The SWAPA Number
The SWAPA Number
Benefits and Leaves | Contract 2029 SEP Education
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Welcome back to the Contract 2029, Survey, Educate and Poll Series. I'm Tony Mulhare with SWAPA Comm. And today, I'm sitting down with Tony Caparella, Brent Wiesner, and Damian Jeanette to talk the benefits portion of the contract. Damian is on our 401(k) committee now, but was on the negotiating committee last cycle, specializing in the benefits plan. Tony and Brent are our benefits committee pilots who work directly with members going out and returning from disability.
We just concluded the benefits and leaves blank sheet survey. So, let's dig into what we learned and fill the membership in on what you all have worked on behind the scenes so we can go into the polling phases with eyes wide open. During this discussion, we are going to compare our CBA provided benefits with other airlines. You can find the contract comparison document on the negotiating committee page on swapa.org and we will link in the show notes so you can follow along.
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Welcome back to the Contract 2029 Survey Educate and Poll series. I'm Tony Mulhair with Swapacon, and today I'm sitting down with Tony Caparella, Brent Wiesner, and Damien Jeanette to talk the benefits portion of the contract. Damien is on our 401 committee now, but was on the negotiating committee last cycle, specializing in the benefits plan. Tony and Brent are our benefits committee pilots who work directly with members going out and returning from disability. We just concluded the Benefits and Leaves blank sheet survey, so let's dig into what we learned and fill the membership in on what you all have worked on behind the scenes so we can go into the polling phases with eyes wide open. During this discussion, we are going to compare our CBA provided benefits with other airlines. You can find the contract comparison document on the negotiating committee page on swapa.org, and we will link in the show notes so you can follow along. We've gotten quite a bit of feedback off the uh blank sheet surveys that were sent out, and a lot of them talk about the importance of the regular plan to our membership, right? So important that it's in our contract that specifically says that the company has to maintain the regular plan. So, what is our ability to contractually protect the regular plan from any kind of erosion that might be attempted? And you know, why is the regular plan so important to our pilots?
SPEAKER_03The regular plan has zero monthly premiums and it has a maximum out of pocket of $2,500 per year while you stay in network, which is very attractive to our pilots. A couple downsides to the regular plan is that it doesn't cover anything. That's preventative. And you can also only add an additional 150K of life insurance to it. So the regular plan is great, and about 50% of our pilots are on it, but it's not for everybody. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now, one of the big drawbacks, obviously, is preventative care is not covered under the regular plan generally. And do you see any roads with the company that could potentially add some preventative care to the regular plan?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. But it might change the plan a little bit. And maybe there is a payment option for that, maybe like an option B.
SPEAKER_00So with the grandfather plan, it's uh it's a little tricky, right? Because if you add preventive care, you you don't necessarily lose the status of grandfather status. But the provision of the law uh just says that you can't have a negative change, right? Eliminating benefits or increasing coinsurance, increasing deductibles or even increasing the OOP at max out of pocket. But the part about the premium is going to be the part that will be uh potentially could lose the exempt status uh under ACA section 2713 for those that want to nerd out on the code, that's the issue that we run up against. And I say that because a company wants to have a funding mechanism, and that could possibly be an issue with the elimination of the uh the grandfather plan or or tweaking it, we'll say.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Okay. So it's fair to sum up that if we make any change to the regular plan to increase the benefits of that plan by adding preventative care, uh, the counterbalance to that is we may be looking at some sort of premium for the regular plan. Is that a true submission?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yeah, that that's fair. I mean, you could have preventative care added just as long as no premium increases. But the company has already stated numerous times, especially in the last two negotiation cycles, that there will be a premium increase. So that's they're using that as their backstop, right? So uh you know the membership just needs to take that consideration.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And I also tell all our pilots if you have any questions with regards to billing, to make sure that you call Carrie Hunt at Resolute Healthcare, because it may just be a coding error. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01So a huge foot stomper, this isn't obviously an SEP podcast for people, but we will hit a couple of pointers uh today on things that are outside of the SEP purview. So obviously Carrie Hunt is a is something that SWAPA pays for. So please use our services if you do have billing uh questions. Now, because of that lack of preventative care in the regular plan, a lot of our younger pilots with young families use the benefits plus plan so they can have well, baby checks, the maternity checks are required if your spouse is pregnant. That plan is also mentioned in the contract, in that whatever plan the company offers to other employee groups also has to be offered to pilots in our families. So what do you see here as options that we could pursue in contract 2029 to potentially improve that language or those plans?
SPEAKER_00So on the protections for especially the regular plan, right, things you could add is provisions that would be the bare minimum or additional features in CBA language. So if we put the CBA language in there, then the company has to add it to the summary plan description. Uh you could do that in the benefits plus plan as well, but the obviously the main contractual point we have is the regular plan. So that would be one way to add those things.
SPEAKER_01Right. How do our medical benefits compare to other airlines?
SPEAKER_00I would say overall, fantastic. I mean, obviously we have the regular plan that's going to be our core piece in the contract for the pilots group itself. That's a great core item. When you compare it to American Delta United, they all have uh slightly different programs. American really has two that are core in the CBA. Uh I would really call one of them as their core piece, and then an additional. Um Delta has now two. They they had one really good one, but now two with an HSA. Uh United has, I believe, three off the top of my head. So their limits, their deductibles, uh, all that type of stuff are somewhat reasonable. I mean, very reasonable in the in the big medical world, but when you're just comparing all of them, they're good. But then you look at the regular plan, it's it's really good, right? The the part that most people don't realize is that we actually have a me too with all the other unions at Southwest, right? Most people don't get that. So uh section six is general under P is benefits entitlement. And it's just two uh two lines on it, uh line one and line two. But if you go to the contract and read it, what it's basically saying is if anybody else at Southwest Airlines, other unions, gets some kind of benefits plus plan, then we get the same protections. And so if you go to uh the ramps, what is it, ramp ops cargo provo, that's uh TWU 555, just go to their contract, go to the go to their uh I think it's Article 26. And if you read through there, we actually have the same provisions. It's talking about a 7% uh increase in premium rates and or if it goes up to a certain dollar value, it's over a two-year period look back, but it's for all the tiers. All those protections actually are in our contract. It just doesn't spell it out in Section 4 specifically.
SPEAKER_01All right. So let's move on to our loss of license plan. Huge gain in contract 2020. So let's give a quick recap for those who may have forgotten the details, and then we'll talk about some industry comparisons there.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So loss of license through this contract that we have now is a look back of 12 months of your monthly based earnings and then averaged out. So let's take an example of a pilot makes $30,000 a month. Loss of license pays 50%. So that would be $15,000. Now, if you have the taxable loss of license, that $15,000 would be taxed and then given to you. If you have the tax-free loss of license, you would receive that $15,000 tax-free monthly.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And then we obviously uh have the bridge benefits. So remind our new hires, those that have been here less than 20 months, what the bridge benefit is.
SPEAKER_02So the bridge benefit is 20 months minus the amount of months that you've been here. So let's take for an example, you've been here three months, you go out on disability, it's three minus twenty. So you would receive 170 trips on your board at the 60-day point when loss of license is also approved.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And so that's to cover them because they haven't had the opportunity to build up a sick bank yet.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And then as we've been through now just over two years of uh time operating under contract 2020, what are you seeing as pain points in these MBE calculations? And do you see any potential solutions there?
SPEAKER_03The main pain points for the monthly base earning calculation isn't necessarily Southwest's calculation and how they're doing it. It's our understanding of what paychecks are included in the MBE, depending on what time of the month we go out. If you go out between the first and the 15th, then the 20th of that same month and the fifth paycheck of the next month is included in the MBE. If you go out after the 15th, so the 16th to the end of the month, then the fifth and the 20th paycheck of the next month is included in that monthly base earning. So depending on when you go out on a medical leave, will depend on how your monthly base earning calculation is done. And to understand that is vital.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so as we as you talk about that, if a pilot were to then go out on loss of license on the 16th or the 17th of the month, so then their following month's uh 20th paycheck would be included. That 20th paycheck would only be looking at a you know uh a half of months' worth of flying uh from the previous month for that calculation. So that could potentially hurt a pilot's MBE. Is that a fair statement?
SPEAKER_03I would say it is a fair statement depending on how many sick trips are on the pilot's uh how how many sick trips they have and how many trips they have on their board, because the Southwest Airlines policy that they came up with was any pilot that goes out on a medical leave, any trips that are on their board will be pulled for sick. So if the pilot still has two four-day trips on their board, those are gonna be pulled for sick. And as long as they have the sick time, then they should still see a pretty solid 20th paycheck. Now, if they're a high time flyer and their boards are blank and they've been picking up open time, then yeah, it's gonna be a low number though.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that's gonna vary by individual. Is that something that we would be looking to try to change in the next contract, or do we basically agree with how they are uh managing that?
SPEAKER_03A lot of pilots like it because if they have a planned knee surgery, a hip surgery, an ankle, then they go out there and crush it and they understand when they need to go out on a medical leave to maximize their MBE. Now, does a month or two really matter on a 12-month look back? Not a ton, but uh some.
SPEAKER_01So one of the blank sheet surveys uh responses that I saw indicated that a pilot was concerned that their MBE could be hurt if they were out on a leave like FMLA and weren't flying and they were on a leave with no pay for some issue. How does that actually work?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, as long as the leave was more than 30 days, it's a long-term leave. And for any approved uh leave of absence, which would include FMLA, uh, you would get 110 TFP for that month. So, you know, your TFP rate times 110 would be part of your 12-month look back calculation. So uh not unless there's an issue that's less than 30 days, but I personally have not seen that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And so that provision actually protects our pilots that are out on a leave of absence that's been approved.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I also understand that while someone is out on a long-term disability, they're concurrently being enrolled in FMLA. And so talk to us about what that means and why that could potentially be detrimental to a pilot.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell So you are correct. Once you're out on a long-term disability, Southwest automatically puts you into FMLA status. Aaron Powell Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so quickly define what FMLA is.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell It's a leave of absence that protects your job.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Okay. And so that's a federal requirement. Correct. And what is FMLA generally used for?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell FMLA is generally used for pilots who need some time off if something's going on at home or their parents are in dire need or pass away to take that time they need off and still be able to come back to their job.
SPEAKER_01So designed for spouse, child, parent, sibling, something somebody in their family that needs care. So they're not taking personal sick time, it's to take care of somebody else. Is that a good summation? Absolutely. Okay. So why are pilots that are on long-term disability being concurrently enrolled with FMLA if they're not asking for that?
SPEAKER_02That's our question as well. And right now, Southwest is putting them into an FMLA status without even their consent. And so if a pilot goes out for six months, comes back in August, then they realistically don't have any more FMLA days to use if they need them.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Because there's some sort of a limit to that FMLA for each year or something. Correct. Very good. So that's something again we can look to address in contract 2029 is to clean up that uh that issue. Let's stay on the loss of license topic, but switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about bridge benefits. And now that we've got 24, 25 months of practice in contract 2020, how has that been working in practice? Has the bridge benefit been implemented like we thought it would be? Are there pain points there? Are there things to improve?
SPEAKER_02The bridge benefits worked out perfectly for all our new hires. We've seen dozens of new hires who have used the bridge benefit. The only problem that we ran into was if a pilot was out 59 days and whether they were approved for loss of license or not, and they came back to work on the 59th day, they did not receive the bridge benefit. Right. We were hoping that the bridge benefit would help for any period of time for the first two months. Right. But you have to have loss of license approved and you have to be out 60 days in order to receive that bridge benefit. Which kind of defeats the point of the bridge benefit, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Which was to give you the 200 trips, 100 trips per month for the first two-month elimination period.
SPEAKER_02It was not defined originally. And after a few new hires were requesting the bridge benefit, um, some of them were approved and some more were denied. And then finally it was defined that you have to be accepted loss of license and out 60 days.
SPEAKER_01So currently, as a pilot, you can choose taxable or non-taxable loss of license. One of the pain points with the non-taxable loss of license is how your NEC contributions get paid when you're out on long-term leave of absence. So right now that comes in as taxable cash and can't get into the 401k for the tax-free version only. Do we anticipate there being any potential fix for that or some sort of vehicle to allow those pilots to be able to contribute to their retirement?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Obviously, this was kind of a byproduct or the end game of last negotiations. But here's the issue, right? Because the tax man always wants their tax. So it's either be taxed today for uh no tax on the future benefit or uh no tax today and tax on the future benefit, right? And so if you think about it, loss of license today, it has imputed income for those that elect the non-taxable, tax-free option, right? Well, if we have the same thing for the NEC cash award, then that's going to stack on top of. So you would have a 50%, and then you have, we'll call it 18%, all of that would have to have imputed income on it. So if you um so it's it's possible, yes, you could. You just it would be a really large tax bill uh associated with that, right, on a monthly basis. You can do it. Um the issue that we had in negotiations, of course, is we were uh putting everybody that was uh still receiving loss of license, they also got the cash award if they had the tax free. They had never been taxed in previous years for that cash award. Well, the tax man wants his money, so there was no way for us to go back unless we just bifurcated at a certain day one, everybody gets the benefits going forward this way. Well, we were trying to make it as harmonious as we could for the entire group, as much as we could wrap our arms around it. That's what we were trying to do. And so that that's why there's that piece to it. So, yes, you could going forward, you just have a a very high imputed income for that tax-free option.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk SIC bank and accrual. So we currently earn 10% of our earned TFP into our SIC bank each month with a maximum holdover of 1,600 TFP in the bank. So let's talk a few things here. And one that was brought up immediately in the blank sheet surveys and was uh a highlight is a change to pass practice, uh, which used to allow pilots to choose whether to use their sick bank or leave no pay to remove pairings that were already on their board. And we've put out some education pieces about how to avoid having a month and a half worth of trips pulled out of your sick bank. So go back and listen to some of our previous podcasts if you have questions there. But how do we codify the language to give pilots the option to use either their sick bank for what's on their board or the option to pull it no pay?
SPEAKER_02So the chief pilots used to have a discretion to whether to pull that no pay or pull it for a sick bank. And now it's codified in our contract that any trip on your board will be pulled for a sick bank.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell So maybe just a simple change to the language to then give the pilot the option again.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And give the chief pilots a little bit more freedom under certain circumstances.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So how does our accrual stack up compared to the rest of the industry?
SPEAKER_02The normal industry is usually four to six percent accrual rate. Um, and sitting at 10 percent for Southwest is about four to six percent higher than the rest of the industry.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Okay. So let's talk a minute about why our accrual rate was so high. So if you tell me if you think this is correct, but because Southwest was so industry lagging for so long on loss of license benefits, we needed a high sick bank to make up for the six-month uh elimination period that was the previous contract. Now that's been reduced to two months, right? So potentially people are maybe carrying an excess of uh sick leave based on that six-month to two month uh elimination period. But that's the history as to why our uh sick leave uh bank was so high compared to the rest of the industry. So that then leads to the next question. Now that that loss of license has become industry standard, right, what do we now do with this uh 1600 TFP SIC bank? Some pilots have it, some pilots don't. Right. You obviously have to be here roughly uh 15 to 16 years to even get to that point. But let's talk about a potential solution, and that is a sick leave buyback program.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And that's something in this next contract that we would love to have is the SIC bank buyback, which would also reduce the amount of sick calls, potentially.
SPEAKER_01Potentially. Because there would be an incentive to accrue some sick leave. Now, that incentive cuts both ways, right? We certainly wouldn't wouldn't want to incentivize people to avoid calling in sick when they should so that they can save up extra and cash out later and just quote, you know, fly with allergies. There's certainly you know not a want there. But there is a uh a desire amongst the pilot group based on the blank sheet surveys to have some sort of sick leave uh buyback. Things were that were common points. No change to the accrual rate, uh optional and flexible, maybe some sort of an annual buy down uh to a certain if you're above a certain limit, maybe a buy down. Um but not a use or lose program, which is also common uh in the industry.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I mean the potential to maybe drop the max sick bank from sixteen hundred to a thousand or eight hundred pay out those pilots.
SPEAKER_01There's pros and cons to both both sides that we need to kind of fully flesh out in our discussions over the next year and a half as we roll into this contract. Right. Again, this is an important part for the pilot group to understand is that there are pros and cons to things like a sick leaf buyback. And as we go into the polling, this is something that's important for you to let your voice be heard so that the negotiating team walks into the room with the the pilot group's desires on And they know where the the limits are and what's the limits for the negotiating team as far as what uh to achieve and what the give and take is there.
SPEAKER_02Right. And under the previous contract discussions, there was talk of reducing that 10 percent accrual rate to 8 percent with a sick bank buyback, but I don't think any pilot at Southwest wants to reduce our accrual rate.
SPEAKER_01Right. Certainly uh that's not the uh the feeling that comes through in the uh blank sheet surveys. Aaron Powell Okay. So staying on loss of license, we've talked a lot each year in podcasts and articles about using one TFP a month to top up your loss of license to ensure that you accrue vacation for the following year. Aaron Powell I did see in some of the blank sheet surveys a desire to be able to uh use a one TFP for other types of leave. Uh so example, uh maternity leave or a long-term bonding leave. So that if you're out for a year potentially on an unpaid leave status, you haven't been able to use a TFP a month, then you come back. Now you have a uh you know nine-month-old or a 12-month-old, and then not able to bid vacation into the following year when you still have this very young child that you'd like to be able to take some time off.
SPEAKER_03It's the extended baby bonding leave that you are not able to use sick time and therefore you are not able to accrue vacation. But for the maternity leave and parental leave, you are able to use sick time. And depending on when it is, you do need to use one TFP per month to accrue vacation. But once it pops into the extended baby bonding leave, you're not able to.
SPEAKER_01Another item that seemed to get a lot of attention in the blank sheet surveys is to address changing the term sick leave to paid time off. The contract specifically says, and so does the flight operation handbook, uh, that it should not sick leave should only be taken in the case of illness or injury, right? And there's two general uh problem areas that arise there. First, that's not in accordance with the I'm safe checklist that the FAA uses. There's lots of instances where that don't include uh illness or injury that would still be um in the I'm Safe uh checklist there, uh that you wouldn't be ready to go to work. And then additionally, uh changing the the verbiage to paid time off would take away the morality question of whether or not you should use sick time for something where you're not necessarily sick, but it's an important event.
SPEAKER_00Well, just changing the term PTO courses is is not good because you typically don't have a uh rollover, you know, in a year over year like we do with the current sick bank. But you can make mechanisms so that the payout, let's say you have an end of career payout and it's at a certain threshold amount, right? Let's say $200,000 or some fixed amount, then you you can definitely do that. The IRS allows that. But um, that's a lot of the complexities that we have with a SIC bank buyback. There are options out there. It's just what would the pilot group be willing to go with?
SPEAKER_01Finally, uh for loss of license, let's talk about the process of returning from a leave and some of the areas that of the contract that need improvement based on what you've seen in your time here and benefits uh for pilots that have been out on a long term and then are coming back.
SPEAKER_02So things that we see when a pilot comes back off a disability is for about a month they're not gonna get paid unless they used a number of sick trips the previous month.
SPEAKER_01So if I if I come back, let's say I I think I'm gonna get my license back at the end of the month. So I bid I bid for the next month. I wouldn't get paid on the fifth, I wouldn't get my installment on the fifth.
SPEAKER_02If you have a line, you will get your fifth pay stuff. Okay. Because it's in advance of your current board. Okay. But if you don't have a line, then you would not receive that fifth advance. And if you didn't use uh 47.5 or greater sick trips the previous month, you wouldn't receive a 20th paycheck.
SPEAKER_01Uh very well. Okay. So if if I'm in that case, like I've getting to I've after the bid period is closed, I get my license back. And so now I'm looking at flying again and I'm starting just I'm just using trip trade giveaway to or uh direct pickup out of ELIT. And I'm maybe even flying a full what would be considered a full schedule in a month, but because that wasn't on a bid period, I wouldn't get that fifth paycheck. Correct. Okay. So in contract 2029, how do we do you see an avenue to fix something like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think it should be up to the pilot whether they receive that fifth advance. Um currently, if I have a pilot that goes out in disability, they'll usually say, hey, I don't want the advance on the fifth of that next month because I don't have enough sick trips to cover that. Okay. So I think every pilot should have the opportunity to say, hey, I'm coming back off disability at the end of the month. Um, can I have my fifth advance, even though I don't have any trips on my board because I'm gonna pick up.
SPEAKER_01Any other areas in the process of returning from a leave uh that you think need improvement as we look at the next contract?
SPEAKER_02When a pilot goes out in disability and they start receiving loss of license at day 60, if they had the tax-free loss of license in the system, it will actually change to a taxable loss of license. Right. They'll still receive the tax-free loss of license money, but it'll change. Right. When that pilot returns off a disability, they have 30 days to elect the tax-free version of loss of license. Otherwise, it remains in a taxable loss of license status.
SPEAKER_01That's certainly a pain point. And so you would like to see that as an automatic readjustment back to the tax-free?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. It's automatic to go and revert to taxable loss of license. It should be automatic when that pilot comes back to revert back to what they had.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. Okay. Um let's uh switch gears again and let's talk about something most of us don't like to talk about. So if I don't make it to my retirement, I pass away for some reason. Um, and uh that happens way too often and much more than we'd like uh we'd care to admit. What happens to my family's benefits uh if I pass away before I reach the age of 65? And what lessons learned or potential fixes do you see to the survivor benefits portion of the contract?
SPEAKER_03When you start talking about survivor benefits, the pilot passing away before they're 65, the contract is very specific on what options that surviving spouse has to them. And that's when Lyft contacts the surviving spouse and goes over them and then swab benefits actually reach out, reaches out to them and goes through it with them as well, and they make an election. So most of them choose the five-year benefit of the choice plan C because it's the longest amount normally. But it doesn't matter if they're a younger spouse or older spouse.
SPEAKER_01But some of the things that they in if you do have a younger spouse or if you're married, that would take them to the uh the your potential age of 65, is there a better option than choice plan C or basic dental at employee rates or 10 TFP a month for up to five years? That's a lot of TFP. That's 600 TFP to cover your your family.
SPEAKER_03When a pilot retires or retires early and has a younger spouse, the 10 TFP per month is obviously incredibly expensive, right? $3,430 a month is pretty stiff for healthcare. But the other options are if the spouse has a job and there's healthcare benefits there, that would most likely be something to look at. Or worst case, go to healthcare.gov and see what the government option is for your specific situation. And each each situation is going to be different depending on the family. So to say one answer will fit all is probably impossible.
SPEAKER_00Because the other alternative to this, of course, is the company, you know, if you retire early, they really want you to save that sick bank. So obviously the younger you are, the more sick bank you'll need, right? And so that that's that's their motivation behind it is just try to uh keep uh accruing the the sick to the max and then using it.
SPEAKER_01Now let's switch gears and talk on the job injury, OJI, right? First of all, the blank sheet surveys indicated that a lot of our pilots don't understand when they should or shouldn't use OJI. People don't understand what that process is.
SPEAKER_03So when a pilot gets sick or injured at work, we recommend them call their base coordinator. The base coordinator goes over the claim with the pilot, and then the base coordinator files the claim for the pilot. When that happens, a company called SEDWIC reaches out to the pilot and schedules an appointment to go see one of their approved physicians. And then that physician that you go and see determines whether it is work-related or not and sends a recommendation to Southwest Airlines. Yes, it is OJI approved, or no, it's not OJI approved. And so that's how that initial process flows through.
SPEAKER_01What kind of things are we seeing approved for OJI? And what kind of things are we seeing being disapproved for OJI?
SPEAKER_03So most things approved for OJI are, you know, you you crank your back getting out of the seat or grabbing your bag, uh, shoulder injuries from lifting your bag, um, obviously slipping on ice, falling downstairs, anything in the cockpit around the cockpit. Um things we see not 100% approved are things that are happening on overnights, uh crossing the street, getting hit, or tripping, or falling downstairs, or working out in the gym. That's all very dependent on how that interview and how that doctor's appointment goes when you go and see that doctor that Sedgwick sends you to and how that recommendation goes.
SPEAKER_00And that's very state dependent, state/slash domicile dependent. Because the rules are different by each state. Just to follow up on that. Brent's 100% correct. But uh that that has been some of the issues. And of course, in the last negotiations, we were trying to do a blanket standardized program all the way across. And the resistance we had was because of each state having different requirements.
SPEAKER_01So generally speaking, though, if if it's if it's happening at work and it's work-related injury, then the the best thing to do is to go through that process. If that process doesn't work, then I can always still use my uh sick bank if I'm denied the use of OJI. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03So let's say your OJI is approved, first off, then any sick trips that were pulled off your board or any trips that were pulled off your board for sick time, that sick time would go back into your bank, and then the contractual language of the OJI part would take effect. Um and then also after 60 days of being out on OJI, if you're still unable to return, then you also can file for loss of license. And so those will stack on top of each other. Now, if the OJI is denied, then it just falls back into the disability playbook of you know, any trips on your board are going to be pulled for sick, you file for short-term disability. If you're out over 60 days, you're file for loss of license and long-term disability.
SPEAKER_00And just to tack on one more thing, there's one more avenue, too. If all of those were denied, let's say he he um he or she filed the OGI claim and it's denied on the state level, then there's also the non-compensable occupational injury in the contract. And so that's when if they've been, they filed for it but been denied, the system chief can actually have a um a program that they can pay you three months at 105 TFP to at least give you something and still go through the disability process, but that's an additional thing. So that would be your gym, somebody's at the gym and gets hurt, crossing over the street. Um those type of things is what that that was hoping to encapsulate.
SPEAKER_01There's also a perception amongst the pilot group that the language around OJI is not built for pilot issues, walk arounds, some of the other issues that come up at work, especially long-term related flying things, skin cancer, hearing loss, whatever else some of our health-related issues due to long-term exposure to aviation fuel, et cetera.
SPEAKER_03Skin cancer, like all those things, those are things that most pilots don't file OGI for. They just go out on a medical leave of absence. But I'd encourage pilots to file an OGI claim if they feel as if whatever their sickness or their illness or their injury happened or occurred at work or is it was exasperated at work, whether that might be a back injury, a shoulder, a knee, a hip, a skin disease, um, the worst they can do is come back and say, no, it wasn't work-related, and then you still have the medical leave process to go through.
SPEAKER_00When a pilot is approved on a workers' comp claim, there's two major components. The workers' comp, which is the state level, that is non-taxed because it's it's trying to benefit you, but it's coming somewhat from the company's coffers, but it's non-taxed. So that means you do not get NEC and you do not get profit sharing, and you do not get market-based cash balance plan on that money. The OJI bank is OJI TFPs, right? Just like your SIC bank, but it's the OJI bank. That does get NEC. That does get market bash market-based cash balance plan. That does get vacation, vacation accrual, uh, you know, and it gets sick as well, but it stacks on top of. And so that that 105 is what the per month can be. The difference is 105 minus what they got in workers comp. So once again, that workers comp, there's nothing we can do about that piece of it. We can't uh enhance it with uh additional benefits because it's non-taxed, right? And this goes back to that cash award issue that we're talking about before. If you're receiving uh non-taxable loss of license, it doesn't show up on your pay statement. So it's not recognized as wages, right? Well, it's the same thing here. You you get workers comp, it it's not showing up on your W-2. So that's why we can't do anything on that piece. Now, the OGI piece, uh 105 is where everybody was just comfortable to be able to receive some kind of income. Yes, it's impacting the high-end uh high income earners. I totally get that. But there's plenty of guys below 105 as well. 105 at the time of, you know, close to the average. We won't say it's the average. But the big, big, big piece that changed, at least in my opinion, that people need to be aware of, and I've seen complaints of, is in the past, you would you would get paid for that trip, that one trip that was on your board. So let's say over a 14 14-day period, you had one trip in there. And so in the past contract, you would be paid, let's say it's a three-day at 19.5. You would get the 19.5, right? Minus a state piece. Well, now it's on a daily basis. So it's 105 divided by the days in the month. So whatever that number is, however days are in that month, you multiply that by 14, you're getting paid for the full 14, not the trip drop. So that's the other piece that was enhanced in the OJI section that's that's not well known, but something that people do need to recognize.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything else in the benefits world that you're like, this is something that's an issue with our contract that we need to change in contract 2020?
SPEAKER_02I think everything that we covered with regards to sick bank buyback and automatic loss of license, tax-free coming back when you come back.
SPEAKER_00We have an increase of loss of license claims. And we also have an increase of workers' comp claims that I've seen, at least in the data. And a lot of that has to do because we are getting the cancers, you know, there's a whole entourage of things out there that are starting to become very popular. And it's just not within our pilot group. You know, look at Delta, look at United, look at American, look at all of them. Um, their disability, disabilities are increasing. But that's because we have really good tight language around, like in disability on loss of license, what it is. You know, if you're sick, injured, pregnant, then you're covered by the disability. Not all plans have that, but those are the contributing factors, and they are just rising. EKG failures are rising, and it's just not us, it's it's the entire industry. So just as long as we maintain or enhance what we have today, I think we'll be good as a pilot group. But, you know, this was a rewrite, so there's gonna be little edges of it that need to be cleaned up, absolutely, because there's gonna be things that happen that nobody thought of, right? And so there's plenty of room for improvement, but I think overall it was a huge improvement from the last contract.
SPEAKER_01We'd like to thank Tony, Brent, and Damien for taking the time to explain these important contractual benefits to us. As always, your input is needed. The follow on polling on benefits and leaves opens on July 20th. Now is the time to let your voice be heard as SWAPA continues to prepare for Contract 2029.