Originally Posted by
TED74
I could be in a very small minority, but I could theoretically vote yes to a contract that increases PWA value by a billion dollars without touching pay rates. An increasing percentage of us have decades left and aren't topped out on anything yet (longevity, sick leave, vacation, category seniority). I'd like to strike now and insert QOL items into the PWA that will be hard to extricate in the years ahead. Our payrates generally won't wander far from industry standard, IMHO. And PS captures profitability if we remain an industry leader.
I am actually sort of along the same line of thinking (though ZERO pay increases won't sell). We actually did a good job post BK of dramatically improving the contract one small item at a time. Sometimes with side letters, sometimes with formal section 6. Compounded together it all made a significant improvement to our lives. I could list ten things off the top of my head, but I'll just list PS deviation from dh, hotels for CQ for anyone living > 50 miles away, and bidding for CQ as just easy examples. We didn't have any of those a dozen years ago.
While section 6 negotiations are the "primary" source of improvements, in the past we have secured a lot of improvements outside of it. Keep the emails to your reps flowing, if you want to influence them. They are the ones who direct the negotiators, etc.