Originally Posted by
gderek
Maybe ALPA couldn't stop 65 but our MEC Chair could have stopped all of the guys over 60 in the back seat from ever getting the front seat back.
Originally Posted by
FDXLAG
No but since he left out the part of the MEC working the language to get retro for the over 60 engineers he may be eligible for CNNBCBSABCMSNBC.
It's a bit ironic, but the provision which creates this angst is titled, in the law, "NONRETROACTIVITY". Even the first iterations of the legislation included language to prevent pilots who had already retired from using the law to claim they should get their jobs and seniority numbers back. One might assume that similar language would have made it to the final act without our influence, but one might also assume wrong. It could have also been changed to allow retirees to come back and reclaim "their" seats.
What we did was stand up for the seniority rights of every pilot on the seniority list. Absent this provision, we would have had two classes of pilots. One class of pilots could sit in a front seat after their 60th birthday, and the other class could not. That's an abrogation of seniority rights, and I'm glad we didn't support that.
Can you imagine us doing that today? Although the regulated age is 65, let's only allow pilots under age 60 to bid Captain seats. Captains who are already over 60 can stay in their seats, but no new over-60 Captains.
That's ridiculous, and ridiculous is what we would have had absent the clause we added to protect the seniority right of every pilot on the list.
Oh, and don't deceive yourself into thinking all the old pilots are the most senior pilots. We have Over-60 pilots in every seniority block.
When we decide it's OK to discriminate against any small group of our seniority list, we've decided it's OK to descriminate against every small group of our seniority list, and pretty soon we'll have nothing but a bunch of small groups, with no sense of unity whatsoever. Sometimes those small groups become big groups and feel the need to retaliate for their disparate treatment. In the long term, nobody is served by excluding any single person.
Nobody gets a pass. Nobody gets left behind.
Originally Posted by
gderek
Of course, he [our MEC Chair] also bid the 777 without a pay rate. Is my recollection correct?
Close. When he bid the B-777, the arbitration hearing had been conducted and all briefs filed. We were only waiting for the arbitrator's decision. At that point, nothing we could do would influence the outcome or determine the pay rate.
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