4.27.18 – (LAA/LUS) – Response to Company Communication on Responsible Use of Scheduling Tools

Yesterday, the Company sent a communication to all LUS Flight Attendants titled “Responsible Use of Scheduling Tools.” 

APFA recognizes that it is incumbent on each of us to utilize the provisions of our contract responsibly and we encourage every member to do so. As in most cases, when a few people abuse a right or a privilege, it jeopardizes the right or privilege for the majority. But abuse by the few cannot and must not set up a witch hunt for the majority.

Everyone knows that sharing your password is a violation of Company policy. Violators can be subject to discipline up to and including termination. However, the Company’s communication goes far beyond that. There is no mechanism in our contract that allows the Company to use “technology to actively monitor bidding and trading systems for suspicious patterns.”  What constitutes a suspicious pattern? How can technology determine what a Flight Attendant intends to do with a trip when she or he bids it?  What is the definition of “parking” a trip? Without clearly defined, objective criteria being used to establish all these things, each time we bid or use the ETB, ISAP or the new Trip Trade System that will soon replace ISAP, we potentially put ourselves at risk. What and/or who will determine that one’s activity rises to the level of suspicious?

While APFA respects the Company’s efforts to remind our members of the Company policy on passwords and to act responsibly, Section 35.R. of our contract is meant to provide for the orderly investigation of matters. It is not meant to allow the Company to conduct witch hunts and instill fear. We cannot condone the Company’s departure from the well-established past practice of investigating suspected abuses to actively monitoring the bidding and trading activity of every Flight Attendant in hopes of placing Flight Attendants in jeopardy.

If you have shared your password with anyone, we encourage you to change it and safeguard the new one.

In Unity,

Mark Littleton
Interim APFA National Vice President
[email protected]