Make no mistake, management's amalgamation plan has never been about taking an alternative path. It has been a conduit for delay. Win or lose, management will only negotiate the next CBA when they have no other choice but to do so. Furthermore, allowing the amalgamation path to take place without a fight ensures zero future at this airline. IF management wins both of the arbitrations, there is no longer any point in ever thinking this will be anything other than the bottom feeder of the industry where management buys airline after airline to perpetually avoid all negotiations. Giving up on this fight for a false perception of a quicker path is giving up on your career.

Swapping unions would be a really bad idea right now. ALPA has some advantages over IBT, but IBT has some advantages over ALPA too.

Yes it would be. While most of our problems lie with our current leadership and their failed tactics that are similar repeats of the past merger. I do have some miss givings of the Teamsters, going back to ALPA would be way worse. As a matter of fact, our current EXCO Chair was pro ALPA and pro non-merger back in the day on the first one. Spent most of his time giving lobbying parties to ALPA leadership while his nose was parking neatly in their posteriors to keep the merger from happening despite what he says today. If he had a choice, we would still be battling it out but the desertification of ALPA and the single carrier NMB determination fixed that.

Here is what ALPA said about us ACMI carriers as they did everything to burn us at Atlas while taking our dues money.

Oh, sudden impact, how we have missed you and your theories.

I do agree with his point that you cannot change unions. Atlas is the one carrier that should never change unions. They ARE 1224. It doesn’t get any better than this. Other locals paying for some of their expenses and they are in complete control of their destiny. What might need to change is the strategy. I write might because this internet mess is hopefully just an illusion perpetrated by an above average negotiation team. At times it does seem a little ham handed.

You need to always trust your negotiating committee regardless as to how things appear to be. What do you have to lose? Changing things at this point could only guarantee one thing. A longer negotiation. I wish them well and hope they kick ass.

ALPA isn’t going to do anything more for you guys than any other union. ALPA National is all about the money, their money. They love to collect dues and talk about standing firm, but when it’s actually time to take a stand they tuck tail and run. They were all talk leading up to the Polar strike until the pilots got released. Once they realized that they were going to have to spend more money than they would recover from such a small group they suddenly encouraged the pilots to take the companies offer. That offer was worse than the contract that they were trying to replace. The problems at Atlas are with who you have to negotiate with. I can’t speak to who you have in your union trying to negotiate with them since I’m not there. If you’re not happy with their methods I’d bet that you’d be better off replacing individual negotiators than replacing the IBT with something else.

Its not like ALPA will airlift a crack team into the seniority list handing us expert MECs and negotiating teams. Regardless of affiliation an airline union is simply made up of pilots on its seniority list.

If you're thinking ALPA national will do anything more than Teamsters national you're deluding yourself. If you want a better union it's up to you, the member.

LOL
and pray tell how does ALPA prevent management tricks to manipulate and delay under the RLA that these other unions do not?
I'm not an ALPA detractor, far from it, they have produced great things for pilots, but your comments suggest a partisan view and ignores the contributions of other pilot unions that are successful for all of us too.
Oh, and somehow the APA must be terrific as you didn't disparage those fine folks and think they are a weak union. Perhaps folks can explore APA success. :D

So True! Could not agree more!

Nobody wants to look at them-self in the mirror after sprinting through an airport to make their next commercial connection on work day 28 of their current month and realize that they are a Teamster.... Or Alpa... Or IPA... Isn't it easier to just fail and blame someone else? The "teamsters UNION" is made up of its members.

Good post.

I beg to differ. We are members, but “the union” consists of guys who sign non-disclosure agreements, meet with execs, and make decisions among themselves that alter the direction and the relationship with the extremely hostile management for which we work. 98% of us get no say as to what “the union” does.

I’m not saying I disagree with any decisions they’ve made up to this point, but how can you disagree when you don’t have any information other than what we are told? So, no, we are not The Union. There has to be a lot of trust involved, and I feel like we do give that trust, but at the end of the day we’re only members of the union. Not decision makers.

... Not ... !!

... so you're saying that Southwest and UPS have weak unions and poor contracts? What universe do you live in?

You're making it easy to disregard your posts ...

This is a common complaint. Rightfully so.

Particularly after the passage of an amendment (FPL) that affects how they pay themselves was buried. How they have directed all union social media to a facebook page that isn't an official contact point to the union that also restricts which members can access it let alone the ongoing security issues there, removed access to air things by membership on a private union web forum, restricted questions on crew calls to pre-approved issues, plus a few other things that are not quite legal on a few levels determined by a recent court judgment, let alone misleading members in a direction that might find themselves getting section 19 (fired) on leaderships insinuations versus facts.

While I might sound like a company stooge, I have spent decades trying to keep our guys employed and not doing stupid things proven to get them burned and keeping our leadership honest. It's a set out game that our current leadership is happy to burn you at a whim while they compensate themselves well during it. Collateral damage they don't care about under this administration.

Our current leadership says everything is OK and AUDITED at the highest levels, but this recent hidden determination of the outcome of $1.7+ million dollar felony level embezzlement under Joint Council 041 leadership of which 1224 is part of says something different. NO JAIL TIME or submission to the criminal courts, just a retirement and never to take part again in the union sentence.


Despite this, I'm advocating Teamsters knowing what I know of ALPA while having been a volunteer there also. ALPA has a lot of dirty secrets also, but better kept.

Anyhow, look into the vested interests of our leadership back on the union site under the LM-2 reports posted on their forums on who is getting paid what. That is unless they have deleted them recently.

The forums are still open, although only ONE non-Atlas moderator is provided to approve posts Atlas member posts. The Atlas EXCO has removed all of our moderators.

Just how many MED leave days do you have left or are you just getting the membership donated MED days selectively granted by the EXCO as repayment for your statements at the expense of others getting them?

Self interest first ???????????????

As a cancer, gunshot, TB , and etc survivor never touching the donated MED bank, I among others are curious if your self motivated for this particular union administration?

I see nothing has changed since I left.

Unfortunately, every pilot group has their special 1%. Even with different screen names, they can’t hide their crazy.

Moderator warning
 

This intra-Union fight is getting too personal. Take it to PMs.

This is one route they will could take. I'm betting they will try to bypass the union leadership and present our pilot group with an increase in wages, a few minor changes to work rules and status quo on everything else. All while yelling "LET THEM VOTE!!!"


Same thing that was done at Omni and Kalitta.


Whatever the path, Atlas Air is not a employee friendly place to hang your hat.

Neither is Amazon/DHL and I'm willing to bet they want to keep wages down also and are willing to drag this on also or start moving planes to other carriers similar to what they did during the Atlas - Polar merger (whipsawing). I do agree they will try to go to the membership directly. That's in the old playbook and used often.

While our current leadership, which includes the guy your responding to, use the propaganda of "the company is suing the membership" for sympathy. They failed to mention we conducted an illegal work action in one case despite being warned by long term committee members (luckily we didn't get fined this time as other unions have - just told go back to work) and sued again due to never completing the company's grievance on arbitration. We just ignored it and of course lost that court case and ordered to complete the grievance process where we still wait for the arbiters decision. Just what did the EXCO expect the company to do to those actions, come crying to them? The EXCO new we would be headed to court by ignoring it and the court subsequently made us go thru the process later anyway. Wasting more time ( @1 year) thinking it was leverage somehow while the metal keeps moving anyway? I'm guessing arbitration and not Section 6 will be the award by arbiter reading our CBA section 1. I imagine Southerns is no better but can't say for certain at the moment. Although Sect. 6 would be the best leverage for us all. I just don't see it in the cards looking at language and history of past awards.

We need to stop repeating the failures of the past Atlas-Polar merger again. Similar failed tactics being used again. I believe only two on the ExCo were here to remember those days and only one of them was actually doing union work which was mostly lobbying ALPA and having parties for their favor which ultimately landed us at Teamsters for their actions when Atlas members retaliated against ALPA's spurning us for being ACMI. The remaining ExCo members, just being new guys so to speak, not having experienced the past merger relying on the Chairs side of the story which is as reliable as our POTUS statements.

While we all have a little bit of the below video, most of us realize our limitations and gravitate towards safety. It's in our training.

Then we have those that wind up in leadership from time to time and screw up decades of dedicated committee members work and say "Nailed it!" as everything burns down around them.

Your EXCO are comprised of morons. They should've simply agreed to merge the Southern and Atlas contracts in 2016. Just think... Atlas would have a $180 12 year 747 Captain rate (less for everything else) , a 2.5% 401k match on a 10% contribution as Southern had no retirement, a 19 day work month with 14 day "Vacation Lines", a 5 year deal where management can then buy Centurion in 2021, a 61 hour guarantee, a trip rig of 2.425 a day, no business class international travel (nobody else in ACMI had it two years ago) and 26 hour work days. Yup....... If only the moronic Atlas Exco had simply amalgamated 2 years ago...

The sad part is the above scenario was probable almost 3 years ago but now isn't thanks to the LOA from last Spring. You're on here either admitting that the above contract is what you wanted or you think that Atlas's management would've given you better out of the goodness of their hearts with Atlas having the best contract in ACMI prior to the K4 deal. The K4 deal was only marginally better than Atlas's current deal given that they didn't get rig or any improvements on their retirement. The other ACMI carriers got their contracts out of section 6 as opposed to arbitration of merging with bankruptcy contracts.

[QUOTE=scrupulous;2733103]Neither is Amazon/DHL .

Who is Amazon/DHL? Neither of those companies have airlines.

The problem with this argument is that we have been down the Section 1 road before, and the result of the Atlas/Polar arbitration was NOT as you just described. Not even close. The resulting pay rates were higher than either contract, business class survived and so forth.

There were three contracts in 2011; Atlas, Polar and the arbitrated result. They are available for anyone who wants to dig for them.

I completely agree that this is a strategy they will attempt. Higher hourly pay rates with most everything else the same and they will blame the union publicly for not allowing it to go to a vote.

...and therein lies the rub. You said "the resulting pay rates were higher". Those higher pay rates were as a result of gutting the meaningful profit sharing of the time. Bill Flynn told investors on the first analyst call after the 2011 CBA was signed in that the total additional cost for management of the Polar/Atlas CBA that was just signed in was 6-7%. That's right...a 6-7% increase when the pilot group as a whole has a total compensation package around 50-60% less than the other pilot groups.

You can increase pay rates and still take an overall pay cut. That is exactly what management wants to do now.

Eliminate gateway travel and hotels in base.
Eliminate all domestic catering.
Eliminate all instructor positions in the training center and turn those over to low paid contract instructors.

These are just a few of they things we know management wants to monetize for us. I am sure that if we are forced to go down the amalgamation path, we will find that list growing substantially.

With all of those management savings, they want to give us a small "raise". Hourly pay rates are only one point of comparison and are meaningless without looking at the total picture.

Certainly, you don't just want to sell what little current benefits we do have and monetize those into an hourly rate increase? Especially at a time when we have a total compensation package that is paying us 50 cents on the dollar?

This right here. I’m a 3rd year FO at Atlas and I have made less every year since I’ve been here, in spite of my hourly rate going up. Hourly rates mean absolute jack-sh**.

The profit sharing program did not change with the 2011 contract.

There are a lot of rosy memories of big profit sharing checks, but they were not large during the bankruptcy and recovery. And before that they had been inflated by Shuyler's creative accounting. In addition the ancient profit sharing program is tied only to Atlas Air, and predates AAWH. So all of the earnings under the expanding umbrella of companies are excluded. This has been understood for some time by those paying attention.

I am fully aware of the AAWW versus Atlas Air, Inc. profit sharing. However, I guess I wasn't paying attention to the rest of the details in the 2002 CBA on profit sharing. When did the $75 million carve-out from profit sharing start? Okay, I just looked it up to make sure. The Atlas Air 2002 CBA provided profit sharing at a 10% of pretax profits with no carveout whatsoever. The last three years, based on the 2011 CBA calculation (with carveout), we have gotten 1.6%, 1.4%, and 1.3% profit sharing, respectfully. Therefore, we have taken more than an 8% pay cut in profit sharing by the changing of the terms of profit sharing from CBA 2002 to CBA 2011.

So, if it were up to you, I guess we would be heading down the "goodness of their heart" path from management that Globemaster2827 so appropriately laid out.

I’d add that the Airline Division and Rick D, did it 2.5 times at IBT Local 357 as well. When the company wants a contract or vote, they’ll have one, because DB will just bypass the N.C. or eboard.

So, I have to assume the company isn’t desperate at all and we’d still be sitting on our spheres if we were ALPA, UTU, etc.

Yup... Looks like you could've just accepted to Amalgamate your profit sharing with Southern's... Instead of $500 a year FOs would get $150 a year... I will say that at some point half of nothing is nothing.

I do know that I left out several issues where Atlas's contract would've been worse. Note that none of them have disputed the 19 days on the road (plus commute), the 50% retirement cut (from an already terrible retirement plan) or the "Vacation Line" of 14 days. If only Atlas's Exco had agreed to all of this 3 years ago... You'd only be 2 years away from your management buying Amerijet and Amalgamating contracts.

I stand corrected with regard to the carve-out.

That said, the profit sharing was never seen as a substitute for pay rates. And many of us were surprised that it ended up back in the 2011 contract, since by then the holding company structure was firmly in place.

interview jan 14/15/16-miami
 

hello guys !
i got an interview with atlas jan- 15 th 2019.
they got intervies on 14 /15/16 of january
any idea ;what equipment they are hiring these days 747/767?

I'm going to just go and grab some popcorn and a beer. Please don't start abusing this guy until I get back.

Welcome to the party F&H. MY EXCO SPEAKS FOR ME!

Both the 747 and the 767. Please do your homework before leaving your regional. It is really bad here despite the lies the recruiters are telling people before and during the interview.

We have hired a tremendous amount of pilots in the past few years, so upgrade times will be increasing rather significantly as many first officers on the list are unfortunately starting to see.

The next CBA, despite what you were probably told by recruiters, is potentially still years from coming to fruition.

Pay: Plan on $1,600 for your first four months, and $3,980 total gross (before deductions) compensation per a month after that for your first year.

Second Year B767
Plan on $5208 a month total gross (before deductions) compensation

Second Year B747
Plan on $6200 a month total gross (before deductions) compensation


Most RJ Captains who come here find out that they took a pay cut from their left seat RJ job that they won't make back until they upgrade.

Oh, and you will be gone 18-19 days a month for work. (17 day trip plus travel)

I took a pretty big pay cut coming to Atlas from what I thought was a crappy part 135 gig. I’m a 3rd year FO, and I have never come close to making what I made at my old job. In fact, I have made less money every year that I’ve been here. Again, as a 3rd year FO, I don’t expect to be able to hold the left seat for at least 18-24 months. Also, if you don’t already have your TPIC time, this place is a trap that you will be stuck in for a very long time. We don’t block many hours on the 767 (which is the junior Captain fleet). Probably about 200-250 hours a year. So, if you don’t have any TPIC and need your 1,000 hours for a real job, you would be stuck at Atlas for anywhere from 8-10 years before you had the PIC time to leave for greener pastures.

PM me if you have other questions.

thank you very much for the info.

Tell that to Bob U (Union leadership) at the 2011 contract road show in the Miami Marriott. Right from his mouth:

He went on to explain how the Section 1 process gave the union limited leverage to negotiate new language, and that we should be pleased the the *Company's recent profitability* has resulted in us being able to secure a contract with pay north of $200/hour.

And he was right. And we were happy. And the pilots generally high-fived each other for being in the right place at the right time. Ohhhh what a difference a few years makes.



The current leadership knows that the section 6 process will result in a MUCH better contract than the section 1 process.

The best way to get the best contract is section 6. The second best way to get the best contract is the passage of time, as the rising tide around us will benefit our new CBA no matter how we get there. The open question is:

• How much will the passage of time cost us while we are still operating under the 2011 CBA?

Of course, the company is asking themselves the same question.

We each will have to decide as individuals how much appetite we have for a prolonged process vs. taking a simple payrate increase right now. The company will offer this payrate increase publicly sometime in the next several months. Will you be smiling (the payrates will be very good)? Or will you accept lower pay for longer to get to the real pot of gold, and say "My negotiating committee speaks for me"?

How many of us are in it for the long run? How many of us are in it just for time-in-type and trying to move on? Who is more likely to stand firm, patiently?

The company has played their cards very well so far. By my math they are planning to hire 700+ pilots in 2019, which will sustain their growth even if our attrition triples. They have demonstrated that they are willing to wait it out. Are we?

2019 will be an interesting year.



Either way, I think we can put to bed the question of switching IBT to ALPA or anything else. Of all the choices we have... that one would be catastrophic right now. But it wouldn't be the first time that pilots have been short sighted.

Wow CalmeJB, excellent post and spot on! The pay rate carrot is coming. Will we fall for it?

[QUOTE=nitefr8dog;2733129]
They actually own a number of the aircraft that are then leased to and flown by ACMI carriers. They lease the A/C to ACMI companies and pay them to manage them under those certificates like Atlas/Polar/ABX/Astar/etc. When they are bad for one reason or the other they take them from one carrier and move the A/C to another carrier along with the work to another carrier. I think Comair was similar in which Knoxville hails from. They can also just cancel for lack of performance and give the work to someone else to include aircraft the carriers own and operate for Amazon/DHL. They do this just to not put all their eggs in one basket and keep labor costs down. Done at the majors via the commuters and freighters also like FedEx Feeder etc.



Exactly! The feud during the Atlas-Polar groups didn't help a bit either, we probably could of stair stepped contracts upwards a bit but got bogged down in the union-union fight there of no way we are going to merge by one group and the years delayed ending up in a desertification of ALPA. So Polar's two strikes and reluctance to merge only brought them up to Atlas CBA parity by the recorded words of the current ExCo Chair during a General Membership Meeting call. Having said that, I have to say it was the ExCo Chair who said it and he is not known for telling the whole or some of the truth at any given time, even now. He should be running for senate or congress where he would shine instead of being a 1224 hired business agent milking the system after 7/19!


Talking about mergers, I'm personally glad Southern got the parity deal knowing what I know of the Section 1 of our CBA. It brings the bookends of the two CBA's up to ours and Atlas can't use Southern's CBA as the bottom end of the scale if we end up in arbitration. Of course, that did negate the current strategy of keeping every new hire hopefuls away from Atlas/Southern to build leverage.




Quickly forgotten by most. I was never really a proponent of it knowing they could make early expense payments, stock buy backs, other acquisitions like Polar to keep the money out of our hands in the profit sharing scheme. Drawback of arbitration but Sect 1 left us little choice but rely on company leaning arbiters and the fact a lot of guys wanted it but didn't realize that the company could spend the money on themselves first before entering the profit sharing scheme.



Oh man, so true! But that is the current tactic for leverage by the union that is supposed to increase leverage for the membership. We have long ago started eating our own at the beginning of Knoxville's administration.



I'm glad you prefer to stay at IBT. I know what ALPA did to us. Been thinking about maybe sending out the failed/retracted promises of ALPA leadership to Atlas along with about 2GB of other stuff. Figure I should let that wound heal though unless any more repeats of that history come fourth.

"Waiting out" has some give and take. It cost us during the Atlas-Polar merger by years to end up at the same point and just a little ahead of most at the time. We could have fit another contract in during that protracted debacle of union to union hate.

We seem to be repeating that now since they seem to be manning the planes as they come on to their current commitment to Amazon. Are they working hard at it and subbing the uncovered out, yes. But the metal is moving. We are short of pilots, but they don't mind lowering the requirements to fill the seats and run constant classes. Just that many more lower paid guys as others move on doing "Touch and Goes" here to another carrier.

One subject you touched on is duration to a final contract. While we have initially have a lack of pilots boom right now helping us at Atlas, how long will it last? Looking at the stock market and numerous other indicators by experts, we might be heading to a recession again. Economy slows down, loads go down flights are decreased and etc. Back side of the curve for us. Something to consider and cycles are usually repetitive.

Do I want arbitration? NO, but I'm not naive enough to think it won't get shoved down our throats looking at Sect 1 of our CBA, history and knowing how arbiters work. I truly hope our negotiating committee is working on plan "B", "C", and "D" other than us sitting in a corner kicking our feet and holding our breath like a five year old expecting to get what they want versus the cards we are dealt under the RLA and CBA. Hopefully the current arbitration will pull a rabbit out of a hat for us. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm relying on history and facts. Guess we will wait and see. I noted some guys taking UB mid Jan. Maybe they are expecting some info from the arbiter, coming up with another plan or just pulling down some UB days at home.


I am also sad to say that I'm disappointed that we have ExCo, Stewards, and committee members on this site discussing this in public thinking they are anonymous. You are exposing us as a union. The Corporate Atlas social media department is monitoring this. While you should have never crippled the union site by "anonymously" migrating exchanges to the facebook page which you were warned about as a security problem and published as such by others solely to limit any membership push back, we have become an open book to the company as to the temperature of the membership although upcoming arbitration will determine where we will go. There are fixes, not absolute, but at least they would have to really work at it.