Originally Posted by
JonnyKnoxville
The company has been around over 20 years. In my opinion, there are no valid excuses as to why we are so far behind in many areas of our contract. Many of us are ready to swing for the fences during this next contract negotiation in order to make up a lot of ground and get us to parity with American, Delta, FedEx, United, and UPS. Time will tell if we can achieve what we are setting out to accomplish, but either way, you can be certain that these gains will only be possible after a long fight.
Not sure what pay rates you're looking at, but you can have American's. And don't be surprised when you see the others ratchet down in the next couple of years.
As to valid excuses...not sure how long you've been around, but I suspect not long enough to know the history. Or the fact that in terms of contracts, as was said above, this is a second contract as opposed to the ones you reference that have been in place and modified many times over decades.
If you want change and improvement, start by unifying the pilot group around a single goal...instead of everyone having their own ideas on how to do things. Management loves that.
As to the complaint in another post about retirement? 401k will always be a risk. Again, IF the group could get behind a single concept, the way to go would be to join one of the well funded and very secure IBT pension plans that has a very solid track record. But that will never happen when everyone has their own solution and it's the only correct one.
Been there, seen that and have all the t-shirts in the closet.