Originally Posted by
APC225
Your two long posts seem like a pretty good summary of the rock and a hard place we're in, but haven't we always...
...is your take we should deal a big pay raise and some current UPA fixes for what the company wants? Apparently, the offer from the company was official yesterday. I lean towards no deal, but if things go down the tubes our current UPA may be the last best one we see in our lifetime. I'd like to at least wait for Q3 profit numbers to come in.
I have some concerns. I heard about this from "rumors." My concerns are two fold:
A. From ALPA: we could end up losing leverage and mess up on the timing. I do believe those currently in negotiations will raise the bar for us and help our cause.
B. From the company: They are really good at hiding profits. They can go out and buy back stock, buy new AGE equipment, invest in other airlines, gives various corporate and manager bonuses, and to make matters worse they can move money from long term to short term to cash investment positions is all over the place. ALPA/pilots have little control and sometimes it's hard to watch them move the money. So, how do we get our fair share of the profits visa-vi bonuses, etc, when management does this?
I lean towrds no deal for two reasons:
A. If we go down the tubes, we go down the tubes, the deal won't matter when a bankruptcy judge nullifies it.
B. If we miss the wave we have to leverage in retro pay or some other type of lucrative signing bonus down the road
In Scenario A above this would mean our managers haven't figured out yet how to run an airline. They won't listen to pilots or our inputs or suggestions. We're the ones with the high fidelity corporate knowledge of how the operation needs to run. Look at our new STUPID push back procedures. We are the shock absorber that fixes or hides their lunacy.
In Scenario B above the world economy slows down and/or the security environment has adversely affect interstate commerce and world trade.