From Block 11 Rep: While I agree there are improvements in many areas of the TA, I believe this agreement is short of what we could have obtained had we continued to pursue leverage-enhancing strategies. Unfortunately, we repeated the same mistake we made in 1998. We blinked. We were told of dramatic wet leasing and trucking in the 4th quarter. The NMB would not assure us that additional mediation time would be allocated to our case in the near future, and reported that we could not count on the Board's serious consideration of self-help options any time soon. We allowed these factors to get us off of our game and we settled for too little. For these reasons, I voted to not end negotiations. My specific reasons for voting against acceptance of the TA are:
Section 8 Deadheading: Section 8 A. 5. c. “Higher Class of Service:” Allowing a lay flat seat to determine a higher class of service could lead to deadheading in coach and reduced deviation banks as airlines expand their use in economy plus. There is no language in the TA providing a “no less than business class” provision.
Section 24 Filling of Vacancies: Our current agreement provides you with a “bid to relieve an excess” option whereby you can bid to any aircraft and any seat anywhere in the system with an excess posting. This option is now eliminated under the TA. If we vote for this agreement, you will only be able to “stand in” for a junior pilot who is being excessed. In other words, you cannot exercise your seniority like you can today, rather you can only go where the junior pilot can go. In addition, this provision provides a reduction in training cycles for every posting. In fairness, this will also lead to less unwanted seat movement for a junior pilot during an excess.
Section 25 S. Trip Revision: Just like in our current agreement, a reserve pilot in this TA still does not receive the same disruption pay protections as a non-reserve pilot in the same cockpit. We should have changed this to provide the same pay for the same work regardless of a pilot being on reserve.
Section 27: The lack of a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) for the Buy up option leaves pilots who are post-retirement but pre-Medicare vulnerable to large out of pocket costs for insurance and thus acts as a disincentive to retirement before 65.
Section 28: As we have written before, having both a Defined Benefit (DB) “A plan” and a Defined Contribution (DC) “B plan” is the optimum way to provide for retirement security. Our passenger brothers and sisters had their A plan taken in or facing the threat of bankruptcy/distressed termination otherwise they too would enjoy an A plan today. American’s A plan is frozen not terminated and I believe will re-emerge as an option for their pilots in future bargaining as interest rates rise. Our A plan is off-property, in trust for you, and is well funded. In addition, there are approximately 219,000 participants in our company’s DB plan. It is a safe and secure plan and should be retained.
Under current IRS rules, you are limited in the total amount one can put in a B plan. Congress and the White House have flirted with reducing and establishing new limits for DC contributions as a way to raise tax revenue. This means we should not consider putting all of our retirement eggs in one basket.
Keeping all of our current and future pilots in the same retirement plans prevents a “B” scale retirement from undermining our union long-term. However, the A plan remaining unchanged with a $260,000 cap and the B plan increasing only 1% at DOS with an additional 1% four years later is insufficient. We have the leverage to increase these amounts and we should keep fighting to address this issue.
Section 31: A 6-year contract is too long given the issues listed above. Given the time it takes to negotiate agreements, this could be a decade-long agreement.
If you decide to vote this TA down, what happens next?
I would consider a rejection of this TA to be a mandate to rebuild, revise, and re-engage. Your volunteer committee members in Negotiations, Pilot to Pilot, the Strategic Planning and Strike Preparation committees have worked hard to get us to this point. When you see them on the line, be sure to thank them for their service. If we reject this agreement, some of these volunteers may want to take a well-deserved break. Strengthening these key committees with experienced volunteers from prior negotiations would help build bridges among our union leaders. I would suggest we poll to identify your key reasons for rejecting the agreement as well as develop additional strategies to enhance our leverage.
There is risk in this path, but we have been here before. In fact, we were “at will” employees at that time without the protections of a contract. The timeframe to renegotiate this agreement is uncertain and will vary based on management’s motivation to get a ratifiable agreement. Using the offices of the NMB would be optimal for further talks, but their absence does not preclude negotiations if we are successful at encouraging management to bring more to the table.
If you have specific questions about my reasons, please call. This is your future and I look forward to working on your behalf regardless of the outcome of this vote.