Originally Posted by
gloopy
We have a TA now no matter what. So of course its going to be voted on by us. Fine. But if we send it back with clear directions that its not nearly enough, I'd expect the second TA to be significantly better (and really better, not a bunch of cost neutral money shuffling).
If we can't get a mutual agreement, we head into mediation, way earlier than usual thanks to our current language. We head towards self help in an already accelerated process and further expidite it by minimizing the number of open items. The NMB doesn't just sit on its hands and pressure labor. The company is also pressured, especially if the number of open items is reasonable and all we're asking for is profitable LCC parity for 130 seaters and up from there and profitable LCC parity scope. Put the ball in the company's court and force them to negotiate with themselves to keep the large RJ's they have.
That's ...not even close to what I'm hearing from reps. The agreement is non-prejudicial, so the language cannot, by definition, be re-used as the basis for another discussion. Don't want to play that fear card, but I believe Plan A is the normal track, this is Plan B, and there is no Plan C. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see us tweaking B, and turning it around in any sort of reasonable timeframe, for the logistical reasons you outlined above.
As for better TA's the second time around, there is a recent precedent for this, both at NWand DAL: the JCBA. As you may recall, we took the second deal struck with the company, because we couldn't agree on the first.
It was worse than the first.
The real disappointment is the company is willing to risk putting a super-marginal TA on the table. This may have been a dumb move. But, no matter what we try, we can't force them to voluntarily offer terms early, that they don't want to offer. Maybe they miscalculated, but they sure didn't give us an option to toy around with this, and maybe send it back, and maybe get something better, or maybe get these terms back early in the Section 6 process in case that's what we feel like. This deal comes with a window, June 30th if I read Anderson's (semi-insulting) memo correctly. Then it goes away.
That's why I said elsewhere it's beautifuly, perversely crafted to pass. That's also why our reps came out with that look on their face.