APA Reps Speak Out About Company's JCBA Offer
 

What pilot base reps are saying about American?s contract offer | The Star Telegram

As American Airlines 14,000 pilots get ready to vote on a new contract, their base representatives have been giving their opinions on management’s latest offer.

Of the base blasts that have been sent in to Sky Talk, they all express some disappointment in American’s management and how they have handled the negotiations contract process with the pilots.

“On one hand, they are proud to tell everyone they run the largest, most profitable airline on the globe, and on the other, they refuse to compensate their pilots for their extended down time spent at hotels like they did for America West pilots in 2004 and continue to do today. Same management, unspeakably huge profits, but insistent on making you spend time away from family uncompensated,” wrote the Philadelphia base chair in a message to pilots.

The Allied Pilots Association board is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to approve final contract language and begin the electronic voting process.

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Here’s a look at some of the base blasts.

DFW UPDATE

3 January 2015

The APA Board of Directors has spent the last two days working on bringing this JCBA process to a conclusion. Given management’s demand that APA “accept” their proposal by 3 January, we fully expected that management would have the contract language intended to implement their demands ready for us to review and send to the membership. APA’s negotiating team has worked long hours through the Christmas/New Year holiday and we had a substantial portion of the contract language available to us.

However, the language that would implement the company’s demand that we allow them to combine International and Domestic divisions has not yet been finalized. Combining divisions is a complex and far reaching change that must be done properly to protect seniority rights and to ensure that pilots will have full access to the potential benefits of combined divisions. There is no way the membership can make a judgment on the impact of management’s plan to merge divisions without knowing the details of the language intended to govern that process. Management’s failure to have language ready to implement their own demand has made meeting their unilaterally imposed deadlines impossible to meet.

Following a long and complex process spread over two days, the APA Board approved a resolution accepting management’s proposal-in-principle, and agreeing to act to electronically ballot the membership. However, that process cannot begin until agreement is reached on the currently unfinished contract language. The Board committed itself to being bound by the vote of the membership when it occurs.

We understand that you have a LOT of questions and the story of the last two days is a tale worth hearing. We knew there was a possibility of an active voting process beginning this week, so we had pre-reserved the Grapevine Conventions Center for Monday (5 January) beginning at 1100.

Even though we do not yet have an active voting process, we feel it is still important to provide a forum to explain what took place over the last 2 days, to provide you as much detail as is available on the proposal, and to give you as much information as we have regarding the process going forward.

We understand this is short notice, but given how important this process is to all of you, we did not want to delay providing information first hand. Please join us at 1100 on Monday.

DCA Base Blast

Fellow Washington Pilots,

Carl was right. I was wrong. I apologize.

I told you that Mr. Parker and Mr. Kirby were different, that we could trust them, that the culture would change and that we’d enjoy a better relationship with new management.

While the merger has brought us a stronger and more viable airline that will survive any future turmoil, I was completely wrong about the nature of our new management team and the culture change that I hoped would result.

We’ve made every effort to negotiate improvements to your contract. No significant progress has been made since the company made their “work from our term sheet” offers in mid Nov.

In an effort to meet the company’s deadline and in an effort to capture the retroactive pay we negotiated in exchange for giving management an extension of the deadline for JCBA talks, we reduced our asks to one item, a fix to long layovers that pay little and result in flying 20+ days a month. The company refused this simple and relatively low cost fix (called the “long rate rig”) that is already in the America West contract.

The company rejected it.

DO NOT ASSSUME that because the BOD sends a TA to you for a vote that it is an endorsement of the TA.

There are several different reasons for sending a TA to you for a vote, including the APA ‘s governing documents. I anticipate that each BOD member will explain his reasons for voting in the coming days.

Unfortunately, the company failed to be prepared to meet their own Jan 3. deadline and we could not get the contract finalized last week. The last piece of the contract to be negotiated is the elimination of the Intl/Dom fence. Although it is management’s demand, they had no proposal prepared. Management apparently had put no thought into how complex such a change would be and how many areas of the contract would be affected. Their timeline for writing contract language and approval of the language was simply unrealistic.

We now expect to have the contract complete this Wednesday.

The BOD will return to DFW on Tuesday evening. Assuming the contract language is final and there are no problems with it, we expect to begin mailing out PINs for electronic voting soon. We expect to have domicile meetings, road shows and possibly telephone town hall conference calls prior to and during the voting period.

Fly Safe.

LGA Base Blast

JUST ANOTHER COST UNIT

Mssrs. Parker and Kirby have defined the New Culture at the New American. I voted against LBFO3 (JCBA). If you have any self respect and are tired of getting kicked in the crotch by the same old management types, VOTE NO. If you like the offer, VOTE YES.

In Unity.

PHL Base Blast

Dear PHL Pilots,

The APA board met last week to address the company’s Dec. 23, 2014, JCBA proposal. After two days of debate, the BOD voted 18-4 (PHL voted yes) to approve in principle the company’s Dec. 23 proposal and to ballot the membership after an agreement on final language.

Day 1 was mostly spent working on strategy for how to approach management’s latest “take it or leave it” offer. While there are several things less than satisfactory in the proposal, the BOD was unanimous in their focus on improving the pitiful 11-hour three-day pairings, and we will acknowledge we were extremely pleased with the tenor of the meeting and the way the board came together in an attempt to address this important issue. The result was a vote (18-4) that we were willing to forego membership ratification, with an immediate board approval (contingent upon acceptance of final contract language), if the company agreed to address the 11-hour three-day problem.

And it wouldn’t have required much on their part. What the BOD proposed was based on the West’s “long-rate rig,” something that not only has been used in PHX for the entire duration of their current contract but also was already agreed to by this same management team in joint East-West negotiations. As such, we had every expectation that this would be acceptable to management. Furthermore, we believed that by proposing one very important QOL issue in return for immediate BOD ratification, we were not only being reasonable but also providing the company with an opportunity to finally put their oft-touted “new corporate culture” on display.

Unfortunately, and true to their history, the company just said no and refused to offer any alternate solution to remedy this significant QOL problem. They said their analysis showed the additional rig to be too costly and completely disregarded our own cost analysis as well as the fact that we showed them where they lacked understanding of their own West contract language. Scott Kirby also accused APA of changing the West language in our proposal, and while we’re not sure who is advising him, our proposed language was a direct lift from the West contract posted on Wings. The only thing altered was the 24-hour minimum duty break threshold that we lowered to 22 hours. This was done to capture certain pairings that would not have been covered by the new rig. However, this difference was not what Scott Kirby was referring to, and it was clearly explained to him by APA President Keith Wilson so he understood there was a change (24 hour break to 22 hour break) and, more importantly, why it was necessary. The bottom line was simple and abundantly reasonable: Pay us for three days when we are on a three-day trip.

But they refused, and to justify it, the company misleadingly “costed” our proposal based only on how the current pairings would trigger the new rig. Even more troubling, they acknowledge that the pairing optimizer would have “optimized around” the rig, resulting in different looking parings (more four-days, for example) — which would lower the cost of this QOL benefit — but they wouldn’t take that cost out of the analysis they cited in their refusal. It’s all very typical, very predictable behavior from this management and is sadly familiar to LUS pilots. On one hand, they are proud to tell everyone they run the largest, most profitable airline on the globe, and on the other, they refuse to compensate their pilots for their extended down time spent at hotels like they did for America West pilots in 2004 and continue to do today. Same management, unspeakably huge profits, but insistent on making you spend time away from family uncompensated.

Unlike Delta management, which apparently understands the benefit of addressing pilot concerns even if it has an adverse effect on the bottom line (last week, Delta management agreed to not outsource pilot jobs to partner Virgin), US Airways management just doesn’t have it in them to address our issues if it costs the company any amount of money. While we don’t know how much this recently negotiated job guarantee at Delta costs, we are willing to bet it is significantly greater than the cost of the rig to pay us three days for three days on the job.

It would have gone a long way in building a better relationship if Scott Kirby contacted APA and said something like, “I understand this is an important issue to pilots, and it’s just plain wrong for management to require pilots to work three days and get paid for only two. I know it’s going to result in higher costs, but I’m the president of the largest, most profitable airline in the world, and I’m going to do the right thing treat my pilots as such, value the time they spend away from their families, and agree to this new rig.” Instead, Scott Kirby chose to simply say no.

Scott, please reconsider your decision, it will go a long way in building a better relationship.

So, back in the real world, faced with management’s familiar “just say no” mentality, as well as an arbitrary deadline, the BOD had to decide whether to accept the original company offer and send it out for a membership vote after reviewing the final language or to say no thanks.

As you know, the company put two conditions on retro pay back to Dec. 2. One was acceptance by the board before Jan. 3, and the other was to have the unrealistic Jan. 19 pilot vote deadline. We were advised by APA President Keith Wilson that these dates were selected by management to ensure the voting will be completed before both the American and Delta 2014 annual financial results, which are expected to be extremely positive. In the end, the board did agree in principle to accept the Dec. 23 proposal. It will be sent to the pilots for a vote after BOD approval of the final language, which will be completed this week.

We believe Management still has an opportunity for a much improved culture. During a recent update we asked whether the company wanted 15,000 problem solvers or 15,000 pilots saying “solve your own problems.” We believe if management reconsidering its decision and adopts the proposed long rate rig it will go a long way in attaining 15,000 problem solvers and truly position American Airlines much closer to “Great”.

Road shows are tentatively scheduled during the weeks of Jan. 12 and 19. Look for details later this week.

As you can imagine, the last several weeks have been time-consuming and demanding. Please understand that we read/listen to all of your emails, Sound Offs and VM’s. Just because we haven’t responded to all of them doesn’t mean we don’t take your opinions seriously because we certainly do.

Thanks for the continued support.

In unity.

PHX Base Blast

Dear Phoenix Pilots,

On Nov. 16, we published an update titled What Legacy Will Parker Leave. We have remained almost totally silent since then as negotiations with the company continued in the closeout phase during which multiple negotiating session were held. In addition, numerous BOD meetings were held during this time, nearly all of which were in closed session, which severely constrained our ability to report on the content of those meetings. Throughout this period of limited communications and high anxiety for our pilots, Parker's legacy remained unknown. After last week's negotiations with the company and its rejection of APA's final (and very reasonable) counteroffer, we now have a far better idea of what that legacy will be. In our opinion, Parker's promise of a New Culture has been clearly revealed to be exactly what every last former America West pilot expected: totally hollow. Nobody from the US Airways side of this merger is surprised, but all are disappointed.

The APA BOD met on Friday and Saturday of last week to consider the company's Dec. 23 offer. That offer was a slight modification of its Nov. 11 proposal wherein the company offered aggregate pay (hourly rates only) exceeding that of Delta by approximately 3% in exchange for eight items it would be unlikely to achieve through the MOU arbitration process. The eight items became seven a few days later once the company wisely removed its regressive and totally unacceptable SCOPE proposal. After much debate, the APA BOD sent a counterproposal to the company on Dec. 17, to which the company responded with the rejection of all items APA proposed and a proffer of arbitration, albeit with a pay increase of 4% for the pilots (as well as many other work groups) on Dec. 23. The company, in keeping with its longstanding practice, bypassed your association when making that offer by publishing it on Wings concurrent with advising APA of the company's position. The Dec. 23 offer included an onerous provision for the association requiring that APA accept the offer no later than Jan. 3 in order to secure retroactive pay since Dec. 2, 2014. Accommodating this requirement would necessitate the association waiving policy and rushing any ratification process.

Once the meeting convened, the BOD expected to review finalized contractual language, which was not yet available from the company (more than seven weeks after its November proposal was made). This was preposterous in light of Kirby's demand that APA accept his deal by the 3rdof January, contractual language sight-unseen. Nonetheless, given the broader terms of the deal, the BOD was determined to work together and decide what final must have item it would need in order to waive the necessary policies to accept the company's proposal at the BOD level, thus forgoing the delay and uncertainties of pilot ratification for the company. It was decided to offer the West contract's Long Rate rig language in exchange for the BOD-only ratification (with the rig adjusted to trigger at 22 hours instead of 24 hours), which would require that any layover of 22 hours or longer be treated as a duty period for pay purposes, paying the duty period average of 5:10 credit. It must be noted that similar provisions exist at nearly every other major airline.

Late Saturday afternoon, we had our answer from management and the answer to our question about what legacy Parker would leave when management rejected our proposal. This last item may seem inconsequential to Parker and Kirby today, but it clearly reveals how it was simply hollow, soothing talk they offered to APA when they went around AA management (and USAPA, for that matter) in the spring of 2012 to gain the support of the pilots of American for their merger. It is well established that part of earning that support came by way of repeated statements like, When we make Delta money, you'll make Delta pay. Both AWA and US Airways pilots had heard similar statements for many years. No doubt today they would explain this fallacy by stating that these promises all contained an asterisk, and an asterisk makes no sound when spoken. Management would tell us, therefore, that the misunderstanding must be on our part, and we should never have had any expectation of earning similar total compensation or even the same minimum amount for each day we are away from our families. The very definition of rate of pay is the money you make doing something divided by the time it takes: A Delta pilot is assured three days' pay for three days away, while an AA pilot is not. Our company is unwilling to recognize this distinction, no matter how elementary and obvious it may be. This, too, must have been covered by that invisible asterisk. Management's rationalization of this position must be based on either apathy, ignorance, arrogance or perhaps a combination of the three. Whatever the cause, it illustrates near complete detachment from the real needs of our pilots and their families.

As former AWA pilots, allow us to expound as to why: While Contract 2004 was supposedly constrained by ATSB loan restrictions, which limited the rates of pay the company could offer, those alleged constraints did not limit other areas of the contract. As a result, with the exception of pay rates, the contract was actually industry-leading in most areas, as should have been the case for one of the few major airlines that avoided bankruptcy after 9/11 and quickly returned to a trajectory of sustained growth and hiring following the brief furloughs from late 2001 to early 2002. Pilots from other airlines were usually surprised to discover that both reserve and line-holder pilots were guaranteed at least 12 or 13 days off per month (and our months were the ACTUAL months, not months rejiggered to ease peak travel months for the company), while being guaranteed 77 or 78 hours. But, thanks to our Long Rate rig and 5:15 per duty period minimum average, the typical line would have 84 hours with 14 or 15 days off. Pilots could even earn as much as 99 hours without fewer than 12 days off without too much effort. AWA pilots were rarely penalized for inefficiencies of the company's schedules, while the company was forced to work hard to maximize productivity. It was a win-win situation most of the time. But now, with the imposition of a barely modified Green Book (which itself was gutted through bankruptcy), those few remaining schedule benefits will be lost as well. It's inconceivable to think that those provisions didn't bankrupt AWA but are now too costly for the worlds largest and likely most profitable airline.

West pilots overwhelmingly supported the MOU and merger for several reasons, one of which was the fact that it contained a process designed to marry the best sections from the three contracts, therefore preserving a high likelihood that some of these scheduling provisions would be adopted. That process was called the JCBA, but very little progress was actually made as far as the association was concerned because New American management strongly preferred the recently gutted Green Book over anything from the West contract and had no incentive to actually agree to any changes as management was supported by the cost neutral arbitration paragraph of the MOU. We should have known better than to expect any real progress.

Now that the company has rejected this rig, West pilots can expect significant degradation of what precious little time we have with our families. It is critical to note how this will be true whether or not the JCBA is ratified because the Green Book is steadily marching toward us and will overtake the remnants of Contract 2004 in the not-too-distant future. You are already seeing some of this by way of the reserve guarantee reductions imposed on us beginning Jan. 1 (over your APA representatives' strenuous objections and contrary to our understanding that schedule changes would be implemented all at once with the new PBS). New American imposed a significant pay cut to reserve pilots while simultaneously including a massive increase to the number of pilots on reserve. A win-win (for the company) and a lose-lose for AWA pilots. Welcome to our new culture.

This is just the beginning because we have absolutely no assurance from the company that it won't overlay (impose) the new rigs from the Green Book on our existing flying before integration. So, we could remain on our island of Group II (and a handful of Group III) airplanes, suffering this further detriment without the mitigating factor of access to other opportunities enjoyed by all other pilots of New American. The net effect, rather than the 23% raise touted by Kirby in his Dec. 23 letter, will be a 10% cut for our many two-duty-period, three-day trips, (or three-duty-period, four-day trips), which will now pay only two days a third less or three days a quarter less (offset somewhat by the raise). That, friends, appears to be what Parker, Kirby and New American are really all about: the optics for those on the outside, especially Wall Street. New or even improved culture is a laughable concept in the eyes of our PHX pilots as we've been assigned nothing but the liabilities from the last merger, and now it appears this one too. At least we're no longer alone in our dim view and skepticism of management as it seems the rest of the BOD has begun to catch on.

This last little item: A duty rig similar to what PHX has enjoyed for more than a decade was simply too much for management, and the negative response amounts to a failed litmus test as far as we're concerned. We had hoped things truly would be different but now think its probably too late for management to recover from this misstep. And it may be too late to salvage relations with its pilots throughout the system.

We want to offer a friendly reminder to help navigate the land of confusion we find ourselves in during this period of assimilation into New American. The charts you need come from many locations but are not impossible to find. The main governing document is currently called the MTA (for Merger Transition Agreement). This is the AA 2012 Green Book in transition. It is located on your company iPad, in the e-librarian, under the Miscellaneous tab. It can also be found near the bottom-right portion of the Flight Operations page on the Wings website, as can Contract 2004. Contract 2004 has not yet been entirely superseded, so it must be referenced on occasion (particularly when it comes to scheduling issues). Some of these documents are also available on the APA home page under the APA Kitbag tab. Also of vital importance on the APA website is the APA Negotiations tab near the upper-left side of the home page. We hope you find these resources helpful and welcome your calls if you are unable to find what you are looking for. If we don't know the answer, we can probably point you in the right direction.

We will again be at APA headquarters this week for another BOD meeting beginning Wednesday. It is our plan to approve the final contractual language related to the JCBA (once it is final produced by the company and hammered out with the Negotiating Committee) as well as devise a plan for the compressed ratification process. Once this is determined, we will attempt to schedule a domicile meeting or two in the coming weeks and will look forward to seeing you there. We have another 44 membership applications awaiting your approval at the domicile meeting. Standby for more information.

Thank you for your patience and support,






MIN CALENDAR DAY, OR NO WAY.

DITTO. No way without calendar day pay.

The APA BOD is unified because the pilots are unified. Time to keep it that way. If you are away at work you deserve to be paid. The company should not be allowed to sit us for their convenience for 30 hours out of base and pay us nothing. Why would we let them add five days of work a month for free?

I totally agree.

It's definitely the smart play to vote NO, lose $1.8 bil in pay, and still not get min day.

Yep, only a dumbass would vote YES to make an additional $1.8 bil under the same circumstance.

We can always trade the $1/hr in compensation to get min day later on, and still be $15-$30/hr higher than we would be by voting no, not getting calendar day.

Did you no voters take math in college?

Been looking at your posts... quite the amateur economist, knowing exactly what the smart plays are and who the dumb-asses are.

Your skills are clearly wasted as an equipment operator. Unless that piece of equipment is a calculator apparently.

I think the measure of a dumb-ass is one who would further gut an already gutted contract for a pay raise which is coming anyway in a few months.

Chip will be retiring soon, I think you may have the right stuff to assume his mantle. Bring your calculator.

Here is a simple calculator for you. Tally it up.

22 on the BOD agree we should all be paid for every day we are on the company leash.


$4,000,000,000.00 is the profit last year.
$7,000,000,000.00 is the profit this year.
$1B was the proffit he projected.
$1,900,000,000.00 is the new projected fuel savings.
.........
$30-$50 million is the cost of the single item we have asked for.

The BOD offered an immediate close on the deal for a measly $50M, yet Parker said no. He gave the FAs twice that and they didn't even ask or give anything in return.

For just $50M spread out over 6 years Parker could have been a hero for making just one improvement, but he had to snub his nose and magnify his s!httty labor attitude.

Who is the dmuba$$??

I think inline5 might be challenging texaspilot for the lead!!!

I think most no voters have the same mentality as the FAs who voted no. Every single one I talked to said they voted no because they thought it would pass yet wanted to "show" the company they weren't happy. They actually did want it to pass.

I think it would be great if Parker gave us min day. It's not going to happen no matter how high the company's profits go.

I also think even with the companies high $85 mil price tag it's such an insignificant factor in the overall value of the increased contract that we'd be idiots to not pass it.

Would you rather make $80k-$100k less but have a min day that would compensate, on average, $1.25 per hour? Roughly $6k over the life of the contract. That is essentially what you are saying.

It just doesn't make sense, and trying to "show" the company just shows how emotional we are.

Be ****ed, but at least have the money in your pocket at the same time for Pete's sake!

Careful, you'll be labelled "anti-union". Really, though, they don't need you to tell them what they already know.

Yes the pay raise is coming.

But, it will be exactly what I wrote about in the other thread.

Delta must get their new rate by July of this year in order to get anything above what is already published.

Barring that, we're making significantly more under the proposed JCBA then going to arbitration INCLDUING the pay parity. Roughly $1.8 bil more.

This isn't about sliding the pay scale forward one year, its value is much higher than that.

People don't realize that (such as yourself) and my fear is folks will be voting out of ignorance vs fact. That's why I brought my calculator.

And you think voting no will change anything? It still won't give us what we want.

"....some members of the board think that negotiations are over. In reality, they have only begun. Having dealt with this management for almost a decade, negotiations are over when the "final language" is written, management implements their interpretation of what was written, we grieve the issue...(pause as we wait for months and years for the grievance to be heard, rejected, reheard, rejected) and finally reach an arbitrator who sides with the company because the final language was vague or in some other way interpretable in any way but the way in which the pilots interpreted it. Only then do you have final language and a contract. Hundreds of grievances later, we know that this is the case. As you can see, we are a long way from completing negotiations with this management group..."

If we say yes to Parker's asks he will have everything he asked for and we will have zero things we want for the cncessions we are selling. We will have nothing left that wants except SCOPE...

Parker has been saying "No" to us since he was in diapers and we have given him everything he wants, year after year. Decade after decade.

He says no, and yet gets everything... Reconcile that.

We certainly did take math. Obviously you stopped learning at addition and multiplication. You forgot SUBTRACTION (more likely didn't feel it necessary to learn anyway).

This TA is filled to the BRIM with subtraction strategies to turn the pilots initial surplus into a staggering long-term deficit. Trade a measly $1/hour later for MCD ?

You've got to be high on meth !

In 2020, we will ALREADY be far and away the lowest pay rate pilots out there and Parker will laugh louder at us then than he is now.

You've simply GOT to be a management plant coming up with this utter nonsense.

I was first a yes, and now NO. No to concessions and NO for not accepting min day credit. I'll wait for the raise in 2016. Parker, Glass and Kirby - nice try.

Don't confuse 'value' with what you came up with when you multiplied the 'nominal' proposed pay-rate by an assumed number of hours. When you tap away on that calculator you are not determining value, but a number.

True, I don't realize just how many fanciful numbers you came up with on your calculator, but here's something you don't realize, I make plenty of money right now. More money is nice, but it's only marginally nice. I will make even more money with an industry-indexed increase less than 12 months from now while retaining the value of work rules which have not been conceded from the MTA. Thing is, Doug wants some of those work rules out of there and he has yet to offer enough in exchange.

That being said, your $1,800,000,000 is way off. I don't rely on Company valuations, especially when there are certain things that the Company values as 0. Such as employee goodwill... it can't be quantified so it is assigned a value of $0. But keep counting that loose change and tapping away on the calculator.

My fear is that folks (such as yourself) will be voting based on tapping a 3 digit number into a calculator then multiplying it by a two digit number. That's just silly.

I believe that's an ex-PSA pilot(express, not the real PSA) your attempting to reason with.

Since at least 2002 there is nothing that PSA has said 'No' too. They hired them there based on the in-abilty to say 'No', which is the same reason I guess so many now work here.

Congrats on choosing to empower yourself and reject Parker's tyranny.

!
 

They're ill advised for thinking we will accept a sub-par contract! NO to concessions. We will see their executive compensation very soon. When we reject their sub-par offer, they WILL come back to APA and renegotiate. They are morons for thinking we will accept their concessionary contract. We only need to wait a few month for a pay raise.

inline was not a PSA pilot.

Parker Kirby and Glass set a timeline to accept their proposal or go to arbitration. They then extend the deadline after asking APA to extend for 30 days. Afterwards, they tell APA they won't address any of the pilots' concerns and must only address the company's wants. Then, they say the APA must agree to their demands by a certain date and then don't have the final language for their own demands on their own arbitrary fabricated deadline. Then they try and circumvent the union by sending a letter from Kirby to all pilots. I can wait for the pay raise in 2016. Priceless. Vote NO!

My first suspicion was the rush job that was being put on this in the first place. Im glad you guys figured it out; it was to beat the Delta earnings call scheduled for I think January 23rd. So rushed in fact that the language hadn't been completed, a tell-tale sign that they were either not expecting you to really accept it, or that they are not ready for arbitration. You have been given a gift with this recent information. Im proud of your group for standing up for whats right.

yes voters - ask for the deadline to be extended past January 23rd... get additional information on the state of the industry to get a feel for what your options are.

You are correct, but to expect management do boys or flat out idiots to actually think about anything else when they can see a shiny object is asking for a miracle. The only hope is pilots with a backbone and half a brain to see through the so painfully obvious tactics that management is once again using to hoodwink the group. For cripes sake they did the same thing to us almost exactly two years ago with the MOU, deadlines and all!:confused:

Excellent analysis of our current situation. Arbitrary rush to decision without the contract language is Glass' MO! Vote NO!!!

All standard union-busting techniques. That's why Jerry Glass is spearheading Parker's assault on New AA pilots. To bust a "union", you must fragment the leadership thus invalidating them and then fragment the membership by turning segments of them both against themselves and the leadership.

So far, it's worked masterfully.

This NO ONE can deny. :(

You need to lay off the union conference calls.

Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter: Cass R. Sunstein, Reid Hastie: 9781422122990: Amazon.com: Books

A quote from the author

"When hardliners are presented with empirical data their position gets further entrenched regardless of the logical nature of their decision."

It's a pretty interesting book. The union leadership could learn a lot from reading it. Every time I hear a union meeting and the talking that goes on, I think of that book.

The company knows what we'll do before we do it. They employ a lot of smart people. The union leadership relies on simple things like flying safely to bully their positions. Not a very effective long term method IMO. Insert "Pen being mightier than the sword" cliché.

do you really believe the APA proposal to accept and immediately ratify the current proposal if it included the AWA long rig was a hard line stance? What the BOD did there was an incredibly fair compromise that would have been a win for the company and a decent draw for you. Instead, the company took the hardline stance, is circumventing the BOD and going to direct to you. Its in your hands. I for one think that they are throwing out one last shot at you, and if you vote no youll get the long rig, similar to min calendar day. They've already made a series of mistakes (incomplete language coupled with an unreasonable ultimatum) that will hurt them if this goes to arbitration, even if the arbitrator is pro company.

Well, perhaps it's time to send a new message to the company that they no longer can predict and thus control us ? If we vote in this TA nothing changes and nothing WILL change in 2020.

I'm sorry, but you stray too far from JUST being a self-convinced yes voter with posts like this and quite frankly I suspect you're doing the biding for others here. Unionbuster66 is and it wouldn't surprise me if you were the same person, just with different personas, because with posts like this it's tough to tell a difference.

...and please spare me any "tinfoil hat" nonsense. That's the usual safe haven when people say what you say here and may be exposed for what they really are.

No I dont. I think the APA's insistence to well overshoot each time was a major part in the company acting like it did however. The company showed the APA who was running the show this time around.

It's a mental game and the union using uneducated highly emotional tactics will lose every time.

My comment about the hardliners here is about this latest proposal and their reasoning for voting no.

The APA was still feeling the rush of their "negotiations" in bankruptcy court when in fact the UCC was running the show and wanted the deal to go through. It was a temporary high, as they came to find out.

With industry standard proposals, and the company's tremendous financial health and positive economic outlook, the APA offer was still less than Deltas 2012 contract, not to mention it's spread out over 2,000 more pilots (AAs 15000, versus DAL having 13000 pilots). It was not unreasonable. This final APA counterproposal is still more than $700 million below Delta 2012 contract.

Glass orchestrated the same stunt at Envoy. In one instance they abruptly severed negotiations over a single word in an ALPA email. It was simply strategy. They are making us play their game and that needs to stop. If we don't stop it this time, were done for in 2020 as we'll be bankrupt of harvestable value with the exception of scope.

If Parker goes not need or want that, he'll just kick the can for 5 years which is common.

The difference being our contract does not expire until December 31 2018.

The company wins either way. Voting no they just win more.

To someone on their knees, your adversary always wins "either way". Those of us standing a bit more erect see it quite differently.

I was refering to Texasspilot.

I assume 'inline' was an intern someplace, and hasn't actually had formative time at an airline, even at PSA. But he/she clearly has a calculator and knows how to use it. A formidable skill indeed.

Oh... and 'inline five', the company most certainly does not win either way. The status-quo, which will be the product of a 'No' vote, is a significant defeat for their wishlist.

If you calculate otherwise, then you are using the wrong calculator.

Inline five flew for an airline prior to joining us here at LUS. But go ahead and keep on making assumptions for the express purpose of putting others down.

Thanks Huey

Damn...spot on my fellow aviator.

I will not bow down to demands that are not at least industry standard. As pilots, we are the only employees at an airline that are NOT replaceable. They will come back to renegotiate after we vote no. Let's stand together and bring back dignity, honor and respect to our profession! Vote NO!!!

Extrapolating the first 6 months of AAG earnings calls, 2014 annual report will likely show revenue of at least $45 Billion, and profit of $2.6 to 3 Billon. The APA proposal with long rig is still under 5 percent of total revenue and still ensures record profits for the company that can exceed $4 Billion in 2015. Even with worst case valuation of min calendar day at $85 million (believed to be over inflated), that's only a 2 percent share of that $4 Billion profit, for a pilot group that accounts for 13 percent of AAG's work force. You deserve it.

Well thats kind of vague, I think Inline should be proud of the airline he flew for and tell us. We all came from somewhere. If we knew that information, we might gain some more respect for his calculator, and not think he is just chasing a pay rate and tales of big airplanes to thrill his ex compadres.
Im sure the work rules here are much better than the "other airline", that is why we are here. However, you don't sacrifice those better work rules to chase a shiny nickel. Especially in the best financial times EVER for the airlines.