Originally Posted by
shiznit
Functionality is much more than having reps who care about a negotiating a great contract.
I think that contractual restoration is important, but by "fully functional" I mean to say that we will need capable, knowledgeable people to man the Safety committee, to review the monthly PBS runs, to man the PBS help desk, to have guys like C.T. in the office to resolve PWA questions, call the company and help provide resolution before problems become a "fly now, greive later" scenario. We will need R&I staff to help guys getting ready to punch out have all the info they need. Who will represent the next busted pilot? What happens to the pilot representative to the ASAP committee? There are numerous things that keep the union running every single day that have to be duplicated and implemented, and its a much, much larger task that will require hundreds if not thousands of man hours to organize.
(I still think our new/current stable of LEC Reps want restoration just as badly as a "new bargaining agent's" slate of elected reps do.)
Wanting something and advocating/pursuing it are not necessarily the same thing. Of course all of us
want restoration. The real question is whether our current reps believe it is attainable and have set it as their objective. From everything I've heard and read... for most of them, I would say the answer is no. I would say that most of them have settled for something well short of that. If this is incorrect, then they need to start communicating it ASAP because I'm definitely not the only one who has this impression.
Think of it as an ILS to minimums. Your objective should be to see what you need at minimums and land in the touchdown zone. If you start getting below the glideslope, and the PF is not correcting... well, there's a conversation that has to happen right there. You can't just accept that you are below glideslope and live with it. If you are on the final segment and the PF is not correcting, then his objective or at least his ability to achieve the objective becomes questionable. Landing well short of the runway threshold is not an option.
At some point, you may have to take over. Maybe not a perfect analogy... but you get the idea.