MEC Reserve Committee Report

Date: January 10, 2014

The January System Reserve Meeting was held January 9, 2014.  In attendance for AFA were Kaitlin White, MEC Reserve Chairperson, Wayne Talaski, MEC Reserve Vice Chair, Mark Farnsworth, Council 10 SEA volnteer and Jeff Heisey, MEC Secretary/Treasurer.    For the Company, Terri Miazga and David Hammon from OPBSK attended.

Reserve Preference Questions
We began the meeting by asking the Company about the training for Crew Schedulers on the new Reserve Preference system. The initial plan contemplates training only those Crew Scheduling personnel who work the afternoon shift. However, during the discussion it also became clear that due to trading amongst Crew Schedulers it may be necessary to train a much larger, more diverse population.  Studio training (program optimizer) and Super-user access will be limited to just certain Supervisors and Managers to ensure the integrity of the computer program functionality.

Assigning ONSBs past the 5 hour report time
We continue to receive reports that ONSB Flight Attendants are being used outside the 5 hour ONSB window and reviewed the steps we believe are necessary to ensure resources are available to avoid having to hold people over. 

 We also identified a change in the flying patterns of the late night departures out of SFO.  Recently, these IDs were covered either by originating home crews or originating crews coming from a layover.  It appears more of these flights are being covered by connecting crews.  We have once again asked to Company to bring back the late even ONSB positions at this location. We continue to ask all locals to track the number of ONSB Flight Attendants who are being used outside of the 5 hour window and provide this information to MEC Reserve and Grievance.
 
Irregular Ops and reassignments to Reserves
The issue of holding Flight Attendants on Reserve status over into a day off when there was another alternative in getting her/him home to honor the day off was discussed during our meeting. Recently, we used an example of a SFO based FA who was reassigned into her day off.  While the FA was able to advocate for herself and was eventually brought home during her Reserve pattern without a violation of her days off, we reminded the Company that it is a trend that is unacceptable and further attempts will not be tolerated.

Pre 0500 Check-ins
We reminded scheduling of their obligation to appropriately assign check-ins with pre-0500 report times during the CLLR and Ready process.  We are seeing a trend of assigning IDs with check-in times before 0500 and then failing to RLSE the CLLR for the previous day as well as an increase in the number of attempts to assign pre 0500 check-ins to Ready Reserves on their first day of a Reserve Block.    Neither of these actions are Contractually supportable and should be identified to your Local Council.

Section 10.C.10- Reserve Returning to Work following a Partial Vacation Day
As the number of partial vacation days increase resulting from Partnership & Special Leave activity, the number of questions relative to Reserve assignments for Flight Attendants with partial day vacations is also increasing.  As a reminder,  the manner in which Reserve assignments are handled for Flight Attendants returning from vacation is handled is dependent upon the Reserve status – Call-in or Ready Reserve – as follows:

Ready Reserve (Including converted CLLR)

• No contact should occur until after the vacation period has ended.  Flight Attendants on vacation have no obligation to be telephone available to the company while on vacation.
• Flight Attendants following the conclusion of their vacation may not be required to report for duty until six (6) hours after the vacation ends.

CLLR Reserve

• Flight Attendants on CLLR status must call 1900 tape the day before the partial vacation day.
• Any assignment should not require the Flight Attendant to report for duty until six (6) hours following the final hour of vacation.

Automatic Waiver of Report Time
We have received reports from Flight Attendants that Crew Scheduling is advising them that any "Waiver of Report time" is a paper exercise and does not alter the actual report time for the affected Flight Attendants. (Section 7.I.2).

The language in the Contract is clear – up to an including information that authorizes Flight Attendants to expense cab or limousine service if the hotel transportation cannot be rescheduled.  We have asserted our rights under the Contract and have advised the company of the need to correct any misperception that may exist at OPB.

 Dave will be following up with the OPBSK Manager, Jeff Moore.