Originally Posted by
Sink r8
My Scoop speaks for me!
Clearly, the Reserve system's trip into a Marxist-Leninist bent post 9/11 was punitive to many pilots that had already pre-paid their dues under the old system, and were subsequently unable to get any credit for their seniority, the value of which plummeted to zero. Our devalued rights, which were converted into some new crap called RAW currency, which was given freely to all. Which made a new hire just as much of a prince or a peasant as anyone else, and so it was that ftb and other newhires got to think of themselves as equally entitled to flying as someone who HAD been furloughed, HAD lost the game of LOW/HIGH yellows when it was their turn, but now couldn't use their seniority at all to compete for flying anymore. We got shafted, but their perspective on this matter was based on the then-existing system of 2007.
So, to the newhires, past dues that went unrewarded went completely unnoticed.
When we finally designed and implemented something better, they 2007 guys cry bitter tears over the fact that there is LITTLE seniority bias to the Reserve system (emphasis on "little"), and they can't bear the thought of losing the artificial equality they had come to live under, never mind that it was an accident of a history they didn't share in. They sure don't mind the fact that a junior guy flies a trip they don't want, but they can't bear the idea of a senior guy sitting a little longer in a different raw bucket. It messes up their brains, this slightly unequal screw-job, even though it is entirely appropriate, and STILL fails to properly pay us back.
My thinking is that when all you're obsessed about is making sure we're all getting screwed equally, you're in the wrong game. When we design a system, as we have that is CLEARLY much better in the aggregate for Reserves we win. And when we design it with a LITTLE seniority bias, we are only doing what is right.
ftb's problem isn't that he got screwed when he was junior (he didn't), is that he has too little respect for those of us that got screwed when we were junior AND when we were more senior.
I don't want to make it as quite as "personal" as you made it, but you are spot on with regards to where we came from with reserve, where we went, and what we have clawed back to.
As a new hire, I had no problem at all with being junior on reserve. I had no problem when after the first SOT, it even added more senioirty by doing away with days of availability. Heck, a senior 4 day guy could trump a 1 day guy out of a 1 day trip. (Of course the one day got to stay home, but the 4 day guy may have avoided a 4 day trip in the process)
Even being a junior reserve, I wanted something similar to the old system back when we gave that concession (and yes it was a concession in loa 46) to the company. Now, we should just hand that concession back to them?
Of course this is the same forum that had pilot(s) complaining that we should have higher reserve requirements on weekends so the chances of reserves flying would be less and fewer green slips would go out. Sometimes I just don't follow the logic here.....