Originally Posted by
24/48
Awesome display of douchebagery!
Not sure how long you have been in the industry, but yes it is a little known fact that historically when gains were made by others through collective bargaining that the Skywest student council would "negotiate" and deliver something very similar to what the unionized carriers negotiated.
As to my conclusions as reflected in your "analysis", I don't ever recall championing the Mesa contract as a pillar of regional contracts. What I have noted is that the Mesa pilots have had to waste a lot of negotiating capitol fighting JO....Freedom Air comes to mind. They've also been through bankruptcy recently, and are currently operating under a bankruptcy agreement.
So your "analysis" is false as I was talking about ALL unionized regionals, and without ALL unionized carriers' collective efforts I would argue Skywest wouldn't have some of the things that they do in their handbook.
Again, you make it sound as though Mesa is the scourge of the earth. They are most certainly on the lower end for regionals for reasons I've pointed out ad nauseum, but the gap between the lower and upper is thin.
I don't care if you don't like what I have to say. I'm not out here attacking people who work for Mesa or trying to deprive them of their way of life. I have friends who fly for Mesa. There is no ill-will toward them. If you take what I have to say as a personal attack, then you ARE lacking reading comprehension skills.
I am well aware of the plight of Mesa. I know they have struggled with their upper management and gone through some turbulent times. If the pilots of Mesa TRULY wanted to improve their conditions, they would do far less cheerleading about how great Mesa is. That's all I ever point out. They have more negotiating capital right now than they've ever have. They don't need to slander or to picket the front door. It would be nice for some of the people who actually work at Mesa on this board to call out the people who claim that Mesa is a great place to work.
As far as your point regarding the difference between the best and the worst conditions, I disagree. While compared to a major airline contract, $9-12 an hour is nothing, there are MAJOR differences between a place like Mesa, a place like TSA, and a place like Air Wisconsin. I don't have time to run the numbers, but in compensation alone, you're looking at a possible disparity of up to $7-$12k a year. When you're only making $20-$30k, that is a statistically significant number. When you take into considering health care, disability, scheduling, retirement, and possible other soft pays, that disparity grows much much larger.
While there are growth opporunities and thus upgrade opportunities at a place like Mesa, people still need to prepare to be at a place for a minimum of 4-6 years before they get the opportunity to move to a major airline. There are outliers but I'd bet the average stay at a regional in the next 5 years will not get as low as 8 years.
Finally, with regard to unions. I know this is a hot topic. I think there are both positives and negatives to union membership in the current political enviroment. Union membership under the RLA and representation by the same organization as the people we subcontract for makes union membership almost as worthwhile as not having one at all.