Originally Posted by
ImTumbleweed
If DALPA (with ALPA support) can look in the mirror and think they did a "good job" with the last contract then I am TERRIFIED of our next contract negations.
I am TERRIFIED to see what DALPA will give up in the next contract for a cost of living pay increase.
Let's face it....DALPA (with ALPA support) brought a knife to a gunfight.
TERRIFIED of the next round of contract talks.
And btw, not sure if it's true the company offered a "zero percent pay raise" but if that really happened the lead of the Negotiating Committee should have stood up and said "Then we are done here. We will prepare to strike. Call me if you'd like to negotiate, here's my cell number".
STRIKE??? That would be a rather far fetched thing to threaten, considering we were in early, non-Section 6 negotiations. Do you even realize that had we not reached an agreement that we would just now be in the BEGINNING of traditional section 6 negotiations? And that even if the NLRB and/or Obama administration allowed us to strike (questionable assumption at best) that it would be years from now?
That doesn't mean that we should have ratified the last contract, though I admit I voted for it. It was a decent agreement, not great. Perhaps we should have walked away, I still haven't figured it out.
But the company would know in a nanosecond that some foolhardy statement of "we will prepare to strike" as we walked away from negotiations that were early and far outside the traditional Section 6 would be nothing but feel-good bluster.
Save the feel-good bluster for the forums of the world.