I don't know what I am in control of other than which trips I bid for next month.

Look I understand your point of view, you think you are tough and I am weak and all you need to do is conduct a character assassination on me and then all will be well. I have seen this type of behavior many times before.

I will tell you my point of view. I think you are the weak one because you succumb to your emotionalism and self pity. If enough pilots and/or MEC Reps do the same thing then we will be in bad shape. There is a giant pot of money out there that we can dip into and get an on time industry leading contract. To get to that goal we have to bargain realistically and deal with the company's issues just like we want them to deal with our issues. To get to that goal we have to push as hard as we can but we have to realize that pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered.

I think you and the people who give into their self pity are just weak and narcissistic. You would rather spend years and years getting nothing while bleating around about how tough you are and bad your life is. I want money and I want it now and I want more later. Short of taking some hostages, the only way to accomplish that is to bargain hard but realistically. You can only fool yourself for so long and then world crashes down around you.

So keep telling yourself our last contract was some failure. Go find any economist or accountant anywhere in the world to look at the costing data and come up with a conclusion of cost neutral. Your claim that it was neutral is pure insanity and in a real negotiation with real adults it would make you look the fool. But if it makes you happy to feel sorry for yourself then go ahead.

Management didn't dupe us one bit in the last negotiation. That negotiation was based on a successful company that wanted to save money by re-fleeting. We were the key to that re-fleeting and we negotiated to allow them to do it because we cashed in on some of the savings and are adding pilots to mainline. Every month, more guys are upgrading and we are hiring more pilots. That is exactly what they promised us and they have delivered. I know you would like more. I would like more, everyone wants more. Since then we have completed several LOA's that all provided more benefits. We have a great shot at getting more in this next deal, it is ours to lose.

So you keep trying to jump up to the top of the mountain in one leap and will keep climbing the hill one step at a time. Let's see who gets there first.