Originally Posted by
notEnuf
Until an agreement is reached the clauses stay independent, and they should remain so for future negotiations. There is value in removing the punitive effect of the RLA. We will always be getting raises timed with the other employees when we are below the industry average, without concessions and with full profit sharing. Keep it that way.
Cash your profit sharing checks and enjoy, there will never be an 18% year for our fellow employees again.
This is about more than one contract cycle. Our pay will always seek industry average while we capture industry leading profit sharing.
I agree with your profit sharing statement but our pay may/may not continue to increase based on 3.B.4.
The first hurdle is getting 3.B.4 to trigger a review which requires an internal pay raise to at least 30% of the U.S. based workforce. It seems the company could bypass that during negotiations by paying non-cons a bonus seeing as 3.B.5 sunsets at the end of this month.
Next, what is the 2nd order effect of Delta, United and American all having "me too" clauses? (Rumored that UAL will have one if this AIP is approved and I would like to think AA will get one on their next agreement). Do we get to parity where there is no raise to be had and therefore the "punitive effect" of the RLA has returned? I think the better solution is to keep 3.B.4 but also have a post-amendable date COLA adjustment based on an independent index (i.e., CPI) so that we can maintain some purchasing power rather than stagnating during Section 6 negotiations.