Huey, management will furlough you in a second to save a nickel.

They don't give a flying fu(k about you. Maybe EF understands that.

 

I promise you I understand that. Airline management isn't any different from any other workplace. I don't understand why you guys think that people coming from outside the airline world must have had a different landscape to deal with? Do you think that other employers won't furlough or lay people off? Give me a break...

 

No break,

Like you I came from the military, I cannot believe the BS this management, chief pilot level, has tried to pull.

As far as upper levels, they do sit around and try to figure ways to steal money from you.

As far as other employers, being furloughed is different, there is no industry like ours, take a 10 year captain, hire him, throw him on the bottom of a list, then furlough him.

 

BS? Like having an assignment that I was promised through a previous commander canceled by a new box-checker commander? Or having a supervisor deny leave simply because he didn't understand how leave/passes work (long story)? Or the unit where everyone treaded lightly because we had six commander-directed downgrades in the span of a few months (out of 12 pilots...it was a C-21 detachment)?

Or how about being threatened with NJP if I didn't pay a $2,500 hotel bill because the finance guys were "backed up" and my government credit card was 2 months past due? Or how about the time that my friend (who was a great pilot and a good officer...just wasn't a golden boy) got a surprise RIF notification while we were deployed? And that they extended his separation date so he could finish his deployment? "Bad news is you don't have a job when you get back. Good news is we got your separation date extended so you can finish your 6 month deployment!"

Or how about the flight engineer in my squadron who got Letter or Reprimand because his wife sent him a battery-powered alarm clock in the mail while we were in Kuwait...and when the alarm went off in the package, they had EOD blow it up because they thought it was a bomb? He didn't get his alarm clock, AND he had his career f*cked.

Hey, I get it. We've all had bad bosses. I don't know where you worked in the military, but I've seen plenty of horrible commanders and supervisors that jerked people around on a regular basis. At least here we have a process to grieve things we feel were wrongly dealt with.

And I really think you overestimate how much time the upper level management spends dwelling on this stuff. They hire guys like Glass and tell their middle management "don't exceed this cost" and then let the dogs loose. In the end, all they really look at are the cost valuations for the entire deal...they couldn't care less how much time you do or don't work.

 

This is probably the most intelligent post I have read on here. They don't care about anything other than the bottom line. They see numbers and figures, and not scheming ways to screw you.

 

Hey Tex, paying you less or making you work more days with crappier work rules is screwing you.

Huey, I never quantified how much time they spent on it, just that they do and your incoming boss has zero obligation to honor the promises of the outgoing boss.

The rest of that stuff that happened in your units, well, you Air Force boys have issues.

 

Think of the future options management has with this pilot group. It's likely Parker being the smart cookie he is will dust off the divide and conquer strategy in 2020 just as he's successfully using now. If I were Parker, I'd orchestrate some excuse to threaten a furlough like Horton did in 2012 when he said he'd furlough 400 to influence the C13 contract negotiation (at the same time Hale accidentally made it public he'd be short about that amount for the summer 2012 schedule). If he can make the junior minority a piñata in a furlough threat game, he can get them to beg the majority to save them with concessions (which they won't). Another option is to use that to move Group 1 scope to the Eagle system along with junior pilots and give nice raises for the majority in exchange for no furloughs.

Again, there's a thousand and one ways to play this gullible pilot group against each other and we all see now that this is a VERY effective strategy. 2020 is going to be a complete mess. As it stands now, most a Group III pilots will end up in Group II (pay cuts) and if he places a nice order for Group 1 to replace most of the S80's, many Group II go to Group I (pay cuts). It may just be for many, the pay raises they thought would propel them upwards are simply temporary payoffs that will be recouped in the future leaving many no better off for handing over more work rules. The above is also a nice foundation for 2020 to put the junior minority in peril by offering $$$ to,the majority.

I wouldn't wanna bet how THAT vote would go.

 

Why do you think people are trying to get out of the Air Force? It's not like it used to be. I don't know when you were in the military, but a lot's changed even since I started flying in 1996. And after non-stop deployments (I spent nearly 3 of the last 6 years on active-duty deployed) I don't see how they can convince enough people to stay. Not for that kind of nonsense, and not when they are reducing benefits and keeping pay stagnant.

 

Huey,

You and I are probably not to far apart in age and have similar backgrounds so we have a long ways to go in this industry. I can understand why you see things as rosy compared to the military but this appears to be your first job under a collective bargaining agreement. Here's some important takeaways: nothing happens fast in negotiations. The fact that management is rushing you into a deal should seem odd considering they almost always slow negotiations down to their benefit. Second, you're absolutely rifgt, management doesn't sit around planning your demise, but they do follow the negotiating playbook. And again it's not personal to them, just business, but it also requires us to take the appropriate response to each one of those steps. They're going for a very early kill here, and it's rather unusual because usually a pilot group would see this coming a mile away and the next play would be made and so on and so forth.

Finally, past practice has proven that pilots make significant gains in times of economic prosperity, and take concessions in times of economic recession. Never in history has a pilot group taken concessions during times of economic prosperity. You have a lot of leverage. They just don't want you to know that. This isn't 2001 or 2004 or 2007. The rush to get a deal is because they know each day the economy gets stronger, oil gets cheaper, and you watch your peers at DL and UA make more than you, you become more empowered

 

Those numbers and figures have to be based on something attainable. The weaker you are, the lower the baseline for those figures. In typical contract negotiations regarding compensation, there's a concept referred to as "the box". The goal of both sides is make that box initially as big as possible in the hope of moving the middle point closer to their side. There was no box here, nor true negotiation. Parker feels he simply has to establish himself as a tough negotiator NOW to maintain leverage in the future, even if he should not have it in a particular situation and thus yes, there is a "bottom line ", but there also is an emotional component in play.

Even APA admitted it in some of their valuations of Parker quibbling over 50 million when they're projected to rake in 12 billion in 2014/15. Considering how weak and out of control we are projecting ourselves to be, Parker would be a fool to go any lower then necessary which is not likely his bottom line. Remember, that we are being told that there was still "negotiating room", but that Parker balked because of APA's "overreach" in their counter-counter which was in and of itself fairly modest.