Piloto Noche

Sorry. I know we've had this thread before but I couldn't find it. I've been thinking about what I would like our negotiators to go for in the next contract.

Pay, Pay, Pay. That's it.

No more work rule "improvements". Every time we go for improvements, we go straight down hill. That's two contracts now and we've been loopholed by the company too many times to count. Soft parameters can kiss my @ss!

No more Grid Penalty Charts either. What ARE those things! I don't want to have to enroll in a class just to understand some "improvement" that my negotiators got for me.

No more retirement enhancements or insurance benefits for old people. They don't use them when they're eligible anyway.

Just go in there, get me a pay raise and let me figure out how to make my sucky schedules work. Keep it simple and maybe we won't get so screwed.
Also, I won't have to listen to the not-ready-for-primetime-road show dorks try to convince me how great it will be if I vote for it.

MEMFO4Ever

Agreed. I think the quicker we all realize that the schedules here are simply going to suck, the quicker we can get down to the business of money. Lots of it. Seniority, vacation and sick time will dictate schedule enhancements when they are needed.

I would also like see agency shop go the way of the Model T. Looked good on paper, sounded great at road shows, just did not work out that way. I'm guessing that I am probably in the minority on this one.

BusDawg

I'm with you on agency shop. DW may have not been so anxious to "Do the right thing" if members had a recourse.

Piloto Noche

Agency shop. Another "improvement".

2Planker

Piloto Noche,

Spot on. The schedule is pretty optimized, but you are not alone in your concern that every time we attempt to improve work rules (ie scheduling), our pilot negotiators fail to see all the ways that the company can make things even more efficient (read onerous), and still stay within the contractual verbiage. The "Grid Penalty" will never be breached, but unfortunately, it gave the company a set of parameters to shoot for, but always just stop short of. Now they schedule to a target that is just short of triggering the Grid Penalty.

I think it is highly unlikely that we will be able to get back any of the scheduling "givebacks" that we lost in previous negotiations, because we all know that the company values control over all else. At least not without making more major concessions.

So there are many of us who think perhaps we should try a different approach. Perhaps our negotiating committee could try the following scenario. They go in and sit down at the table. The company asks "what are your openers?" The reply: "Just give us all a 50% pay raise, and you can leave everything else the same." The company's reply: "We'll give you a 30% pay raise." The negotiating committee's reply: "Make it 35% and you have a deal." The company's reply: "Done. Let's get some barbeque."

Perhaps wishful thinking, but I think the time has come for us all to start emailing the negotiating committee and telling them what we actually want. Keep it simple, mind you. With our current divided and fractured membership (courtesy of DW), I believe the one thing we can all agree on is that a nice sized pay increase can cover other shortcomings - (ie, we can invest some of the extra $$$ on our own to get a better than 1% B fund bump.) I remember there being 4 cornerstones the last time around, but if you ask me, the 1% increase in B fund and the less than cost of living pay raise that we got fell far short of the 4 cornerstones. To quote a baseball movie, "You don't need a quadrophonic Blaupunkdt, what you need is a curve ball." We don't need catchy phrases to put on stickers or bag tags, we don't need catchy "cornerstones" , what we need is enough money to cover the ridiculously surging cost of living and to be be able to plan for our eventual retirement (for those of us who would actually like to retire someday, and not work until we are dead.)

Shoot for a 35-50% pay raise across the board, and leave the rest of the stuff the same, so we don't lose any more. a 35-50% pay raise is something we all could easily vote yes on, and no "hard sell" would be necessary.

ictflyer23

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Busboy

You guys don't think the optimizer can be cranked up more?

I vote for:

1) "hard parameters" in the scheduling section.

2) Higher pay rates.

3) Fix the FDA packages.

for starters.

BTW...#1 will help us all remain employed.

Micro

I think the pay only solution is not going to work at all and is NOT the approach we should take. BC sold this crewforce out in the last contract getting his so called $800 million hidden (I still can't find it) pay and benefits (still "pay") and NOT fixing work rules. I'll bet you the company laughed all the way to the bank the day after the CBA was signed because they knew they could "write-off" the union so called pay increases by jacking up the optimizer (increased productivity). It cost them NOTHING.

We were fed the BS that Alpa has the best cost models in the world but what was, and is, REALLY needed is OPERATIONAL evaluation and modeling of a change to work rules. Before an agreement is reached we need to evaluate what the company can do within a workrule change and how it will effect our schedules (ie. will it restrict the optimizer or allow the company to further tighten the screws).

If you think we're optimized as far as we can go, you're dreaming. Think back when Gil M. turned it way up when they first started using it. The schedules were horrible. So if you just want pay, don't be surprised when the company once again writes it off by optimizing our schedules once again. What we really need is to really tighten and restrict the workrules.
I recommend you'd be better off thinking of ways to do that and feeding that on to our NC.

Jaxman187

Piloto Noche,

You can look this idea up under one of my previous threads, but I am glad somebody else brought this back up.

We couldn't even formalize non-negotiated enhancement without providing the company with "flexibility."

I would second getting rid of agency shop but I am afraid to open another section of the contract. Who knows what it might cost to get rid of this "freebie"

1stCivDiv

Work rules and PAY THE MAN, that's it, pretty simple....The pay "raises" on our last contract were laughable at best....