For those that think we are being “played” help me understand what the theory is. Is it that you think they are still negotiating for items at the table and this is a joint cover up by the company, JNC, SME and MEC Chairmen and we really don’t have any sections that are in agreement? Or is it that the JNC is writing to much language and just wanting this to be a 1000 page document just to kill time? Or is it the MEC is holding this up so that it comes out once we know who will be the POTUS?

Or is it simply that we have had countless grievances that our side believes we need crystal clear language for all the agreed to terms? With a joint contract like this that will have no history behind it. Consider it as our first ever contract. Any grievance will have to depend on the language inside this agreement, no falling back to either L-CAL or L-UAL past practice. This was what we signed up for by not taking a pre existing contact and expanding upon it.

Look at this way it’s been 80 days since they agreed to the terms of the deal. Let’s say we have 6 guys putting 10 hour days with no breaks 7 days a week writing language on this thing. If they really only had to work on 12 of the sections and that was 400 pages. You are assuming that each page of the contract had 12 hours of time spent on it. That’s drafting, cross referencing other sections to not change intent, meet with the company’s lawyers, debate the changes, redraft, rinse and repeat more than likely 3 or 4 drafts. That’s around 3 hours per draft. Now being a little more realistic let’s assume they took one day off for every six days worked and with some breaks in the day for normal human functions they only put in 9 hours of work a day that’s down to 9:30 per page.

What do you think is a reasonable time to draft a page of a legal document? How much time of these 80 was acceptable to doing so and how much do you feel was spent on “games”?

I for one am glad we took this approach. From previous negotiations when attempting to negotiate language and terms at the same time slowed the process down and you had to negotiate verbiage to try to get your intent equally as you where trying to get the terms you wanted. This way you have the intent already agreed to easier to get the full language you want. Another issue is in long negotiations when the environment you are negotiating in changes and language will not be consistent from when you started until you finish. All of this again creates a difficult process for grievances to end in the satisfaction of the grievant.

Amazing that those that are ready to vote this down and send it back to get more because “its” not enough and willing to wait for the right deal. Yet these same people are not willing to wait for the right language.