Originally Posted by
channa
You'd be surprised what kind of procedures are in a lot of contracts.
While what you say makes sense, a union would not just agree to it without getting something in return. For example, if employees were given 10 minutes a quarter to bid on vacation, and you want to convert it to an online system that can be done from work or home, the union will fight for compensation for its members for the 40 minutes a year.
With 85,000 employees, assuming an average wage of $25/hour, the union will label this as a $1.4 million productivity savings on the backs of its members and will want something for it.
It's been done this way for as long as i've been with UA. Both pre-union and post. You are given a time to bid your vacation, and another day and time to bid your schedule. If you miss your slot, they don't stop the process, they call the next person up. As vacation times are prime around summer and holidays, and then slowly fill outward from there leaving at the end, only late Jan-Fen and the 1st week in Dec for the most junior employees, you don't want to miss your slot as someone else will deffinitly take the "best" of what remains. At my station, I can do it on the phone as well, but you hope that nothing goes wrong with your connection, that the phone lines aren't busy (there are alot of employees at my station.) I prefer to do it in person, and will drive in on my day off, stay late or come in early if my slot is off shift. An online system with UA's IT? We would trust it far less than the phone, and again, that is less than in person. Heck, our new contracts gave us a raise on Nov 1, but it still isn't reflected in any of our pay checks, do you think we would trust an online system
Why would anyone assume it's a union thing or that an annual vacation is bid in quarterly instalments? Also, you bid at your time, be it on shift or off shift. For the majority of people, it is off shift as one only works 40 hrs on average a week, a minority percentage of the time the bid is open. Plus, we are given 5 min, not 10, so instead of 40 min a year (10 min x 4 quarters) it is 5 min total. of which most employees aren't even getting paid. Hardly a "union thing"
I've got about 20 years, have earned 4 weeks of vacation, and I still can't get a single week in the summer or a week that contains a major holiday. Why? They are peak times for travel, the company allocates less because they need coverage, and I am in the full time pool, still on the bottom half of the seniority list.