Good last posts^
I do agree that our pilot group is weak, which included the NC and MEC.
Wearing red strike laniards and buying billboards, will not get you a solid contract, when in fact we were prevented from such strike!
It was an empty threat, which again Bendo laughed at...
That same guy who destroyed the mechanics union at NWA, was hired for that purpose, to get CBA concessions.
He won, because WE let him.
Some net "amateurs" thought it would be fun to name names on the www!
If any of you were here for the last strike, you would recognize that was a resolute pilot group, as opposed to 2018.
Subsequently there was a coup, who voted in a junior pilot as MEC Chair, who was supposed to have extensive union experience at two other airlines.
One of his first actions was to provide relief for Bendo during a meltdown, without communicating it to the group. He was then removed. This action showed Bendo and the company that they are dealing with a week and unified pilot group. We gave the company a distance learning letter of agreement, by 70% vote! Voluntarily losing the training conflict, for 10 hours of pay, to sit at home and do 50 hours of computer study... What's so bad about going to GS, while getting 8 days dropped, with pay?
Oh yeah, they were going to buy 100 laptops and make us go to the domiciles to do our learning...Sure!
They fooled us again, we bit into the lie that the iPads were connected to that letter of agreement. Those iPads were already purchased by Spirit and were in the warehouse. Those words came directly from Yuri. Plus the iPads were in Spirit's interest. We should have gotten something for that LOA, not give up training conflict! One more indication that our pilot group was weak, uninformed and apathetic. Relief during the summer meltdown and 30 months of negotiations, during which the MEC and the entire pilot group were sued in court. So this negotiating committee is now under a public lawsuit, in which their names are named and they know that ALPA legal will not cover all their legal fees, if **** hit the fan and Spirit decided to get really nasty. How can these guys negotiate under such threat and our MEC still keep them in there? If not our MEC, ALPA national should have removed them immediately. Our MEC and membership, had given one more indication to Bendo that we are easily manipulated and threatened. Finally November 2017. I’m talking to one of the MEC officers which was furious with the treatment they had received in Virginia, during negotiations. It's late night after a grueling day, they were ready to sign the new CBA concessions for 40% extra pay. Bendo walks in with a bunch of papers, throws them on the table and says "this is PBS". The NC walked off the table. This same contract was proposed to the membership for vote in March 2018, with PBS.
So one of my questions during the roadshows was why are we voting in the middle of low season, why don’t we wait until June, July, August, September when they’re burning for pilots? Why are we giving them relief again? The answer was because most pilots cannot wait three more months, and this is the best we will get, period. We had waited 30 months, we cannot wait 33? We’re voting on a concessionary contract, only to still be one of the lowest paid, without the QOL benefits which allowed us to increase credit, such as transition/vacation/training/reserve drops. So what do you think Bendo thinks of our MEC, NC, and our pilot group? What do you think they’re going to do next time there is a unity requirement from our group? What kind of indication have we shown them historically?
Sandi does a fantastic job at hiring Pilots. I have not yet flown with a person that I have not liked at this company. However, they aim to hire what they call "nice guys/gals". Because we are a group of nice, easygoing , agreeable, guys/gals, they also consider us to be pushovers...
I hope we learn from our mistakes. I am afraid that the gobbling up of open time on top of TAJs, and using bots, are not optimistic indications.
Let's all stay strong and healthy, focused and UNIFIED!
Time to show we are not a weak group anymore.
Best to all during this crisis!