Originally Posted by
Airsupport
Our contract was signed at the begging of 2000. we did nothing to get those planes, we dont have payrates for them, they will be assigned by the arbitrator based on all 900 rates in the country, so the only way we will get beat up on the rates is if everyone elses rates suck. we didn't take concessions to win the delta contract, we aren't taking concessions to keep it (hence the almost 3 years without a contract), so dont get your panties in a bunch. we are just 2 years behind you guys as far as contract negotiations go (we will probably surpass you at the rate we are going).. as you can see every thing you said in your post is incorrect. you obviously didn't do your homework assignment... like i said go read my posts, then we can talk.
Air,
I'm not going to call you name or tell you that you're stupid but....
If your contract is one of the lowest around you can't say you "did nothing i.e. no concessions to get this contract"
Bro, by being at the bottom of the pay scale, you are, by proxy "doing something"
your rates are lower, your 401k match is lower, he11 your per diem is lower. Now I don't know if your boss bid on a lower margin like truman said, but it does sound like a safe bet. If everything you (as a company) do is lower it makes it harder for our company to sign a good contract and bring the industry average up.
you yourself said that your 900 rates are going to be decided by an arbitrator. So where do they look for "competitve rates"?
Are you getting it? If your company comes in and low balls (pilots and management) and we can't fight to jack the rates, so when the mediator looks to competive rates we were only able to raise the bar to here__ when if we didn't have to compete with the low ball carrier we could have squeeze a few more nickels out of management. Thusly, the mediator sees our bigger number and gives you more.
Am I making sense? Every day our management came to us and said Pinnacle and Mesa are willing to do this........
You guys are union and I appluad your efforts, but if the younger guys that go there get upgrade obcessed and settle for a marginal contract then you will remain the low ball carrier and hurt the industry.
Good luck on your contract negotiation. I hope you guys get at least $110 an hour for the 900 and you get per diem up to 2.00/hr and you get 100% match on 401k contribution. Then you've done your share and we will all be throwing accolades at you rather than insults.
Good luck,
Stick