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Arbitration Victory For AFA! Travel on PO; Grievance
#22-99-3-56-04
By: Debora Sutor AFA MEC Grievance Chair
For many of you have been with us at American Eagle for any
length of time, you will recall management’s ever vigilant
attack on our POs. There have been quite a few arbitration
hearings for various issues involving POs. Under the
previous collective bargaining agreement PO usage by Flight
Attendants was limitless and a Flight Attendant could simply
notify the company at any time, they were taking a PO, even
if it was for the remainder of a trip in mid-sequence. When
the new collective bargaining agreement was ratified on
October 27, 2005, PO usage was limited to that of no more
than 2% of the Flight Attendants based at the domicile, but
in no event fewer than two POs. Additionally, a Flight
Attendant must now request a PO at least 24 hours in advance
of scheduled report time.
This grievance was filed on November 1, 2004, following a
series of e-mail exchanges between AFA and Employee
Relations. The Association posed a question to the company
as to whether or not a Flight Attendant could travel on a PO
day. This question came about following a change in the
company’s travel policy which prohibited pass travel without
receiving prior permission from an in-flight manager and for
the duration of the trip sequence for which she/he was
scheduled to work. This new restriction however, fell under
the heading of “Travel During An Absence From Work.”
Therefore, members were confused as to whether or not they
could travel on a PO day; if so, was the prohibition limited
to that of the duration of the trip sequence for which they
were scheduled? Additionally, what if a Flight Attendant
were to take a PO and subsequently convert it to a PVD in
accordance with a previous arbitration decision by
Arbitrator John LaRocco?
Initially Employee Relations responded that travel while on
a PO was permissible under the company’s travel policy and
always had been. Later this statement was recanted. Employee
Relations now claimed that a PO was considered a UA and
would fall under the “unauthorized/unscheduled
absence” portion of the policy. As such, travel was
not permitted unless prior authorization was given by an
in-flight manager. The company further declared that a
Flight Attendant could travel on a PO converted to a PVD,
but only if the conversion was approved immediately.
(Note-we no longer need permission to convert a PO to a PVD
since the LaRocco award) The initial grievance hearing held
12/06/04. The grievance was denied on 1/19/05 and
subsequently petitioned to the System Board of Adjustment on
1/21/05. The Arbitration hearing was conducted on October
31-November 1, 2006 before Arbitrator Gil Vernon. One
witness had to be deposed at a later date following the
arbitration hearing.
The company, during the course of the System Board hearing,
indicated for the first time that it would no longer
consider as unauthorized or unscheduled for
pass travel purposes POs that were later converted to PVDs.
Essentially they would not pursue as pass abuse, flying on a
PO even though the Flight Attendant might not change the
status to a PVD for up to 36 days later (the 5th
of the month plus 31 days if a PO was taken on the first day
of a long month).
In
his arbitration decision in the matter of this grievance,
Arbitrator Vernon ruled that since the new collective
bargaining limited PO usage to 2% of the base with a 24-hour
notice requirement, it was just too difficult to consider
these absences not authorized and not scheduled.
He further ruled that while the terms of the pass policy
are the Company’s to make it would be contractually
inappropriate to subject an employee to discipline or for
American Eagle to report such a matter to AMR as pass abuse
on the basis that travel occurred on an unconverted PO even
without explicit permission. Therefore the grievance was
upheld! |
