Originally Posted by alfaromeo

I guess I could turn the question around. What factor has more to do with the current price of your house:

1. What your neighbors are getting?
2. What your house cost (inflation adjusted) 30 years ago?

So yes I am saying that American pilots are asking for too much. How else can you describe it when the NMB tells them to get a clue and then walks away? Tell me what is the end game for the APA when they are not even negotiating? How exactly do you see this panning out? I am seriously looking for answers, because in the world I live in, you don't get a pay raise when you aren't even negotiating.

I have never held that the other contracts are entirely dispositive of what we can get. Certainly we are not going into LCC territory. But if AMR gets a raise and UAL gets a raise it can't hurt. If they stay stuck on the sidelines, then it makes our job just that much harder.

As for your rather long post, the second one, I don't blame you but you don't really seem to understand the negotiating process. I don't understand the talk about the non-contract employees so I will just leave it. The second point is about the company affording a raise. The economics of the parent company are closely tied to employee compensation and if you don't believe that then you need to study your history a little. Now, what the company can afford and what they say they can afford are two different things. That is why we have professional economists from ALPA National and why we usually hire investment bankers to help determine what they really can afford and not what they claim they can afford.

On the third point, companies generally try to extend the negotiating process when they are making hay as they lose leverage. Conversely, labor tries to drag things out when things are bleaker because they lose leverage. The real length of negotiations can be determined mostly by the NMB and when they release you for self help. That is when the rubber hits the road. The NMB will not release you if there is little hope that the 30 day cooling off period or a short strike will resolve the differences.

By law, they are required to act to try to keep the planes moving, not shut them down. In the case of AMR, the APA ask is so high in relation to the finances of AMR (which is losing money this year) that there is no hope of a strike resolving the situation, unless the APA secretly has a plan B of asking for a lot less. That is why the NMB said they are no longer wasting their time with this negotiation unless the APA makes some changes. You can complain about that all you want, but this is the railway labor act, I didn't write and I don't like it, but I am just a pilot and I can't really do anything about it.

As for the public statements, they are pretty much worthless. Any management type knows the recent history and they know pilots are upset. Making some public declaration of support is not very useful. However, ALPA is providing their leading expertise in economic analysis and negotiating strategy (for a price) to the APA to help them move the ball down the field. UAL has the full support of ALPA and has received authorization from the contingency fund to ensure that they have enough resources to make it through their negotiations. That is the power that comes from a large unified organization and not a bunch of little independent fiefdoms.

On a side note, it is quite common to back track on negotiations when situations change. So yes, you can ask for a little and then ask for more later. They will complain about it, but tough toenails.

I feel that we are going around and around here, and maybe there will be no meeting of the minds. Arguments like "well we used to make that" or "we need to be able to buy a car a month" will not win any points with the NMB or anyone else involved. They really are emotional arguments devoid of business analysis. The world changes and nothing stays the same.

I have done a great deal of union work simply because I wanted to be part of the solution and not sit on the sidelines. We all do our part, but in the end there are real limits in the world. If you push back two hours late for your DTW-LGA flight, you will try to make up time. However, you are going to be late no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter how badly you want it. We live in a world with limits.