Originally Posted by
threeighteen
You’re turning the classic “screw the new guys, I need to get mine” argument around and putting it on the new guys.
The new guys haven’t had a chance to shoot down a contract yet. The old guys have had three opportunities to fix the pension. 2006, 2011, and 2015. But instead of holding the line to do it, they rolled over and voted yes on the first offer each time. You even admitted to voting yes on some of those awful deals.
Why should the new guys accept more concessions, or even a deal that's worth less than what all of us deserve in order to give the old guys a golden parachute pension bump when the old guys voted yes on concessionary and substandard contracts in 06, 11, and 15?
The old guys have had some of the best careers of any of their peers in the industry (especially the last 2-3 years, holy crap. Nothing like making peanuts on first year pay sitting next to a guy who's too cheap to grab the van tip for the newbie but happy to show you his pay stub that shows $500k YTD income and it's not even June yet) and now they want to choke the golden goose on their way out and leave the new guys with the corpse… any concession is ok as long as they get their pension.
No junior guy wants to “screw” the old guys, but we sure as hell don’t want to sacrifice the future to fund the retirement of the guys who were too feckless to improve it the last three contracts either. We’d all love to see all of us get a better retirement plan, but unlike the old guys we’re not interested in trading away the few work rules we have left in order to achieve that. Nor are we willing to accept pay rates that don’t lead the industry by a mile to achieve that.
And nobody owes you gratitude for not allowing the pilot group to be divided by two different retirement plans in 2015. You didn’t go above and beyond by doing that, that was literally the minimum expectation and you barely met it.
Whatever happened to leave a place better than you found it? Don’t throw a match on the squadron on your way out?
No new guy has “gotten theirs” yet. Not even close. They’re still trying to recover from training pay which, even at $4000/mo is less purchasing power than you had when it was $2000/mo.
You’re delusional.
Also your time on the panel is 100% irrelevant.
Ok so you say we had a good career and personality I believe that is true. You however cannot have it both ways. You new guys have had it pretty good also and yes not sitting sideways counts as the pay was much less and your upgrade opportunities were much more frequent. The new guys went straight to a higher paying front seat and in many cases to a widebody front seat, You also have enjoyed extremely quick Captain upgrades. Just a few months ago many were touting the 3 year Captain’s etc talk about a perfect timing situation.
You seem ready to throw the guys who helped build the company under the bus. You also seem to think we can’t get both good pay rates and retirement fixed and I disagree. We can have both and the Company can afford it without killing the goose as you call it. The old guys as you call us have no interest in that as it would impact our retirement. I also have voiced my concerns about fixing the work rules to the union but they say the data “polling shows” otherwise. Many of us spent many of our first years flying only nights as that was all there was at the time. I shake my head at cheapskate Captain’s who don’t buy beers, buy dinners, catch the cab for first year people. I however was fortunate to fly with many Tiger Guys who led by example and I do the same. I make it a priority to have a fun flight and layover, my last FO said you don’t need to buy any more drinks I can afford it, I said thanks just pay it forward!
We are all in this together we need to be sure no one is left behind. I am looking forward to a contract I can finally vote yes on.