Originally Posted by
captnate702
I’m sure urban is a good attorney, but it is playing with straight fire that he has never negotiated an RLA contract yet. Think about this: he’s never even dealt with the NMB. Maybe he’s crazy talented. But we’ve got the money, we should be paying for experienced RLA to negotiate this contract and get us through NMB mediation when that day comes.
Makes me nervous that AR has never negotiated before and he’s leaning on an inexperienced lawyer who looks like a slick Vegas personal injury attorney. We’ve got the resources, we should have real attorneys working this. We should have at least three people dedicated to the union at all times (that’s the max our contract allows and our company can’t say a word about it).
Soooo, I guess you are in all of the committee meetings and in the room for negotiations? Seems like you have a lot of insider information on what the dynamic is amongst our negotiators.
News flash! No one on the company side has ever done a Section 6 negotiation either. On top of that, none of them have ever worked with pilots in their previous positions. FAs and Pilots are the same right?
As far as the NMB, at least the union has a guy in the room that has negotiated several airline contracts and been in front of the NMB multiple times. Company? I'm sure they will hire a real attorney when we get to that stage, but for now, the union is stuck dealing with the same aholes who have been making our lives miserable for the past few years. You don't think the union will retain a specific RLA guy if it gets to that point?
You realize if, with our current CBA, we have two people off all of the time, that leaves room for ZERO other union business (other than a few carve-outs for specific jobs, i.e. negotiations). That means NONE of the committee guys can utilize union business, none of the stewards, no one. I imagine that it is pretty complicated just trying to figure out how all of the people who need to be on union business can be during a week/month etc.
Originally Posted by
Margaritaville
Andrew is a man who took a job. A job that a lot of people in this pilot group could do and have done. It would be one thing if he had a long record of delivering arbitration wins and great contracts, but in his 6 year or so reign, he's batting 500 on arbitrations and we haven't seen a contract. All we've gotten is a whole lot of drama. More than I've ever seen at any airline. He sold the 1224 breakaway as this great thing that would funnel all this money in and solve all our problems but all it did was **** off the rest of IBT and make him completely autonomous. Hasn't improved our situation at all, despite his strong words. All the resources wasted on the breakup could have been used against the real enemy, allegiant management.
We need to trust but verify. Ask hard questions. Demand our resources are used wisely. I don't give anyone in my life blank checks and the union doesn't deserve one either. You fanboys seem to think so, but that's not how business is done.
I hate being in a position to defend AR, but seriously... That's about the dumbest thing I've seen you write and you spread idiocy like covid. I agree, AR took a job, but how many of those "a lot of people" would have gotten the union through the last two years without concessions? How many of those "a lot of people" would have already settled for a crappy contract with wages almost equal to JetBlue? The man definitely isn't a saint nor is he perfect, but I think you are delusional if you think that more than a handful of guys would have gone through covid without giving away our pay, work rules (what few we have), or both. Need evidence? Go back and read FB and this forum during the furlough discussions.
You complain about the use of Union resources. The only reason we even have resources is that we broke away from 1224. Go back and compare the money we had then and compare it to now (excluding the assessment). Just straight-up dues. Those "a lot of people" that have done the job before AR allowed 1224 to us as a piggy bank. Those guys' actions were borderline criminal, and probably on the other side of the line.
As far as his line in PGD, do you complain about managment and instructor pilots also? Take a look at the bids and the seniority list bud. AR doesnt bid. He uses Flight Pay Loss for pay and the seniority list has him as N/A. Why PGD? Not a clue, he could be in any base as far as I know and it wouldn't be any different. Have you emailed or called to ask him why he bids PGD? or do you just complain on an anonymous forum?
Last shot. MEC Chairs at the Legacies make ~$500k-$600k a year. They are the highest-paid pilots at their airlines. They get paid at the highest rate in the contract. Ever wonder why they have ridiculous rates for airplanes they don't even have on property, bingo! I agree that we need to flesh out our union and that there needs to be some serious delegation going on, but 2118 is a toddler. Delta didn't start with 500 union reps, they grew into. I'm assuming we will also.