Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
Well, there is always a cost. You certainly don't think management gives us anything for free, besides water and peanuts.
Look alfa, the professional airline pilot has made significant gains in compensation and work rules since the 1930's all the way until 9-11. The VAST majority of those contract negotiations were NOT cost neutral. They were contracts where management gave us things for "free." We didn't give up anything for them to make them cost neutral, they were pure and simple gains. Maybe you've only been around long enough to experience the "what are you willing to give up for it" era of negotiations, but that has not been the historical norm. If we care to fight for it, I believe we can all enter a new era of making pure gains...in other words, the end of cost neutral contracts.
Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
Everything in the contract has a cost, it will be figured by management, and every improvement you want will also come at a cost. I don't know why that is a hard concept to understand, or even one that should be a matter of contention.
The only contention comes from you parroting management's view that all future contracts must continue to be cost neutral to the company. It will only be that way if we all continue to give up being unionists, and strive to be management some day.
Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
Why should it surprise you that those same principles should apply to a multi billion pilot contract. If you want to make reserve better, there will be a cost. So what.
Exactly, so what. If there's an ADDITIONAL cost, let the company bear it. That's what it means to move away from cost neutral negotiations.
Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
Maybe the MEC decides that cost is worthwhile for the pilot group or maybe they don't, that's democracy in action. If they decide it is worthwhile, then it will impact gains in other sections of the contract.
If the MEC agrees with this cost neutral style of thinking, we are lost. We will fall behind all of our other airline brothers. Maybe that's less important to you than sticking to the orthodoxy that you consider "immutable."
Carl