Q: Why do we need two separate banks for sick leave – why not all under one bank?
Under WA paid sick leave laws, the employer is required to provide 1 hour of sick leave for every 40 hours of work. In OR, the employer is required to provide 1 hour of sick leave for every 40 hours of work. We incorporated the more generous 1 for 30 accrual for state sick leave.
If the employer provides a more generous accrual than required by law, there is no requirement to protect the overage. If all sick leave is in one bank, the employer is required to protect all of it.
Our current accrual rate is more generous than what is required by both WA and OR. Theoretically, AS could offer the same protections to the entire balance of our current sick leave accrual – but they are not required to do so.
The Company is absolutely opposed to protecting our full accrual (which is more generous than state requirements). Flight Attendants with 850 TFP in their sick leave bank would be able to call out for 10 months straight with protected leave – higher balances for even longer. The Company would have to eat the operational liability – and, of course, they are institutionally opposed.
The challenge then became negotiating provisions that maintained our more generous accrual rate while also codifying state sick leave provisions for the minimum requirement of state sick leave. Thus, we were forced to deal with two sick banks – one for the state sick leave, and one for our more generous accrual.
Our goal was to maintain our current accrual (one of highest in industry) while capturing the state sick leave provisions.