JetBlue Pilots Vote Down TA

Cue the pilots screaming that the company can't do this and it's not fair.

It will be grieved. Outcome is an unknown. Not a lawyer so I’m not sure what to make of it but the pilots voted no so we shall see.
 
It will be grieved. Outcome is an unknown. Not a lawyer so I’m not sure what to make of it but the pilots voted no so we shall see.

Arbitrators have a history of not stepping in the way of things that make lots of money or have large monetary penalties attached if progress gets stopped. They often find ways to award the injured party something, but still allow the process to continue.

EDIT:

This explains it better.

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I’ve seen arbitrators hand down some pilot friendly decisions. Not often, but it does happen. @SlumTodd_Millionaire would know a lot more about this one, but I recall an arbitrator handing down a decision at AirTran regarding how reserve day credit was applied that no one expected to go the way it did. It basically blew up AirTrans whole reserve system and management spent the rest of their existence trying to undo it.
 
I’ve seen arbitrators hand down some pilot friendly decisions. Not often, but it does happen. @SlumTodd_Millionaire would know a lot more about this one, but I recall an arbitrator handing down a decision at AirTran regarding how reserve day credit was applied that no one expected to go the way it did. It basically blew up AirTrans whole reserve system and management spent the rest of their existence trying to undo it.

That one was a prime example of "words mean things" if I recall.
 
I’ve seen arbitrators hand down some pilot friendly decisions. Not often, but it does happen. @SlumTodd_Millionaire would know a lot more about this one, but I recall an arbitrator handing down a decision at AirTran regarding how reserve day credit was applied that no one expected to go the way it did. It basically blew up AirTrans whole reserve system and management spent the rest of their existence trying to undo it.

Ahh, the Toomey Decision. That was epic. I made bank as a reserve pilot and dropped tons of days. :bounce:

To be honest though, the intent for that language was never what the award was. Like the duck points out, it was basically a “four corners of the page” argument and decision. And management hated that decision so much that it became incredibly difficult to negotiate anything related to reserve. In the end, we ended up with some reserve work rules that industry leading in a lot of ways, though. The SWA rules were an awful step back.
 
Ahh, the Toomey Decision. That was epic. I made bank as a reserve pilot and dropped tons of days. :bounce:

To be honest though, the intent for that language was never what the award was. Like the duck points out, it was basically a “four corners of the page” argument and decision. And management hated that decision so much that it became incredibly difficult to negotiate anything related to reserve. In the end, we ended up with some reserve work rules that industry leading in a lot of ways, though. The SWA rules were an awful step back.

I guess my point was that pilot friendly awards do happen, but they're more likely to be the "split the baby" type even though the Company was clearly in the wrong.

My guess is Tran management never used Toomey for another arbitration ever again....

Can you refresh my memory on the details of that one?
 
I guess my point was that pilot friendly awards do happen, but they're more likely to be the "split the baby" type even though the Company was clearly in the wrong.

My guess is Tran management never used Toomey for another arbitration ever again....

Can you refresh my memory on the details of that one?

I can't remember the exact contract language or the details of the specific case that we brought, but the basic idea was that the contract assigned an hourly credit value to a day of reserve, and it also allowed us to drop reserve days. So a reserve day was worth 3.5 hours, and you'd start off scheduled for 20 days in a typical month. You'd get assigned a 30 hour credit trip the first four days of reserve that month. What's your credit now for the month? Well, 86 hours! Some pilots would keep racking up the credit and end up with 180 hour months, others (like me) would start dropping reserve days to keep the credit hours around 80 or so, but getting a lot of extra days off.

At some point management decided that this was not what they had intended in bargaining the language, so they just stopped paying it. The NPA filed a grievance, and bam! Upheld in full. Kolski, the number two guy at the company, lead contract negotiator, and former Lorenzo attorney, lost his guano, and that reserve language was basically his white whale for years.
 
I can't remember the exact contract language or the details of the specific case that we brought, but the basic idea was that the contract assigned an hourly credit value to a day of reserve, and it also allowed us to drop reserve days. So a reserve day was worth 3.5 hours, and you'd start off scheduled for 20 days in a typical month. You'd get assigned a 30 hour credit trip the first four days of reserve that month. What's your credit now for the month? Well, 86 hours! Some pilots would keep racking up the credit and end up with 180 hour months, others (like me) would start dropping reserve days to keep the credit hours around 80 or so, but getting a lot of extra days off.

At some point management decided that this was not what they had intended in bargaining the language, so they just stopped paying it. The NPA filed a grievance, and bam! Upheld in full. Kolski, the number two guy at the company, lead contract negotiator, and former Lorenzo attorney, lost his guano, and that reserve language was basically his white whale for years.

A bud was on the NC there, and thanks to you, the details came back.
 
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