Originally Posted by
ExtraMedium
Look, my number one concern with the NC putting the company offer out for a vote today as-is is that I believe at least 51% of the pilots would vote yes regardless of how many holes are in it because all they see are dollar signs. I could very possibly be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But the thought of that being a possibility however makes me shutter. To me, all of that money is no good if I'm staying at garbage hotels and getting screwed out of business class due to clever wording by the company. I don't want to be forced to live like I'm in college for 18 days on the road while I afford to live well on my 12/13 days at home.
As far as the goal post moving, I understand the concern. But having talked to people in the know, I think it's really designed to get the company to close out the discrepancy's on AIMS and health care in exchange for the union dropping the 16 day demand. Maybe it's a bad tactic. But I believe that the healthcare is truly the big hold up. They haven't moved the goalpost on health care to my knowledge, but the company won't negotiate that item.
With regards to the FA's, I didn't mean program FA's have stayed 2 to a room, but that it's happened to genpop fa's. I realize looking back that my wording was unclear. I don't know all of the details on the galley pay, but I thought that it changed from what they were told.
Extra,
I totally understand your concern. You've been here longer than I have and have flown with more people so i certainly have to respect your opinion.
But, this is where faith in the NC (more importantly-the union lawyer assigned to our negotiations) comes in.
It's his job to be able to identify the trap doors and no matter how good a job he does, there will still be some contractual hanky-panky leading to MOUs, there always is.
Plus, in my experience with ALPA and previous carriers, the road shows are an integral part of the process.
Having the NC and union lawyer read it with a fine tooth comb is great, but nothing beats a 195 sets of eyeballs from the pilot group tearing into that thing looking for every possible loop hole.
I've seen MOUs written to a contract that hasn't even been voted on yet precisely from this process.
I do realize that your experience of how road shows went last time is a factor. My experience in the past included an airline with hubs and pilot lounges where Road shows (scheduled or impromptu) gave the pilots ample time to review and understand the TA.
In fact, this process was a precursor to a "no" vote which lead to the best contract I've ever seen.
I have faith in my fellow pilots, but then again I believed that stripper was in Med school... so what do I know?😀