Originally Posted by
Pervis
Large cabin fleets don't do near as much OT as years past. I'm in one, and it doesn't matter if you're old or young. Again, no guarantees. Yea, one can pick up extended days, but I will not rely on that soft money for my budget. To do so is foolish at best. VAWDs can go away in a heart beat. OT is hit and miss. Even holiday pay can be elusive, depending on one's schedule. So no guarantees, no vote. The extras are icing on the cake if you so choose. Some of us prefer our families to working most of the month.
Oh, and company says they are postured to absorb downturns, unlike years past. Who absorbs the most loss if/when the economy tanks? With all the soft money, the pilots will be the largest single group to take the biggest hit when all that soft money dries up. Nice plan.
Who absorbed the loss at the airlines when the flying went away 2 years ago? did they get their min guarantee? Nope. Min Guarantee was gone, cut, pilots were forced to go on unpaid leave. Their real money was gone. You still had you base pay. What's happening to the A320 captains at B6 right now when the company is asking them to take LOA's for January? The soft money goes away for us, the real money goes away for them too when things go bad.
I understand your blind support for the union leadership, old methods worked back then and old style people still believe in old methods, still think in 2024 that all out wars to solve issues. I would not be surprised if the negotiating team never countered the last offer, never negotiated points, I wouldnt be surprised if ML did act as his typical self and would have walked out of the room, acting unhinged and unprofessional, along the lines of his insulting MB responses everytime someone asks a pertinent question. I wouldn't be surprised if with a counter offer and certain simple changes requests we would have not reached a better deal where we would have made an increase of about 28%-30% year over year and why not FDP at zero or at 5. Of course the company must have added stuff they knew they would have to let go with a counter offer. But The union lead negotiator has zero intention of negotiating, he wants to fight a war until his demands are met unconditionally, making sure some are not achievable.
He doesnt have many years left and will not suffer any consequences in 2029 if things go sour for us.
The union's leadership's job is to represent us, not to think for us, not make life choices for us, we are free, adults, we decide. The union's job is to negotiate for us, brings us a deal, we like it or not. we choose. If we don't like the deal, they do the job we pay a lot for, they go renegotiate. But, have you seen the salary paid to the union leadership? added to a CC76-CC72 base pay, pretty cosy to make a half mil' per year and not have to actually fly, I understand why certain people get all up in arms when talks of a recall are rempant.
What does ML have on PL and P? why have they not fired the failing negotiator they hired? They must know by now that he won't bring them a deal. Where's PL been? Why isn't he involved in the negotiating? It's his legacy as a union president that's at play.
Did you look at the growth at EJM in the past years? did you notice the percentage of EJM planes doing our "sell offs"? did you notice the alignement of uniforms? the redesign of interiors to look alike NJA planes? Do you know that people can actually buy into programs that actually give the company choices to put them on NJA tails or EJM tails depending on availability?
This group has it's limits, nobody is irreplacable, this company is replacable, BH can restart something whenever they're done with the disgruntle ones. As we have made it a personal affair, attacking individuals in their private lives, in their neighborhood and keep on insulting them publicly, do you really think that BH is going to play with a toxic group forever? Don't you think they have options and will have drastic options when needed, when this contract ends, to deal with the thorn that we could become? For sure I can be ramatizing, reading into something that maybe isn't there. But is it? Is a giant financial corporation like BH really going to get played by a small group of pilots making north of $200K/year? Do we really believe that? Are we so disconnected from reality that we actually believe that? Most of us have never had a real 8-5 job, 6 days per week, 4 weeks per months with 2 weeks vacations per year, we have no idea what real life is but we think we can demand anything. We want airlines compensations but we don't want to be sent home at 65.... We demand things and we have forgotten what negotiating means and that Santa doesn't exist and he won't bring us all and every toy we have asked for.
The sad thing is that none of the last 15 pilots I have talked to agree with what's happening and shared that the friends they talk have the same concerns and questions. It's starting to really feel like a hijack by a minority who has no intention to let this group decide for itself, and obviously no intention to counter-offer and negotiate. Pretty sad.