JJ- with ALL DUE RESPECT, please I am not trying to bash you here, but isn't the proposal in front of you telling you something different than the attitude you (very properly) display in your final comments? This is America, land of competition and greed. That is fact, and these entities are out for themselves. The "1950's scene" is long gone, if it even ever existed to begin with as far as labor/management relations. It is true that they owe you big- MAG owes my pilot group big as well but we keep getting dumped on every step we take. Be careful; if my spidey senses are right, there may be changes afoot at SKW and this may be the tip of the iceberg.
OR, tomorrow the management team might wake up and slap themselves in the forehead and say "What were we thinking fellas? We have to right this wrong, and we better do it 21 skadoo before the pilots get too mad!" Pardon my MAG-bred skepticism but I don't think that will happen.
Y'all have had a good run of it and lucked out with a good management team up to this point; things change, people change, companies change. Perhaps it is a function of how large the pilot group has become- the "mom-and-pop" mentality (we love our employees) of the SkyWest of the past may be a thing of the past.
The only problem is that with the no vote for the union y'all now have 2 years to be vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. This is just the pessimist in me speaking from nearly 5 years of 121-tough-love at MAG. I know, I know:
year:
1: L
2: O
3: S
4: E
5: um... R
Yes, I'm almost a 5-year loser!
Of course, we at MAG with our big fancy union and all just keep getting dumped on and dumped on... aw heck. Who knows what the answers are, but going it alone and relying on the gentlemanly resolution of contracts because they should know that they owe you is a fantasy I can only dream of being a part of.
G'luck! I hope there is good news soon because all us MAG bottom feeders look to the hotshot regionals like SKW for inspiration. Is that why we probably lost 150-200 pilots to you in 07?