Originally Posted by
rickair7777
The super-senior guys gave themselves a fat raise, and the company went along cheerfully because it's WAY cheaper to give a tiny handful of pilots a big raise than it is to give EVERYBODY a moderate raise.
But don't kid yourself, this phenomenon occurs at EVERY regional pilot group, union or not (I have seen this exact scenario played out at my last ALP{A carrier). It probably occurs at the majors too.
The only antidote for this situation is for a huge number of junior pilots to make a lot of noise about the situation and try to get the proposal revised before it goes to vote. I doubt that will happen in this case. Since SKW is not union, voting No will not accomplish much...the company will just go away nad come back to talk in 2-3 years.
This would not necessarily happen at an ALPA carrier. The MEC charges the negotiating committee with the top priorities to improve in negotiations, whats off the table, what would be icing on the cake, etc. The negotiating committee takes their marching orders into to the table with management. Once they have something, they take it back to the MEC for the MEC to decide whether to send the negotiating committee back to the table or to accept the TA. The MEC decides what and when a TA goes to pilot ratification. None of this happens in a vacuum since the MEC is composed of democratically elected pilots who have the ear of the line pilots telling them what they want from the TA.
Originally Posted by
Slaphappy
I will vote yes and i encourage everyone else at skywest to do the same. I don't think we would have gotten something much different had we voted in alpa, plus alpa takes their 2% cut too.
Maybe, maybe not. You will never know how much you could have gotten when you have real bargaining power with the leverage of the possibility of self help given to union pilots by the RLA. This is the only way to have real good faith bargaining. Without it, you will never realize the wage you could have gotten.
By the way, its 1.95% for non probationary pilots. And it gets you a whole lot more than just a contract. And its tax deductible. And I can keep going.