Scott, you accuse ALPO of changing the subject, but he did nothing more than you did to start the latest interaction with me. Shiftwork, in response to Ramrod, repeated a stale accusation that the negotiation work done before the 2008 team took over was Herb's doing. My response to Shiftwork was entirely intended to show that said negotiation work product belonged Russo, not Herb.
YOU decided to change the subject and begin a defense of the current contract for some reason. I rarely condemn contract 2010 because I realize two things. First it was negotiated after a financial meltdown and second, I know how difficult it is to deal with Ford and Harrison Attorneys. My comment about cost neutrality was meant to illustrate that Herb could have presided over a contract signing if he had been willing to take anything less than a complete rewrite, a complete win. Maybe I shouldn't have used the words "cost neutral", maybe I should have said "We could have arrived at a deal with Spirit in early 2007 if we had been willing to accept the same "marginal gain/expectation conceding" contract we eventually signed.
Originally Posted by
captscott26
I will not pretend to know what your feelings or intentions were regarding the Russo TA'ed sections. If you say you would have never accepted them as a final TA then I wont argue.
I didn't say that I would never have accepted them. I said that the MEC I worked for NEVER signed off on them. That is a FACT Scott. Section 25 was a work in progress up til the day Spirit refused to make a pay offer in late February 2008. We had an MEC meeting in Jan/Feb 2008 where the MEC saw the almost complete TA package and in that meeting they sent Russo back to the table on Scheduling. It never got past that point.
Next, I was the Chair. Whether or not I accepted them is immaterial. The MEC never accepted them and that's a fact. Under my read of the ALPA C&BL's, the Chairman is not a dictator, he/she just represents the MEC. The Master Council is the decision maker, not their Chairman.
I do, however, know what was in that document. I know what was signed away. If you want to get into specifics, we can. I just dont see the need to do so on a message board.
You do NOT know what was signed away, because their NEVER was a complete TA. As I've tried to say, every section is open until all sections are closed. Nothing was signed away. Our contract Admin eventually withdrew our conditional acceptance of Pref bid specifically because the company refused to come through with the pay increase WE linked to pref bid. Note that I said conditional. Russo was certain that he could get a pilot friendly Pref Bid system and the MEC's position was that it had to be pilot friendly and that it had to be in an addendum to Section 25. Not written into Scheduling. Carlson always claimed to be able to sign such a document, but he never was able to and in the end tried to get Russo to include pref bid in the Scheduling section. That was not acceptable to the MEC and it ended there.
I really have to ask, why do you continue to attack Russo's work. It was never completed and the pilots were never asked to vote on it. No attempt was made to road show it, and yet guys like you are still treating it like is was something evil.
I also have no ill will towards you. You donated your time to the pilot group, and I respect that. I will not, however, let your comments go unchallenged when I know they are incorrect. The company valued their loss with this CBA at just over $70 million. That was their number. That included expected savings of $40 million over the life of the CBA. Unfortunately for the company, they never realized some of this savings. They lost big on transition(I could give you exact numbers but again, not on a public forum). They lost on reserve utilization. They thought eliminating 150% would save millions. It has not. They paid way more in 200% JRM to realize any savings with the loss of 150%. These are facts. I am not interested in revisiting the "we could have/should have got more" debate. We've beat that one to death I think. We have what we have, and numbers dont lie.
If you are not interested in a "we could have/should have" debate, then why are we talking? You are the one who took up the gauntlet.