Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Sounds so simple, eh?

You are encouraged to employ Google and read up on the National Mediation Board, the Railway Labor Act, the procedures and the methods used to negotiate our contract.

Also, I would point out that C2012 actually met or exceeded your stated goals in every area, but one.

As you read up on the legal environment we must operate under, you will come to the realization that stating objective goals in public as you suggest could be very counter productive to reaching those goals. In the most simple terms the process of mediation implies meeting in the middle. If you state your goals you've actually just set your ceiling. Management will then rest the floor lower ... when they meet you "half way" then you've lost. ... and Purple Drank would constantly remind you how you fell short.

Sounds simple, but publishing is a really lousy strategy. We can get into this in greater depth if you want, but off the cuff:

• Sets a ceiling over pilots
• Mid point can be reset lower by management
• Sets expectations by membership
• NMB might find bad faith for refusal to negotiate from your published goals
• Pilots likely to argue over published goals (think the goals are too much X and not enough Y)
• Goals may need to change as a result of an external factor (FAR117 for instance)