Originally Posted by
a300fr8dog
Most of the discontent over retro-activity seems to be coming from the more junior folks. Has it occured to any of you ranting that you just might be in the minority?
We all signed the same contract. You might want to take a look at section:
22.B especially item 2, although ALL of section 22 is important.
In fact, the entire contract is important for ALL of us to follow. You guys are moaning here about your discontent with DW's decision to pursue retro. Seems to me, ACCORDING TO THE CONTRACT, DW has a duty of fair representation to protect ALL members' interests. MY copy of the contract section 22.B.2 says:
"seniority shall govern all pilots in cases of vacancy posting awards, bid period schedule awards" and so on.
Advocating something that VIOLATES the contract makes you nothing more than an independant contractor. You sound like the guy who is genuinely mad when the fellow crew member (same seat 10 years your SENIOR) bids "your" line. He's senior to you, and it's not YOUR line till EVERYONE senior to you DOESN't bid it.
The seats work the same way.
Just a thought.
Flame on, I hope it helps.
The contract cannot "usurp" FAA regs or US Law. What is causing the beef is that the proposed Senate bill and the speech given by the FAA administrator, and vast amounts of other reporting indicates that the "powers that be" are saying that the max age is moving from 60 to 65 in multiplace aircraft where one of the pilots have to be under 60... also they say that they don't favor retroactivity... if you hit 60 before implementation, then you don't return. The gray area is in companies that have engineers, we are one of the few..... so we as a group must define how this plays out on a NATIONAL stage, not just within our contract (because the national "rules" regs or law hasn't actually been written yet).
Our union is comprised of members and we'd like our leaders to represent the majority of the members. This all came to a boil when DW said he is going to aggressively fight for seniority on the national level. This may or may not be in conflict with the wishes of HIS union---ie us. We THINK the majority differs from this position---rightly or wrongly ... but he is RULING much like the head of the Politburo. And THAT's what the beef is about.
Our "leaders" are taking a position that may be in conflict with the majority of the membership and they are saying publicly that "they know best" or "it's just the right thing to do".
You provide a good argument in your post, but THAT's precisely what we want as members... to debate, to get the good and bad of each position out there and to make a call as a UNION --- one in which the leadership responds to... not just goes about it on their own and everyone else be damned.
By the way, the union leadership did not use the contract to help the guys get their passover pay when JUNIOR members were trained out of seniority order---another seemingly back room deal and a slap in the face to some of the membership. No response from the union to an admitted company screw up and violation of the seniority sections of our contract.