Ah, "the trap." The Hong Kong pilots were accused of defrauding The Company, of receiving the housing allowance when they did not qualify for it. THAT trap.

It's the TRAP that led The Company to accuse pilots of not having relocated, or to accuse other pilots of UN-relocating. (No, I did not make that up. That is The Company's term. UNrelocate.)

In order to begin the flow of housing allowance, each pilot was required to certify to Captain Non-member BS, the Assistant Chief Pilot living over there, that they had met the requirements of the LOA -- the TRAP. Those requirements, those standards for determining whether the pilot had relocated were ... well, lemme just quote the LOA here:

"Standards for determining whether a pilot has relocated his permanent residence under this paragraph shall be the same as for full relocations under Section 6 of the Basic Agreement."


I've been told the same thing by more than one person who should know and who I trust. It came to my attention because Howie held my Block Rep's proxy and voted it the same way. Be careful, they may say they don't support it, but they DID vote to discuss it with The Company. They might tell us they just feel the need to discuss everything. Like, dude, if The Company wants to talk about an across the board 20% pay rate decrease, man, oh wow, maybe we need to discuss it with them, 'cuz, you know, like, we gotta negotiate in good faith, man, and maybe they have a way to make it up with extra Pringles in the catering, right? Coool. Duuuude. :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, but there are some things you should recognize on their face to be unworthy of discussion. It's a waste of time. The answer is 1 syllable, 2 letters, alphabetical order. N-O.



I agree -- it's not about Mike, or any individual, it's about 4,300 families and the representation they deserve. The job is not for the faint of heart. You won't see Mike giving it less than 100% of his best effort. Our families deserve it.



The MEC held a special meeting and considered the proper response to The Company's sweetening of the pot. One strategy was to stop the ratification vote and send the Negotiating Committee back to bargain for more. If The Company was so quick to enhance the LOA outside of bargaining, maybe we could get more at the table.

Another thought was that the enhancement should be codified, put in writing, and voted on. Without the deal in writing, The Company could withdraw the benefit as easily as it had offered it. Would the vote take place within the original LOA ratification, or as a follow-on vote?

The MEC voted 10-2 to memorialize the enhancement within the original LOA, so the LOA was changed well before the close of the membership ratification vote. The membership ratified LOA 1.1 by a large margin of the vote.






.

Three things about pilot unions I learned from Dave Webb and Wally Huggins.

1) My Negotiating Committee speaks for me.....No Direct Dealing

2) No one gets a pass, no one gets left behind......

3) Seat progression is not a pay raise.

HKG LOA's in all forms violated that and the MEC allowed it. I find it to be a dark set of days. I voted against...I'm in the 32% every single time.

The MEC should have taken them to court. Just like they should take the company to court every time it breaks status quo when we are in negotiations.....after all, the rules are there for when we don't want to follow them...and I find that to be a very "business-like" approach. If I had one issue with both Admins it's this.

What most people seem to forget is that the HKG LOA was negotiated outside of RLA Section 6 Negotiations. What that means is we had no tools available that we might have at our disposal during normal CBA negotiations.

We could not force The Company to negotiate in good faith.

We could not threaten to appeal to the NMB for mediation.

We could not avail ourselves of a process that might lead to self-help.

For that matter, we could not even force The Company to meet and discuss it with us at all.

Pilots were going to bid Hong Kong, no matter how bad the deal was, and The Company knew it. They did it when Subic Bay opened, and they'll do it again when The Company opens the B-767 base in HKG.

The Company only needed to make the deal sweet enough to attract enough bodies to fill the slots -- and they did.


Nobody has to bid HKG B-767 now. All 4,300 or so of us could bid something else, and NOBODY can be forced to go to an FDA. If you've ever dreamed of leverage, that would be it. We could write our own ticket on an FDA LOA, and probably even get them to put it in its own Section of the CBA so we can stop calling it a Letter. We could have a CBA that meets all our expectations and then some, ratified before Christmas.

Think that'll ever happen? If you do, NO, I don't want to know what you're smoking, and NO, I don't want any of it. I want to continue flying.

Is the FDA LOA perfect? Absolutely not, I've never heard anyone claim anything close to it. But without it, there would be no seed money, no monthly housing allowance, no education assistance, no monthly money for storage ... the list goes on. Without the LOA, you could get money on the front end, have your 2 cars and king-sized bed shipped over, and maybe get 'em shipped back. Of course, that deal is still available, but I don't know of a single person who has chosen that option. No, it seems that everyone prefers the deal created by the FDA LOA to what we had before.


But let's talk about 2014 and the current Council 26 Representative election.


Today we ARE in RLA Section 6 negotiations, and we can't even get something like an FDA LOA done. When The Company REALLY wants something, they'll add negotiation days to the calendar to git 'er done. Sure, we can give up wide-body seats by agreeing to the B-767F Implementation LOA. All pay for the "penalty" R-24 lines pay the wide-body rate. Well, except that all doesn't mean all in this instance. (I'm glad to hear that we're at least grieving that, finally.) Hey, didya see that posting for B-767 Flex Instructors? No? Eh, me neither. Guess they don't need them anymore -- narrowbody guys can teach those events on the cheap.


Nearly a year ago, our MEC stood before us in a Joint Council Meeting, donned their hats, and said "The Time is Now." Many of us followed the example and started wearing our hats. Well, here it is, nearly a year later, and where are we? We're still waiting for The Company to take PiBS off the table so we can engage in a meaningful discussion about work rules. If you think we'll see a TA before peak ... well, refer to the section above that begins with, "NO, I don't want to know ..."

Our families deserve better. You keep saying what we have is working. "about as well as it can" is what you said, I believe. It's not. It can be better, and we deserve better.






.

Jakal,

I also received phone calls from WR, usually for bashing DW and company on this board. He basically told me he thought that if I was going to make anti-DW allegations that I owed him the courtesy of standing up at a Union meeting and saying that to his face.

I told him that he knew I was a frequent Union Meeting Attendee and that I would be glad to honor his request.

I don't want to rehash old Union news and politics. So far as I'm concerned ... the current Administration is simply adequate. It's to bad that we weren't in the position we're in now (finally starting to picket!) a year ago!*?

I'm unhappy about how AGE 65 turned out (several of my UAL Capt. neighbors went to Capitol Hill to lobby as ALPA Reps.), 4.a.2.b show be illegal, it sounds like ALPA abandoned the HK4, we're overdue for a BIG PAY RAISE! We need to improve Retirement as incentive to get folks over 60 to GO AWAY! It seems like almost nobody retired at AGE 60 in the last 6 years?

It's time for a change. We need good leadership! Maybe PC & BM will retire and we'll get Pro-Union folks in those jobs? (Yes ... I know they are both prior Union guy?)


MM :eek:

We didn't hear about a crappy FDA LOA until it was out for a vote. Not only that, but it was sold like it was a great deal.

Like someone else said, if someone has DW stink on them we should still be suspicious. Why? Because they did some bad stuff!! They won't even acknowledge the error.

Don't expect these people to announce their bad intentions. You have to ferret them out if you want to find them.

Didn't SS come from the DW regime? Are you suspicious of him?

No one is above suspicion. You have to talk to everyone who is running the union and get to know them. Find out what their priorities are and where they want to take us.

[QUOTE=Laughing_Jakal;1750531]Three things about pilot unions I learned from Dave Webb and Wally Huggins.

1) My Negotiating Committee speaks for me.....No Direct Dealing

2) No one gets a pass, no one gets left behind......

3) Seat progression is not a pay raise.

Uh, no on point 2: The non members we're grandfathered in and would never be required to pay dues, so yes they got a free pass. And as far as no one being left behind, block 11 surely was. I was in the meeting when Webb and Huggins were there. They knew what they did to block 11.

[QUOTE=V1VR;1750639]Yeah, block 11 was hosed so bad they left in droves didn't they? If I remember correctly at the time instructors were making almost double what the line pilot was and they got to sleep in their own bed every night!

Uh, don't know about the rest of you, but I like well paid, happy training force. Make it competitive, and get the guys and gals who want to teach. If there is no advantage to working there, we'll have a room full of Barney Fife's looking to grind their axe.

2006 Contract made training less of a good deal. Right or wrong, their was a perception that they got "left out" on that deal.

Not a flex, LCA, with no intentions of doing the job. Just pointing out this LINE guy likes fat, happy, flexes and LCAs. I figure it works best for everyone….YMMV.