Originally Posted by
G-Dog
Zoo,
I do not think you are off base here. You could be right and you could be wrong. There is more to a contract than just pay. You do not need to tell me that the pay at RAH is in the bottom of a crapper. But that could be a simple short term problem. Other things need to be considered.
I do think that it needs to be examined by a third party(outside negotiator with no ties to any of the parties involved) as to which route would be the best for all parties. It may be that the FAPA contract has the best "base" language to start with. It could be IBT. I would be interested to see what a third party would think.
It's not just pay, but as growth slows across the industry, there will be those that are at RAH for life. Retirement is seriously lacking along with a host of other issues (healthcare, LOL, disability, per diem). There is a huge gap in the total cost of a RAH employee to say a JBLU employee. That is what will be hard to negotiate. Pay, in my opinion, may be the easiest section. I'm sure RAH would love to throw a few dollars on the table and leave the other sections as is. It happens at all airlines and the first page people will turn to will be rates of pay. If they look good, then a lot of pilots will overlook the other sections which directly affect QOL. Only after time will pilots begin to complain that the money only goes so far.
It's going to be a long road ahead to get through the process.