Originally Posted by
thevagabond
The only real bargaining power any regional group will ever have is it's ability to entice new hires. That's the only reason the company is hammering out a contract quickly now. I agreed to our work rules and I'll work hard to better my life while I'm here and no one is furloughed.
You can't be serious, right?
If a regional can't cover its flying, the regional is in trouble. If flights start canceling, Delta, United, American - they don't care what the reason is, they just care about the cancelation.
If open time wasn't picked up, the flights wouldn't be staffed, same as new hires not showing up. Either way, its a staffing issue. United ALPA and American APA both had legal judgements against them when open time wasn't picked up and their management successfully argued that the union had a role in the lack of open time being picked up. This of course happened during . . . wait for it . . . negotiations! When you pick-up open time after 8 years of Section 6 negotiations by violating your own CBA for greed, you let your negotiating committee go into the room with nothing.
How convenient that a bunch of RAH CA's can rationalize to themselves that they can pick-up all the open time they want (@ premium pay, a violation of the CBA), but put the onus on the new hire FO's for showing up to class as the reason for a lack of a new CBA.
Incredibly selfish, short-sighted mindset. And coming from the Captains, the ones who lead by example . . . the ones who've been on property for most of the last 8 years of negotiations. Coincidence?