Originally Posted by
742Dash
The problem with this argument is that we have been down the Section 1 road before, and the result of the Atlas/Polar arbitration was NOT as you just described. Not even close. The resulting pay rates were higher than either contract, business class survived and so forth.
There were three contracts in 2011; Atlas, Polar and the arbitrated result. They are available for anyone who wants to dig for them.
...and therein lies the rub. You said "the resulting pay rates were higher". Those higher pay rates were as a result of gutting the meaningful profit sharing of the time. Bill Flynn told investors on the first analyst call after the 2011 CBA was signed in that the total additional cost for management of the Polar/Atlas CBA that was just signed in was 6-7%. That's right...a 6-7% increase when the pilot group as a whole has a total compensation package around 50-60% less than the other pilot groups.
You can increase pay rates and still take an overall pay cut. That is exactly what management wants to do now.
Eliminate gateway travel and hotels in base.
Eliminate all domestic catering.
Eliminate all instructor positions in the training center and turn those over to low paid contract instructors.
These are just a few of they things we know management wants to monetize for us. I am sure that if we are forced to go down the amalgamation path, we will find that list growing substantially.
With all of those management savings, they want to give us a small "raise". Hourly pay rates are only one point of comparison and are meaningless without looking at the total picture.
Certainly, you don't just want to sell what little current benefits we do have and monetize those into an hourly rate increase? Especially at a time when we have a total compensation package that is paying us 50 cents on the dollar?