Originally Posted by
gatorbird
No, that’s not why our NC and the company didn’t meet face-to-face for 4 months. They didn’t meet because discussions led to a demand of PBS from the company, the mediator wanted to hear it play out, and our NC was not authorized by our MEC to negotiate into an agreement containing PBS language. Put simply, our NC needed time to poll the membership for a possible change in negotiation direction. Notice that after this was accomplished we were back at it in relative short order. We were NEVER “iced”; in fact, the NMB doesn’t even recognize that term! But don’t trust me—ask your rep!
I agree with this. If this TA gets voted down because of pay rates being below industry standard, we will eventually get back to the table. I believe the company will give us industry standard if that's what we need to get a deal done. But the real question would be, what would you give up out of the current agreement to get there? LTD? Scope? Industry standard medical structure (they've already tried to **** on that once), work rules? We will have to give up something out of this AIP to get closer to AS/SW/DL/UA hourly rates and my guess is that it would wind up being cost neutral for the company.