Interesting point of view.
As a CAL guy, I have been impressed with most of what I've read. (Not all, but most)
I disagree totally with the witness who stated he didn't like "rigs" but he did explain why and basically his opinion is that it screwed Senior guys. Didn't like reading that, and not very fond of that mindset. But he's allowed his opinion.

But at the end of the day, the CAL NC works for the Continental Pilot group. As such, they need to show that LUAL was in a bad place and heading worse in order to protect the bottom of my list.

The 800lb gorilla is still the fact that LUAL came into this merger with 1400+ Furloughs, LCAL with 147, of which some were already recalled before the merger was announced, and the rest were recalled by the merger date.

The argument that furloughs have "career expectations" is a tough one. One only needs to look back at history and see how many furloughs at PanAm, Eastern, TWA, etc ended up with great career expectations at their carriers.
I know that not every pilot who is (or was) furloughed ends up starting over again. It's a complicated formula that included the financials of their carrier, their own age, etc...

CAL's point is how many jobs did each side bring to the table. Cut and dry.
On top of that, what are the career expectations of those pilots bringing jobs to the table. Not so cut and dry.

There is no simple easy answer here and I (and I would bet most) wish this merger would not have happened (or at least not when it did). Then again, I also wish we had a better management team, a stronger union, and winning Lotto numbers!

Oh well... Happy Fathers Day to those out there with kids!

Always
Motch