Consider this, in the last 5 years United Pilots have gone from leading the industry in pay and benefits to trailing the industry in almost every measure of compensation and pay.
Here is a partial list:
- 50%+ pay cuts
- Loss of the A Plan
- Paying your own medical and dental (implied additional paycut)
- Severely Diminished QWL
- No TTWOF (trip trade with open flying)
- Zero schedule flexibility
- No vacation drops
- 1.5% pay raises, losing ground to inflation every day
- UAX deadheads, but no way to track pay or FARs
- Strict disciplinary mentality from management
- AMS program; if you are too sick to fly - prove it or no pay
- Record number of grievances
- Record number of System Board of Adjustments
- 5 furloughee calls to get one pilot to accept recall
- Increasing lack of respect for Captain’s Authority
- Second-guessing of pilots by EVERY employee group
- Print your own paperwork but get the fuel load to the fueler 45 minutes before departure (i.e. Flight plan in 15 minutes?!)
- Come to work in uniform or be treated like a potential terrorist
- More deferred maint. stickers per day per airplane as the fleet dies on the vine and no new orders in sight
- CEO Tilton: Consolidation, Consolidation, Consolidation
- (Meaning: Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money for me)
- CEO Tilton: Foreign Ownership is good, we want it, we like it and we want the Government to get it for us
- (Meaning: Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money for me)
The list goes on and on....
So UAL pilots have given away their contract, yet so many UAL pilots bend over backwards to help make up for their employers complete lack of planning.
Why do UAL pilots:
- Pickup extra time, while furloughees wait on the sidelines.
- Waive any aspect of their tattered contract.
- Still think it's their duty to save UAL, even though the carrier has been out of bankruptcy for almost a year.
We all have friends and aquatences at UAL so the next time you talk to them, ask them the tough questions about WTF they think they're doing as a union.
Most UAL pilots are pretty good dudes and dudettes and my intention with this post is not to slam them. However, as a friend of several UAL pilots, it's time for "tough love" and to remind them that a individual mercenary attitude is a career dead end. UAL pilots are always welcome on my jump seat, but be prepared for a polite observation that unless the group mentality changes UAL pilots will never pull themselves back to a industry leading [contract] status.