Originally Posted by
dracir1
Do you really think for one minute that all that’s left to negotiate is pay rates and a few other small items and that NOTHING else can be re-looked into? Really. Vacation is done never to be discussed again regardless of how the pay rate discussion goes?
Honestly, even if you were right, that really doesn’t matter because there is ZERO guarantee that the first AIP that gets sent to a vote will become a TA. Your attitude, if you really are an F9 pilot, is the exact reason I continue to post what I do. Your behavior is defeatist. It’s hopeless. It’s acting scared - like you’d rather settle for some mediocre sh!t then really fight for what you deserve. Youve already decided what the vacation rules will be simply because that was told to you midway through a negotiation.
NCs do NOT make contracts. WE, the pilot FORCE, do. We vote contracts into place. We decide what is good for us. That’s you and I and the other pilots employed by F9. If the first attempt at a contract isn’t good enough, then WE send the NC back for another round.
So I have no idea if you’re a troll or not. But to accept something that you find substandard just because it’s a slight improvement . . . Another word comes to mind for that. Truthfully, I hope this IS a troll post and really not coming from one of my brethren...
BTW, ask some other airlines how much the pilot share is for medical insurance. I never said the company should pay 100% but it should never be this high (and that doesn’t even include the ridiculous family/spouse surcharges).
My attitude is not defeatist, my attitude is one of reasonability.
Mediocre sh!t?? Negative sir, that’s what we have now. Consider the improvements we’ll gain, not some pie in the sky dream of what you feel as though your entitled. The childhood dream you obviously still cling to of being a revered and well respected airline pilot, died the day you chose to stay a narrow body airbus guy at a sh!thole, greyhoud’esque carrier. It’s just the simple reality.
I think you should also study up on ALPA policy, because we the regular pilots have no voice on what we vote on. The LEC, the voting members of our MEC are the ones who decide what gets voted on and what doesn’t. I’m guessing you’re not one of them, so your high-horse attitude about what the pilots do and don’t do is an oversimplification. Obviously we get to vote on and decide whether a TA ratifies but only after our elected officials feel it is compelling enough to send off in ballot form.
$166 to ($240something) is simply not a slight improvement. It’s over 45% increase, and that doesn’t include the DC!! So maybe ‘slight’ is a relative term, but I don’t think any accountant in the country that did your taxes the year before and then again the year after your new contract would consider your new taxable income base to be ‘slight.’
No, you didn’t say the company should pay 100% of medical. You said “if the company can change rules in their favor with respect to vacation, retirement, provide cheaper hotels and van services,
have you pay all your medical insurance costs” You’re creating a hypothetical scenario with a statement like that which shows your lack of understanding, to support your agenda which is to get what YOU want because of what YOU think is most important. That is not how this works. You think the pilots should hold out for unreasonable numbers and improve everything. Well I’ll tell you what brother, I appreciate your wants and desires, but they’re unreasonable. If you were at the controls, sounds like you’d rather hold your ground at $166/hr for eternity because you feel as though you’re owed more than whats currently on the table. Meanwhile you continue to fall further and further behind, thus creating an even more impossible to fix situation. Yes, the proverbial snowball effect.
As an aside, the surcharges, if you’d done any of your homework, do exactly with our healthcare what the F9 business model does with bag fees. It’s an à la carte plan. Pay for what you need. Cut the surcharge and then you socialize the costs of the policy equally to all enrollees. It’s not just a fee that “goes away” because dracir doesn’t like it. Those with kids and a working spouse pay more because they use more of the policy benefits. Get rid of the surcharge, then those without the additional needs help fund those that use more. It’s very simple, but I have a suspicion that you’d be very unhappy paying more every month for your so called brethren just to see the surcharge go away, unless of course you’re one of the guys that has a slew of kids. In that case I’d bet that you’d love to see your brethren pay more to support your family and your life choices.