Originally Posted by
fifidriver
When will you understand that our NON-UNION work rules were better than your ALPA contract?!!! Although all we had was a "hand shake" agreement, we enjoyed better life quality both as line holders and as reserves (as difficult that may be for you to comprehend).
What we brought to the "potluck" dinner (although it feels like last dinner on Titanic) is a pair of balls, something that not all but quite a few Alaskan pilots lack and a sense of reality. Not all of us live in Gig Harbor... Believe me there is life outside PNW.
You know why we are emotional...? Because we have lost the quality of life we were all accustomed to! How is it possible that after two pay raises (one back in January and the one coming up in April, almost 20 bucks more) I will make roughly $1500 - $ 2000 less a month than I did in 2018 while working 2 extra days? Can you riddle me this? And you still claim that we had nothing prior to your contract?!
So yeah, if you think that we are sometimes too emotional, you are damn right we are! It's hard to leave emotions on the side when you are constantly hearing how we were saved by the mighty Alaska Air but in reality if feels like we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.
You can't seem to state your position without throwing jabs at the Boeing pilots. You attack us if we live in base. You attack us as having no "balls". You attack us as being kool aid drinkers simply because we don't join you in your constant misery. Just because I don't complain on a daily basis, doesn't mean I don't know exactly where and how our contract lags the industry.
You also are very astute at glossing over the fact that you came from a place that had as many contractual protections as you currently work under. Very little and nothing enforceable. AS pilots did not make you work at a shop that had no scope, less pay, had less vacation accrual, less retirement contribution and no enforceable contract. You chose that life when you went to VX. That life choice was made BEFORE AS acquired VX. Maybe after you were there for a while you decided it could be better and organized but that doesn't absolve you of your choice to work under those conditions in the first place. It most certainly does not give you right to play preacher at the pulpit now.
I too decided it could and should be better here at AS and was resolved to fight for better in '18 as many of us were. I've sent all the emails. I've attended the pickets. I've vocalized my discontent on the surveys. I've done all I can short of being given a vote. Please tell me what you're doing differently that constitutes have bigger "balls".
You may have had a better QOL at VX and that was your justification for going there in spite of not having the contractual protections you now demand. Even with a worse contract here than where I came from, I justify my decision because my QOL is still better than it was before. I see my family more and that's what matters to me. So does that make one of us less than the other? Is one of us to blame for the others lot in life?
I've never once stated AS saved VX. I've said VX did not put themselves in a position to have any better. It was too little too late. So again, you can continue your attacks on the Boeing pilots but it was YOU that made you bed. No L-AS did a God****ed thing to you!