Originally Posted by
Redundant Guy
Wrong. The ASA MEC responded to the Binding Arbitration proposal with going through the process but making it advisory. Your MEC shut down at that point. Our side attempted to negotiate. Your side acted like children and refused to talk about it anymore.
The ASA MEC proposed an equal education campaign. Once again, rebuffed. They proposed turning both systems on at both properties. They were told no by both the XJT MEC and company.
The XJT MEC said SmartPref was the platform of choice without directly saying it. They also so at one point, no way Fligthline will happen. Line in the sand maybe? Our side continued to talk to yours. Our side makes their position known with a request to continue working on an agreement and your side institutes a gag order and won't talk with our guys at all. Next thing you know, the company suddenly wants to talk 70 seat rates under the guise of Section 26. Coincidence? Probably more like your guys started the whipsaw. Both sides share some blame but your MEC carries a bunch of blame as well. Asking the company to engage them in Sec 26 talks and then blaming the ASA MEC for their poor decision is classless.
Why? Who's try to work through this and who's playing games with 4000 pilots paying for their games.
The XJT MEC blast mail says otherwise on many of your points. First, the company did offer dual parallel tracks. The ASA MEC turned it down. The XJT MEC offered the idea of a super committee which would have been advisory. The ASA MEC turned it down. The company offered the idea of third party binding arbitration. As you said, the ASA MEC turned down that idea.
And an education campaign? That is the most laughable thing I've heard! How long did they keep saying, "we already did our research years ago when we negotiated for flight line blah blah, we don't need to do it again." And now all of a sudden they want to educate us? They dragged their feet on their supposed PBS white paper. It had to be dragged out of them just to say they checked that box. This was all after they were slammed by Crewing Solutions for being unprofessional when they went to supposedly learn about Smartpref.
To be clear, the only idea that didn't have any preconceived notions or any bias whatsoever, third party binding arbitration, the ASA MEC, ALONE, turned it down!
Then, and only then, did the company walk away from joint contract negotiations and exercised their right to invoke section 26 of the XJT contract. And now a whole bunch of new conspiracy theories (remember the one where the XJT scheduling chair takes a cut for smartpref) about gag orders, whipsaw, back door negotiations surface. Only one place these rumors come from and its from the classless ones.
Just to reiterate so that no one is confused about it. It was the ASA MEC who turned down BINDING arbitration because they wouldn't be able to "rig" the outcome for flight line.
And to prove that last point, all this would be solved if the ASA MEC would to come out and say they want third party neutral arbitration. But like you said, they only want something that is "advisory." Gee, I wonder why they only want advisory while the XJT MEC was willing to go with binding arbitration? The answer is because the ASA MEC refuses any answer other than Flgihtline. If they cannot assure that flightline will be the final outcome, they turn it down. And this idea of advisory binding arbitration? Is that serious? We already knew that because they turned down that idea when it was brought up in the form of a super committee. Just that alone proves the ASA MEC is not serious about taking back their ultimatum.
Face it, your MEC played their cards the way they did and now we are where we are because of it. This just requires some simple critical thinking to figure out whats going on.