Dear Mainline Service Directors and Flight Attendants,
As a follow up to our last bulletin issued on April 7, 2022 (please click HERE), the Union has since filed a policy grievance, CHQ-22-58 (click HERE). Members are being denied their post ground duty claims if their pairing contains DPG or THG.
Only Service Directors can submit claims if crew are required to remain on board beyond the 15 minutes after flight arrival (the end of your duty period). Examples of this include an excessive number of passengers requiring wheelchair assistance, deplaning issues, or post arrival emergency or medical. For clarity, there is no minimum duration for post ground duty claims and the clock starts ticking for claims after the 15 minutes post arrival time. You can submit a claim for i.e. 10 minutes if you were off duty at 17:15h (flight arrived at 17:00h) and ended up deplaning at 17:25h.
Air Canada is using the rules listed in Article 5.09 (which pertains to ground service to passengers and is not applicable), to deny post ground duty claims under Article 5.08. Please note that Article 5.08 clearly does NOT make any mention of duty period or trip hour guarantees nor does it stipulate a minimum duration (30 minutes). See the article below.
5.08 GROUND DUTY – PRE/POST PERIOD – Where an employee is required to report for duty prior to or remain on duty following the termination of a Duty Period under Article B5.03, s/he shall be paid at one-half (½) of the hourly rate of pay for his/her classification applicable to the duty period involved.
The GROUND DUTY – POST DUTY claims process is as follows:
- Service Directors must document the incident in eOBR
- Service Directors must submit the claim in eClaim. (Please note that eClaim currently only references ground duty claims for service provided to passengers under article 5.09 and requires you to respond to questions to continue (see below), however please clearly detail the reasons for the claim in the “description of service” box, also ensuring that you indicate that the claim is for POST GROUND DUTY CREDITS under article 5.08.
(**As per the Company’s December 3, 2021 IFS News Bulletin, the process when submitting a Ground Duty Claim via eClaim has been streamlined and Service Directors are no longer required to contact an IFS Manager (to obtain a signature or an approval), should the claim not be immediately approved. Claims will be automatically shared between base managers and reviewed as they are processed.)
If your claim is denied, please forward a copy of the denied claim, a detailed statement, and any other relevant information to your Local Union Office so that an individual/group grievance can be filed on your behalf.
For Air Canada Rouge, we are evaluating all grievance options and will further advise.
Screenshots from eClaim:
(Click “HERE” for PDF)
(Click “HERE” for PDF)
In solidarity,