Dude,

You want to talk about “spin” experts, you don’t have to look any further than the IBT, they are master spinners, especially when it comes to communicating with us, their pilot group.

As someone else mentioned, HOW do you keep a straight face and tell them that 5 years on an amendable contract is not out of the ordinary.

Or that our first SLI proposal threw EVERY FO under the bus? Even with all our “experts” and “highly experienced” negotiators, the final SLI heavily favored the senior captains while essentially ending the FO’s careers.

We’ve been paying an assessment for a year to have an attorney involved in the 4 (four) sections we opened and yet nothing new or different has happened from when we didn’t have an attorney involved.

Ever hear of Oliver Wyman or other such consulting groups? Why are we wasting our money on a single attorney when the company brings the entire firm of Ford and Harrison to the table.

We’re basing our financial analysis on an Enron-turned-pilot and Bob Mann?

Have you noticed that the company brings TPG or Seabury to negotiate and analyze the financials? Again, they hire firms, not singular individuals.

Yes, firms cost more than individuals, but I would have rather spent more money for a shorter period of time and gotten a reasonable contract long ago.

People that work for Seabury or Oliver Wyman know each other, have worked opposite sides of the table together in the past and will do so in the future, they have the ability to talk sense to their own clients and get deals done.

Instead, we do it the IBT way….. fist pounding, obstructionism, rhetoric and blame……

Oh and I love CM’s theory that we will “get another bite of the apple” in JCBA negotiations. You really think the company isn’t considering that?

Is it possible that the company won’t give us what we want now because they know we’re just going to ask for more later?