AA Pilots Unite Or Fold Forever
 

Today could, and should be the turning point in what was one of the greatest professions in American history. Today is our chance to collectively tell the elitists that they are done taking, and we are done giving. AA pilots work for the largest and most profitable airline in the world. The executives who have stolen our profession are compensated beyond that of any of their peers. The 15,000 professionals who truly run this operation are about to vote on, and if passed, own the most concessionary contract amongst all of the legacy carriers.

Highest grossing airline.
Highest paid management.
Worst contract in the industry.

To quote my father-in-law. "You pilots have more influence than anyone could possibly imagine. If you would just unite and stop being so easily bribed with money and stop selling the souls of your youth for cash, you could all get what you deserve for your services. I mean damn man airplanes don't fly themselves! What the hell is wrong with you guys?"

Apparently, your father-in-law was unfamiliar with the National Railway Labor Act.

Well there's the first defeatist. Who's next?

Those that are smart enough to comprehend what will happen if this is turned down.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

Well, the CEO himself expects pilots to do their jobs and if they did, it would carry a lot more leverage. The best statement to make from a standpoint of unity and the resistance to this tyranny is a rejection of this ridiculousness and arbitration that preserves as much of the Green Book as possible while still getting near Delta pay in 1 year.

THEN, at some point, Parker would almost certainly have to come back to the table with a different attitude. This TA will be the long-term contract here while we all watch the others pass us by in the express lane and disappear out of sight.

He's been one from the start. Keep moving to those that are salvageable. :rolleyes:

What exactly will happen ?

Whatever, MF. The proof is in the pudding. Guys like you, your father-in-law, eaglefly and Purple Turtle ran USAPA for years. We saw the results. Didn't work out so well. Wages at bankruptcy rates and the laughing stock of the industry resulted. No thanks.

with a NO vote, the company realizes that the BOD was representing the interests of its 15,000 pilots that came together and voted no, and then comes back to the table with a better offer since their attempt to circumvent the union didn't work.

don't vote yes just because youre afraid of arbitration. that's the last reason to vote yes. These are not desperate times.

Almost introduced coffee to my nasal passages....

.....so you think agreeing to this with the certainty of living it for the next decade while the other carriers all pull ahead will provide a DIFFERENT result then in the past ?

Seems to me, it's YOU that plans on repeating the past, but, perhaps inadvertently. If as little as possible of the Green Book is altered and we still get near Delta pay in now LESS than a year, that seems to me the best chance of correcting this situation much sooner and with a much better long-term result. I do realize how shiny and warm 30 pieces of Silver are though, for that has swayed what were once good minds to disaster all the way back to biblical times.

It didn't work out too well in the long-run for Judas either. ;)

I can't believe how all you hard liners just don't get it. If we turn this down, we will retain the status quo crappy MOU as our contract. We will not get min calendar day in arbitration, we wont get anything else either. Because of this crappy MTA, we are not in a position to negotiate.

Accepting this agreement will give us industry leading pay with only minor adjustments given to the company. Or you can vote it down and not get squat.

Yes, min calendar day would be nice. But we won't get it no matter what. Might as well take the money.

As far as the other stuff you are all are griping about, it's all chicken feed. It's not a big deal.

Combined Int/ Dom: Who cares? Not a big deal. We've had that at US for years. It will hardly affect the widebodies. It will only affect narrow bodies that fly to the islands and Mexico.

HBT: we need this changed so it will open up the Asian market which we desperately need

Nighttime landing currency: Big freaking deal. Oh no, you might lose your beauty sleep one day every 3 months. And only a handful of pilots at that.

Callout language: The proposed language is the same as Delta. Besides, if you're on short call, you need to be in base. Period.

Obviously the intent of this thread was not apparent. This TA should not even make it to a vote. Hell it shouldn't even make it to the end of the week. Effective today we should be doing our job, and only our job. Five days of the pilots not picking up anyone else's slack would rewrite this TA to include every single bullet item that the APA asked for.

That is not a job action it's simply each of us deciding that we will not be "going for great"

Ahhh, Now I can see how you've convinced yourself that short-term gain is worth long-term agony.....you don't believe there will be any long-term agony. What should occur in arbitration is preserving the present AA Green Book provisions which are just fine. If Parker wants changes in the future, he can bargain PROPERLY for them.


We'll get pay in LESS then 1 year better then United and close to Delta with arbitration AND the strong potential for PROPER bargaining where we have some leverage as well, MUCH sooner then 10 years.

Why are you myopically focusing on this one issue (don't answer that........we know. ;)). There are MANY issues that will be deader then dog**** for a decade if we accept this deal.

"All" the "other" stuff INCLUDES being stuffed in a closet for a decade with no options for a little more pay a year earlier.

Why do you think Parker is giving us the Bums rush ?

You're concentrating on the trees Jerry wants you to concentrate on (and believing as gospel everything proven liars say). What you should be concerned about is what the negotiating forest will look like in a decade when we get our next chance to negotiate and you've got 17 years left while most of the rest of us got far less. We may flip roles then and guess what, that's exactly what Doug expects. Management can always count on one side of a pilot group to screw the other. ;)

Besides, all the $$$ you're PRESENTLY calculating you'll be ahead of Delta and United will turn into a deep deficit within a few years and fall dramatically backwards from there. Why not wait 11.5 months and get most of that and keep virtually all of what we have now and let things develop to the point Parker decides he needs to treat us the way he promised to and failed ?

I realize you too are beyond hope, but I'm hoping those who still have an open mind will consider the long-term disasterous ramifications of succumbing to union-buster Glass's strategy of divide and conquer.

The BOD even punted to the pilots without full International/Domestic contractual language ! Parker once again totally disregarded our concerns and made a joke out of the BOD.

No way I will EVER reward this guy for anything !

I'm perfectly content to patiently wait 11.5 months for my significant raise and circle the wagons around my present CBA provisions in arbitration. Sadly, so many have gone completely koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs and even completely Stockholm for Parker and Glass.

The younger you are at AA, the worse this deal is for you, no question about it.

Enjoy your soon to be once again, sub standard pay, while we continue to be the laughing stock of the industry.

And you'd rather have even worse sub-standard pay while we're the laughing stock of the industry.

Laughing Stock for other inmates seeing you standing your ground with the expectation of another day to fight and still getting paid better then United Pilots and almost as much as Delta ? I'll accept being that kind of laughing stock. :)

At least with that kind, there's at least a possible parole date, wheras WITH this TA it's a decade till the CHANCE at parole.....and that's just a HEARING for parole, not guaranteed release. Meanwhile, every day for that decade everyone in the cellblock knows you're willing and available to be passed around for a pack of menthols. :eek:

I'll gladly wait 11 months for a raise, while walking around knowing I didn't gleefully climb into the rape van, at the promise of some free candy.

We can only hope we are the majority. There are plenty of pilots at the New AA that have itchy bungholes and a terrible sweet tooth. :cool:

One positive is all the guys I have flown with recently are NO voters. I do hope there are more out there. Voting in a concessionary contract is ridiculous right now.

Well...don't just stand around *****ing about things on the internet like a pathetic loser. Be a man. When things weren't going the way I wanted around here, I went off and got class dates at Delta, JetBlue and an interview offer from United. Then, I turned them down at a time and place of my choosing...on my terms. You can bet...if things look bleak around here, I'll bail to FedEx..they're about to ramp up hiring. Man up! Don't get put in a rape van...whether you climb in or are forced in.

Do people really need to be told this? Pathetic...

^^^^^^^^^^^ what he said

No one is saying they want to leave, for various reasons like base locations, retirements and such we are going to stay, we just don't want to be dougis's *****

Aren't you gods gift to commercial aviation

No. I'm just not a pathetic whiner. I chose my own fate.

Don't you think though, that in 2015, with record profits, and the fact that you are still in an airline where you have a seniority number and would start again at the bottom at another airline, that it would behoove you to utilize the system that is in place to possibly reject a deal that is lacking several key work rules and other things?



Saying "go work somewhere else" was applicable back in the industrial revolution when people would fall into vats of oil and drown or get chopped up in some machine. We've evolved a bit since then, hence the whole concept of a union.

You're a highly trained professional. You don't have to go work somewhere else. You work for a good company. They're trying to call your bluff and they'll laugh all the way to the bank if you vote yes to something that doesn't "pass the sniff test." The last thing the CEO wants is to drag this out in front of the BOD. It's not going to take years if it's voted down. Wake up.

no, you have not chosen your fate yet. This vote determines your fate, for the next several years. You determine your company culture right here. You will either be empowered and unified, or manipulated and weak . I have my fingers crossed for a no vote. It means too much. Show them youre serious about a real contract offer. Vote no and you'll get the respect you deserve. Standing up to a bully might mean youll get punched in the face if youre 1 on 1. But you have 15,000.

Who is whining?

If I thought that was the path to best value, I would vote to reject this deal. Problem is...a bunch of morons created and voted in a contract through 2019 that sets our cost level in stone. The vote no crowd crowing now should have voted no to that contract. As it is, a no vote now is just a hope and a dream that management will give more. Hoping and dreaming isn't a strategy of successful people.

Wow !!!

You must be gods gift to the airline industry with all these carriers tripping each other to get you on the payroll. :rolleyes:

How did you end up in the middle of this mess at what may be the most financially and emotionally disappointing carrier of all the other players ?

You really must have screwed up as even Jet Blue can beat some of our rates and QWL provisions. I'd advise you to immediately phone FedEx as I'm sure their management will dispatch a GV to pick you up, but with your concessionary philosophy, I couldn't do that to their pilot group.

This vote doesn't control my fate. It matters very little to me one way or the other. Whatever is decided, I promise you I won't be on this board complaining about it. I'll leave that to eaglefly and his ilk.

that's taken completely out of context. remember:

1- you were in bankruptcy
2- you trusted Parker in good faith in that MOU under a promise that this day would come and you'd be offered a fair JCBA. (You weren't offered a fair JCBA, just to be clear)

Now youre financially very profitable and growing. You also now know Parker's true colors. You don't need to learn any more lessons. You know now that its time to put an end to the bleeding. Vote no.

The same majority who screwed that pooch are the same ones looking to bang this dog too. Some of us are trying to zip up their pants for them, but when a whole group of pilots arrive waving their schlongs all over the place looking for the same furry receptacle, it makes our efforts that much more difficult. The "hoping and dreaming" is done by those who think this bad deal will be palatable for the long-term.

Tuck it back in, zip it up and just say "no".

If it passes, there will be nothing to complain about. The majority will have decided our lfate and thus we must all live with it for many, many years. I suspect the complaining will be from those who want a do-over in a few years once they fully digest the long-term consequences of cutting their balls off like this. Of course, should it fail, you can also be sure there will be those who wanted the quick cash and will attempt to tip over the apple cart in the hope Doug and Jerry can pick up a few apples and use them as effective weapons against the group again.

You paint such a beautiful picture with the English language! :D

I think from a message effectiveness standpoint, you have to find new and creative ways to communicate to the human mind. If anything here, I'd hate to be called "boring". ;)

This agreement would set AA pilots up to trail Delta 2016-2020 as they get their new contract as well as United in 2017.

It's a shame that people don't have more self respect and respect for their profession. About to lock a bankruptcy contract in for another 5 years for pay that is barely on parity with the rest of the industry.

Frickin Brilliant, do you really have that little of a clue, or are you just too busy hating USAPA to see anything?
Judging by the lack of backbone and general impotence of this pilot group I'm going to go with you have no clue.

Hurry out and vote YES to the latest concession plan, you sure deserve it!!!! Just think you will be the highest paid pilot all the way through December of 2015 when Delta gets their profit sharing. Not to mention their vastly superior working conditions.
Enjoy your shiny nickel, it will be a big deal for several months

Delta gets their profit sharing in February, dumb a$$.

Yea, by agreeing to whatever you are told by management, you sure are a tough guy.