Originally Posted by Zard

Us pups can do math. The return on investment on my ratification bonus and increased NEC is worth more than some nebulous promise of topped out captain pay whenever I can hold CA considering the length of contracts.

The argument that our CA pay was industry leading didn’t hold water; it’s not a secret that we have and have always had market CA rates. The ability to work extra or be a tournament player helped take home, but CA rates have only ever tracked inflation. Go plug it into an inflation calculator if you need some help with the arithmetic.

FO pay rates, however, have always lagged the industry here by a wide margin, and doing the math on this contract meant I would probably be an FO for most of it. There’s even an RP article somewhere our VP wrote about our pay only tracking inflation. That relic of the 80s and 90s didn’t matter when guys upgraded in 4 years here. With upgrade at 8+, that matters significantly more. More earlier helps that 8th wonder of the world turn into higher overall compensation at the end of a career.

Did you really think our NC was going to get 777 pay for NB CAs if we’d just held out longer (and effed over the bottom 40% of the list?)

I had other reasons for my no vote, but FO pay being too high wasn’t one of them. Lack of financial penalties for implementation misses, killing lance, crew meals, parking reimbursements that don’t make a member whole, sick accrual on premium, waiting on FAs before we can bounce, substandard hotel language….plenty of no vote justification. My pay (and subsequent NEC contribution rising?)….not so much.