Originally Posted by
busdriver12
You put an awful lot of stock in what unnamed management was quoted saying in a magazine article. Did you consider that the increased productivity was not from the TA, but from other areas in the company? When I read that, it initially enraged me, too, as it was intended to. Then when I thought about it, it really seemed illogical, with the pay raises, bonus and B fund increase (meager as it is) that they could squeeze that level of additional productivity out of us. Not really sure where that could come from. Don't like the 8 in 24 giveback on the dayside, but I sure don't see any way this contract actually pays for itself. Do you?
I'm not sure what difference having the person's name would make. I'm more likely to believe someone in management actually said that than believe the MF made up the quote.
I don't know. Based on past experience, I think some changes may seem like they have little potential to pay off until we see how the company actually exploits them. Others pay off as a result of either unintended or unnoticed consequences.
Last major rewrite of the contract we changed the trip rig to 3.75:1. That was advertised as a QOL improvement when in reality it was just a pay raise. Trips paid more, but without a cap on monthly CH, we worked the same number of days. Trip rig bump only affects QOL (in terms of work days) if a higher paying trip exceeds the max CH limit requiring a shorter trip to stay under the limit. No limit - no change to QOL.
Sick days and vacation were still valued at 6CH/day, which was based on the old trip rig. So we all use more vacation and more sick leave to knock out the same X-day trip. For TAFB trips (which is almost all the long haul bidpacks), how much $$/productivity has the company saved at .4 CH per vacation/sick day over the last 9 years?
Besides the obvious 8 in 24 change, I don't know what real value some of the company "efficiencies" really represent to either side in terms of $$ savings or extra work. Sleep rooms, deadlines on pay changes for downgrades, passover pay, no bid-to-relieve, limits on laterals and down-bids, business class instead of first are all going to add up.
I predict the 20% of R-days in open time is going to be a big windfall in productivity. There will be plenty of locals that will roll the dice and rebuild their lines by picking up blocks of R-days during the view/add. That will leave more flying in open time to get shoe-horned into the secondary lines (
PBS?). Less reserves needed and more secondary's tailored to the company's needs just prior to the bid month starting. Then there's the guy on reserve who knocks out his entire month by just touching a day with recurrent and then picks up a month's worth of flying. He's probably pretty happy. I'll bet the company is more happy. One less trip to fill and one less guy sitting at home getting paid on reserve. How much is pairing down the number of guys on reserve or at least putting them to work worth? See how many airport standby pairings go to line holders once scheduling is allowed to assign them to reserves ahead of general makeup requests. Why pay someone 6 CH when a reserve already getting RLG will do the same thing.
So, I can't really give you a definitive answer about how the company will truly benefit from this. I'm pretty confident they will based on my inner cynic and past observations. The "asks" they put into this TA were calculated and targeted. Maybe those won't "pay" for our gains completely - but I think it's a lot closer than you might think. JMO.