. Even down to the people involved - on each end of the dues payment.

But for the life of me, I can't see how asking the union to "police it's own" when it comes to employee discipline by the employer works to the benefit of the union or the employee.

To me you're saying "The union doesn't always represent the employees in negotiations, in lobbying politicians, in dues levels, in much of anything, so why should they represent the employee when the employer wants to punish said employee? They should represent the company since they only care about themselves the rest of the time."

Jim

 

[SKY HIGH]

Sky High??? I think you protest to much. Makes me wonder if you are the problem instead of the solution??

Sky high states: You're WRONG. Too many people love to bash the flight attendant profession. That I DEFEND IT has nothing to do with my work ethic.
I've constantly received good letters for over 26 years! 3 last year. And, what you mentioned is why I usually receive them, I find solutions to problems!

How many did you write?

 

[mweiss]

Sky, the problem is that you were defending someone without having the facts. That sort of knee-jerk response suggests something deeper.

Incidentally, I've written at least a dozen letters to airlines. I'd say about two-thirds were kudos about exemplary service, with the remaining third divided roughly equally between complaints about individuals and complaints about changes to the frequent flyer program.

An example of a complaint was an instance I had on a flight where the FC FA was visibly nasty to an elderly FC passenger who needed a wheelchair. She was OK to me, but I was shocked and offended by her behavior toward the other woman. Another passenger who witnessed it as well made a comment to me about it after we had deplaned.

 

[PSA1979]

This seems to be one of the few professions where the customers feel they need to write to the company about the most trivial of things. (I am not talking about being nasty to an old lady in a wheel chair.)

Can you imagine writing to Denny's or maybe OutBack Steak House because you saw your waitress reading a book in between taking orders? In our first class cabin, there are always those that feel, no matter how many times a flight attendant comes through the cabin that it is not enough.

According to our policy and procedures, once we have finished our service, we are to come through the cabin every 20 minutes to check up on our passengers. Now, am I to sit on my jump seat and stare at the wall for that 20 minutes? Or can it be that I am expanding my mind by reading the daily paper, a novel, or maybe a book from a class I am taking to better myself.

As long as I walk through the cabin and check on you, what does it matter what I do with my free time. And yes, it is my free time. I have no breaks between flights, I have no lunch hour, I have no 15 minute break every 2 hours as allowed by law for other workers. I can have up to a 15 hour duty day, running from airplane to airplane. So, if I sit down and rest, read, relax, whatever, as long as you get your drink within the next 20 minutes, what is it to you? Maybe if the curtains were back on the airplane, I could close it and sit on a hard piece of metal in the galley and then you wouldn't even see me, except of course for every 20 minutes when I come to check on you!

 

[DCAflyer]

This seems to be one of the few professions where the customers feel they need to write to the company about the most trivial of things. (I am not talking about being nasty to an old lady in a wheel chair.)

Can you imagine writing to Denny's or maybe OutBack Steak House because you saw your waitress reading a book in between taking orders? In our first class cabin, there are always those that feel, no matter how many times a flight attendant comes through the cabin that it is not enough.

According to our policy and procedures, once we have finished our service, we are to come through the cabin every 20 minutes to check up on our passengers. Now, am I to sit on my jump seat and stare at the wall for that 20 minutes? Or can it be that I am expanding my mind by reading the daily paper, a novel, or maybe a book from a class I am taking to better myself.

As long as I walk through the cabin and check on you, what does it matter what I do with my free time. And yes, it is my free time. I have no breaks between flights, I have no lunch hour, I have no 15 minute break every 2 hours as allowed by law for other workers. I can have up to a 15 hour duty day, running from airplane to airplane. So, if I sit down and rest, read, relax, whatever, as long as you get your drink within the next 20 minutes, what is it to you? Maybe if the curtains were back on the airplane, I could close it and sit on a hard piece of metal in the galley and then you wouldn't even see me, except of course for every 20 minutes when I come to check on you!

[post="249876"][/post]​

PSA, since you brought up policies and procedures, the last time I checked, it was still against policy to read non work-related materials while on duty. Of course, everyone sneaks in a magazine or a few pages of a novel here and there, but that is not what was being discussed on this thread. Now, I must say that I have my reservations as to whether or not the opening message on this thread is even a remote grain of truth to is, but nobody was saying anything about sneaking in a page or two. I see a lot more flight attendants these days spending a lot more time hiding in the galleys than used to be the case... first class being the exception to this rule. Hell, I've even seen flight attendants sit on the aft jumpseats and watch entire DVDs on their laptops or DVD players... that is TOTALLY unacceptable! But as long as we have this new breed of flight attendants who feel because we gave up scope and we gave up pay that it entitles us to overtly break express rules, we are going to see an increased number of terminations and, even worse, the diminishment of our reputations as professionals.

 

[PSA1979]

PSA, since you brought up policies and procedures, the last time I checked, it was still against policy to read non work-related materials while on duty. Of course, everyone sneaks in a magazine or a few pages of a novel here and there, but that is not what was being discussed on this thread. Now, I must say that I have my reservations as to whether or not the opening message on this thread is even a remote grain of truth to is, but nobody was saying anything about sneaking in a page or two. I see a lot more flight attendants these days spending a lot more time hiding in the galleys than used to be the case... first class being the exception to this rule. Hell, I've even seen flight attendants sit on the aft jumpseats and watch entire DVDs on their laptops or DVD players... that is TOTALLY unacceptable! But as long as we have this new breed of flight attendants who feel because we gave up scope and we gave up pay that it entitles us to overtly break express rules, we are going to see an increased number of terminations and, even worse, the diminishment of our reputations as professionals.

[post="249883"][/post]​

While I do agree that we have a new breed of F/a's out there watching DVD's and reading whole novels that is totally unacceptable, I would like to know when the last time some one was fire for reading while on duty. I would venture to say, that it was about the same time some one was fired for chewing gum on duty. Some of our work rules are way out dated and the company looks the other way.

You can't expect some one to work a 10 hour flight with only a 30 minute break and not read or knit, or needlpoint. Just sit and stare? Come on that is inhumane, There are always those that take everything to the limit, like the ones that never get up off the jump seat after the service is completed. But in this day and age, when the rules were written for 12 hour days, 5-8 legs, no time for reading, some things need to change.

But like I said, I don't condone those that abuse the situation. I have never watched a DVD or read an entire novel or shirked any of my duties. My job as a flight attendant comes first and foremost as does the care of my passengers. After all, no passengers, no pay check!

 

[savyinvestor]

Unless a F/A is really bad I could care less if she reads a newspaper. As far as I'm concerned they are under appreciated. Savy

 

[mweiss]

But as long as we have this new breed of flight attendants who feel because we gave up scope and we gave up pay that it entitles us to overtly break express rules, we are going to see an increased number of terminations and, even worse, the diminishment of our reputations as professionals.

[post="249883"][/post]​

Exactly. That's one of the reasons I get so irked when the first responses from FAs to messages like the one that started this thread is something along the lines of "It didn't happen. And even if it did, we deserve to act like that."

 

[PSA1979]

Exactly. That's one of the reasons I get so irked when the first responses from FAs to messages like the one that started this thread is something along the lines of "It didn't happen. And even if it did, we deserve to act like that."

[post="249896"][/post]​

I think the reason we tend to jump to the defense of our coworkers is the copious amounts of flight attendant bashing that tends to go on here. And from the company also. If we get a bad letter and it says the f/a's were cackling too loud, we get called in and have to make a written statement.

Now, these letters or verbatim statements from passengers may not even say who was cackling or if they were male of female, how long it lasted. We have to reply to these ridiculous things and a copy of it goes in our file for a year. Even if the letter complains that we were doing our job, checking bags, picking up trash and the passenger didn't like the way we were doing it, we get a letter written and have to explain why we were following FAR's. So, not to defend bad behavior, just trying to explain the down trodden, and why we are so defensive.

If more passengers read books or watched their own DVD's we wouldn't be haing to explain ourselves away, because they would be too occupied to bother with us!