Originally Posted by
Tuck
So let me get this straight - you are advocating for a "professional negotiator" - whatever that is - but clearly someone who is not a pilot, will not live under our contract, cares about nothing more than his pay check, won't be around to see if his negotiating skills actually paid off since work rule and other challenges come up years after signing date, has no idea how to read incredibly confusing parts of our contract, has no experience with any of our contractual language, grievances, or issues, couldn't care less about you or me and will never ever see you again once the contract is signed? That's the guy you want because he has the title "professional negotiator"? Tell you what, give me some actual names and bios. I think this idea of an outside professional negotiator is the biggest lie the naysayers have ever delivered.
You’re funny.......lets take a look at the last three contracts negotiated by “our union negotiators”......Industry leading?....doubtful....concessionary.....absolute ly......did we run out of the “war chest” of money we were promised by ALPA and concede early? Perhaps. I was at the meetings....there wasn’t much cheering going on when the highlights of the TA were presented. Here’s the point. A pilot looking across the table from a learned company negotiator is almost always going to blink. And the company negotiator has been trained to look for weakness, inconsistency and openings to better the companies cause. If we (ALPA) were to use the same type of negotiators at the table, there is no reason our NC Chair could be right next to him at the table and whisper, “that’s BS, we can’t go for that”, or, “you’re on point...keep pressing”. Out of the many “polls” and “Surveys” the union takes all the time, why not bring this question to the crew force? I think you’d be surprised at how many of the members would say, “let’s bring in the big guns for a change”. But, as previously stated, our own d@mn egos’ get in the way.