The company has never been critical of our APU usage, to be firing guys for running the APU is pretty tough to do in the real world. There is little management or guidance in our APU usage, and snapping the other way in such a drastic manner would be transparent and draconian.
As far as the APU, I generally agree. You can always come up with good reasons to run the APU. The back of the airplane was hot, airflow from the ground air isn't enough, etc. It's the other things that will get you fired, and not only will you get fired, you'll probably lose your arbitration hearing:
As for flying below the flight plan altitude, it is done often at this company to find a smooth ride. Today's rides through the ohio valley were rough 350 and above, had been that way, dispatch gave us 370. So that happens.
The company can easily track this data. They know what the filed flight plan altitudes were for your flights in the past, they have the flight tracking data to compare your actual cruise altitudes, and they can compare them to future flights. If 20% of your flights in the past 12 months were flown at an altitude different than your flight planned altitude, but suddenly the next month jumps to 80%, then you're going to get fired, and you're not going to get your job back. Statistical analysis related to alleged illegal job actions weighs quite heavily with arbitrators.
How many writeups do fit in the can? Let me tell you something. It's obvious people are going to be half in and half out. If they just want to get to the long overnight and not give a crap about writing anything up and you have the patience and professionalism to write something up then do so. You could have filled the can nearly any day at Colgan because no one cared and thusly, no one wrote anything up. Peoples "give a crap tank" are on empty. Don't feel bad about writing multiple items up because everyone else has given up. Write them up.
Changing the rate at which you write up airplanes will get you fired, and again, you probably won't get your job back. If you do, it will be from a whistleblower complaint, not likely from an arbitration, and it will take years of waiting for the ruling from OSHA. The company tracks write-ups not only by airplane number, but by employee number. If employee number 12345 historically writes up 5 items per 100 flights, but next month that number jumps to 20 items per 100 flights, then employee number 12345 is probably going to be terminated.
Don't be stupid, guys. Illegal job actions are a bad idea. They won't improve your situation in bankruptcy (or traditional contract negotiations), and they will likely cost you your job, possibly your career.
