But...Brad Tilden said this would be good for us.....HAAAA!!

 

You will be voting on a JCBA before you know results of any SLI. That is straight from our MEC and Section 45. Vote carefully...

 

Yep. We tried voting ours down to stop our SLI but too many United pilots voted for it just to get the SLI so they could bid onto our side since we were growing so quickly. Strangely enough the vote went almost along legacy pilot ratios. I don't know any Ex-Con's that voted for it.

We did make sure that most of the pay gains benefitted us by getting favorable pay banding for our legacy crews, like our 767's being pay banded to UAL's 747s while their 767s were the same pay as our 757s, and their 757s the same pay as our 737s. A small victory nonetheless, even though now everyone can bid anywhere they want.

Since AS is the bigger airline, you should be able to stall a new contract out as long as possible.

 

The "new" ALPA merger policy which really means regime of this week policy...Imposes ratio with essentially no consideration for any other mitigating factors...Past considerations such as date of hire and career potential were inconvenient for the current regime and have therefore been eliminated. So 30 year Alaska Captains prepare to have someone hired many years after you and considerably younger than thee in front of you. It happened to me at Delta, and the other considerations that used to be part of ALPA merger policy that were a factor in my last merger (NWA, Republic), are now null and void.

 

You are one of those delusional POed guys who think you saved UAL. You seem to forget that CAL found themselves in 2009 in a place where they had cash but no credit or assets to leverage to borrow anymore to get many more planes. Only then did it seem like a good idea to marry up with UAL who had older yet basically paid off planes and much better credit and lots of cash. Most of those planes delivered after Oct 2010 you think belonged to LCAL guys would not have been delivered without LUALs cash and credit. During that time until SLI every one of those seats was exclusively filled with LCAL pilots. Not only that but LCAL was handed the exclusive bids into Denver and Chicago on the 737 during that time. In regards to contracts the LCAL contract had marginally higher pay rates with virtually no work rules.

When SLI was done there was a huge pent up demand on the UAL side and most bids for months landed in LUAL pilots hands. It is fun hearing those like you *****ing about this stuff but fail to mention that overnight your 777 fleet grew by 350% with no fences.

The merger /contract/SLI is behind us. You better find a way to get over it.

 

If this is what the ALPA merger/frag policy has devolved to, the "New AS"
is going to be a steaming pot of labor unrest.

 

If ALPA were smart they'd make the MEC's do baseball style arbitration where each side puts forth their "best" offer to the other side and the arbitrator just picks either A or B without modifications.

That way each MEC would be responsible for setting reasonable expectations amongst it's membership. Right now, each MEC shoots for the moon with inevitable labor heartache when neither side can be even close to their position in the end.

 

That's almost how it is now. The last 3 major mergers under the policy were handled as follows:

AWA/USAir - The AWA proposal was adopted.
DAL/NWA - The DAL proposal was adopted.
UAL/CAL - The UAL proposal was adopted (with 2 minor modifications, a 787 Fence and less longevity credit than UAL asked for)

The "less longevity" should matter to the AS pilots because they basically said "airline pilots are airline pilots" and that once joined, they had a collective future and they didn't see longevity as much an important factor as your position at your previous airline.

Its the same 4-5 guys in every arbitration BTW.

 

Kind of like this thread, and every argument on every pilot web board on the planet.

 

I think this merging bit sucks! The good news is our attorney represented AWA, UAL, and DAL. Seems like he must be a pretty fair guy. If I were at VX, I wouldn't even get an attorney, sounds like the other guy must really suck. We better grow like crazy once this merger is done, I think it's the only thing that will fix all the butt hurt that's about to take place. It is going to be real hard for me to watch a 30 year guy paired with a 9 year CA at VX, I don't think any merger has seen such a disparity. Can you imagine how our FA's are going to handle it. This place is going to be screwed up! I guess I have 28 years to watch the dust settle, and I am sure it finally will.