Prof Chaos

You are mistaken if you think there is anything in this new JCBA that would not have been there 4 years ago. Management knew exactly what they were prepared to grant in the new deal before this entire process even began. Would the pay rates have been lower than what was awarded today? Probably. But even if they were $20 less per hour than what has been awarded, they would still have averaged about $20/hr more than the 2011 negotiated rates (and would have included COL and perhaps even longevity raises each of the past 4 years). And pilots would have been earning those rates for the last 4 years. At roughly 1000 credit hours per year, that's roughly $20,000 in lost income per year, for four years, on average.

Not quite sure what you mean by "...fight for the opportunity to vote...". If you are suggesting that there has been an actual threat of a strike in the last four years, or that any other actions taken by the Union leadership created leverage against management in this process, then you are mistaken. A reading of every court decision rendered throughout this process over the past 5 years, as well as the RLA and all relevant case law would disabuse one of this notion.

Please do not misunderstand me. We are on the same side. I fully support the new union leadership in their efforts to protect and improve our working conditions. I am not seeking to "bash the Union", but a thoughtful review and critique of the Union leadership's decisions over the past 5 years is warranted. Mistakes were made. I see them as honest mistakes, because I have zero evidence to the contrary. Without looking critically at the process that brought us to today, we'll never correct that which needs to be corrected in order to truly improve the working conditions for all of us.

Globemaster2827

Blaming your leadership is as tone deaf as claiming that JD was going to give you anything in 2016. In 2016 you'd have a 2.5% match on your 401k, split the baby with Southern pay rates, 18 day lines, 13 day "Vacation Lines", 2.4 hours of rig a day, no business class international travel... Because (some of) you guys fought you won contract parity for Southern AND then started arbitration. Guess what you'd also win with your 2016 (but really 2018) arbitrated contract? An amendable contract next year where Atlas just buys Amerijet since your theoretical leadership is so gullible that they'll believe whatever JD tells them. Be thankful your leadership had the vision to understand what JD was attempting to do.

The bottom line is this... People who could've left didn't. People who should've refused to work there accepted jobs there. I could go on and on about the things you could've done to win a better CBA but in the end you lost by a pretty close score. If not for Covid Atlas might've been forced to pay you. If 100 more people left that might've been enough... If 100 more people refused to work there it might've been enough. There's absolutely no reason that you can't force Atlas to negotiate with you tomorrow. Literally everyone is desperate for pilots again. Vote with your feet. If Atlas has more pilots in 12 months then look in the mirror.

Globemaster2827

Yall had plenty of lawyers involved. Plenty of them. This contract reflects the leverage you had.

Elevation

Leadership made decisions that others pay for. Leadership accepts thanks for jobs well done. They can accept fault for jobs done poorly. That's the burden of leadership.

Along those lines I think it's important to mention that our leadership, not our union members have failed us. Committees like scheduling, fatigue and hotels just to name a few have been slogging away for the pilots. Hardly any of these folk have taken a dime in union money according to the LM-2s.

Globemaster2827

Exactly... Preparation for the next round of negotiations starts today. Get organized. Learn from mistakes. Make necessary changes. Get good at enforcing the new CBA.

Globemaster2827

That's a complete fantasy. Management has stated that they see their competition for labor as Mesa. An "Amalgamated" contract with Southern's would've gotten them closer to that goal. Then if they ever really needed to pay more they could just con union leadership into whatever they said since it would've worked in the past. Yall fought hard and did the best you could under difficult circumstances. Now you'll have to adjust.

YellowBird

What did you all think? Frankly, I'm impressed with the pay scale. The union never fought for the pilot group. They were busy lining their pockets and eating steak dinners. Paying themselves UB days for all those pathetic picketing events. While negotiations were going on, your newly elected Chairman was texting his friends at UPS to help him get on. What does that tell you about how much faith he had in your future? This contract is gonna be with the pilot group for the next 12 years!

TiredSoul

Is that going to be the Union strategy *again* sigh
Discourage people from working here and pestering new hires for taking the job?
Like that worked so well last time.

SMH

APCbot

What strategy would you prefer? It's the only thing the company responds to. The RLA is crap and doesn't allow unions to do ****.

Softpayman

What’s retirement look like ?