And Now to the Present…
In this past week’s negotiating session, the company opened with an overt threat. Comply with the company’s demands by the end of the week, we were told, or impending E-175 deliveries would be deferred and/or delivered to SkyWest. Although we have no way of knowing whether the company intended to make good on this threat, or indeed whether such deferrals had already been initiated, we found ourselves in an eerily-familiar position. Once again, the company chose to issue threats and ultimatums while holding us responsible for the long-term fate of the company and conveniently disregarding the 2016 concessions which already secured the delivery of E-175 aircraft – or at least, should have secured those aircraft. Once again, the company paid lip-service to “cooperation” while putting a metaphorical gun to our heads and demanding your subservience.
As the negotiation progressed, your union EXCO made substantial, multi-million dollar movements toward the company position. The company countered with tiny, infinitesimal movements. This negotiation, like all prior negotiations, was framed as a function of cost and nothing more. Although we viewed that position as short-sighted and ill-timed in the context of the current pilot shortage, we knew – with regret – that current Horizon management does not and will not understand the need to be competitive in the market for pilots. And so, after several passes, we eventually passed to the company our Last, Best, Final Offer (LBFO), which agreed to the company’s proposed new FO scale and gave the company the ability to offer adjustable new-hire bonus payments within defined parameters. In effect, we met the company’s cost parameters and gave the company mechanisms to sponsor pilot development and offer flexible new hire bonuses. Significantly, we affirmed in our proposal that all such new hire bonus payments would include any and all payments to new hires granted as a condition of employment, up to and including tuition reimbursements and other costs. Make no mistake, we gave the company a proposal which met their stated requirements.
In a bizarre twist, the company rejected our proposal. In a last-minute counterproposal, the company wanted the basic elements of our LBFO, but without any restriction on their ability to offer new hire bonus payments. This was odd, to say the least. We had already agreed with the company on restraints to these bonus payments…so why the last minute change of terms? As we soon learned, by their actions and subsequent comments, the company was never intending to comply with CBA limits on new hire bonus payments, even though the company proposed such limits in their own proposals to us. We learned, in the end, that the company planned to secure the ability to offer new hire bonuses within the CBA, while also offering bonus payments outside the CBA, in effect compounding the value of bonus payments and negating and fully compromising the negotiated limits on such payments. This is why the company never intended to collaboratively benchmark compensation with us; in doing so, they would have revealed their true intentions.
Obviously, this new information was a game-changer which stepped outside the bounds of normal, if heated, labor negotiations. This new information represented a complete deception from the company, going back to October of 2016, if not earlier. From that time forward, the company has withheld material information and kept us in the dark about their plans to recruit new hire pilots, and negotiated in bad faith with the intent of securing their individual interests to the detriment of acceptable ethics. There are two equally troubling elements to this. First, the company’s intent to circumvent our CBA represents a willingness to “bust” the union and limit our capacity to bargain for pilot wages and work rules by shifting compensation to opaque pre-employment contracts set outside the confines of the Railway Labor Act. Second, certain known members of Horizon’s executive team are conducting themselves dishonorably, misrepresenting key facts and engaging in outright deception. We view these as serious and overriding offenses which run directly counter to the bedrock principles of Air Group as well as the spirit of cooperation and goodwill. Let us be perfectly clear on this point: we negotiated in good faith, shared the basis of our proposals, met the company’s cost targets, and have been loyal employees and trustworthy partners looking for real solutions in the spirit of cooperation.
...A little more rah-rah follows, but you get the point.