Originally Posted by
gloopy
Restoration, however deserved, is not the right stratedgy/rhetoric IMO. We should stick to SWA plus reasonable premiums in all areas, SWA pay rates plus reasonable premius for small narrowbody planes and up from there and SWA scope and work rules...plus a reasonable premium.
Its much harder for a Stockholm'd pilot or a manager alike to make the case as to why we can't afford that without accusing or admitting (as the case may be) that its a management talent issue. And that stratedgy plays straight to the NMB's heart. Battle cries for "restoration" because "we deserve it" and back in the glory days you could get a Caddilac for a month's pay and all that not only serve no strategic purpose, it ends up being equal to or less than SWA plus reasonable premiums anyway...especially when you include scope. All flying on 01-01-13 belongs to us and we will end up getting a massive portion of our oursourced flying back and each and every seat the company wishes to have at DCI, AK or in a JV will have to be "paid for" by the company because the baseline is SWA plus reasonable premiums and it is indefensible to say we can't have what a ruthless industry dominant competitor has.
This is exactly correct and what I've been preaching for months now. It is the very best overall strategy we have without any doubt. But I'm afraid our current union has already been badly compromised in some fashion by management and our union's leaders have a strong incentive to give management what THEY want.
We will never see the survey results. We will never see the opener. We will never even see a summary of the opener. We will never see a transcript of our forced negotiations with the unions of our direct regional competitors over OUR scope language.
When we see our incredibly weak Tentative Agreement, we will have to vote NO or be happy with being far below every SWA pilot for many years to come. Wish we weren't in this position...but we are.
Carl