Originally Posted by
MEMFO4Ever
Your post highlights previous realities of airline negotiation, but I have a different view. How about we start off by leaving this hat-in-hand style of negotiations where it belongs; in the past.
For a company that basically prints its own money, we should give up nothing and try to choke the golden goose. If not now, when?
You cannot believe for one second that the company would pause before coming to us for concessions and furloughs when the income statement gets bad. Why should we then give the same consideration when times are good?
No negotiating capital (I hate that term) should be given up to a company that makes money. Our slice of the pie should be bigger; simply because it is available.
Now here is the problem. We, the group of guys in the funny costumes, don't possess enough intestinal fortitiude to force the issue. Sadly, I believe we never will. We have the power, we just will not use it.
MEM4EVER,
Burning down the house does nothing but leave everyone out in the cold. Contract negotiations are a study in brinkmanship. The object is to obtain all you can w/o striking (that does no one any good) while creating a nagging suspicion in managments mind that we just might pull the trigger. Secondly, negotiations are almost never totally 1 sided (except our first contract; total capitulation). I agree with you that our piece of the pie should be bigger, but no matter how you look at it our desires must be prioritized and weighed for merit (how far will we go to get this item). Deal breakers are always that....deal brealers and are generally know for what they are before anyone sits down at a table (vacation, retirement, PBS). We and the company are still evolving in terms of labor relations. In many was both sides are still infantile, but enormous progress has been made in the last decade here. I think it will continue. Will it meet all of our expectations.....probably not.....as always in life it will be somewhere in the middle.