tennisguru

Also, in categories they were offering SIL's the union asked that the company offer more vacation weeks and use the RCC inputs to build better trips and they refused both requests.

beernutt

Close. This is the version I was told. I posted this earlier this year, this is a copy/paste

-Years ago, when SILs were historically 55 hours, the company proposed they be reduced to 40 hours. The company informed our MEC scheduling chairman (Bill Kessler) of this. He proceeded to tell the MEC chairman (Bill Bartels) this, as was his duty - ‘the scheduling committee chairman ‘acts at the direction of the MEC’’. No direction was given. The MEC chairman did nothing, and made no attempt to renegotiate the amount (or inform the pilot group of the intent of the company) When the information was made public some time later it caused an uproar, and the MEC chairman, desperate to deflect the criticism of inaction, promptly fired the scheduling chairman, ie shot the messenger. This behavior caused a mass walkout by some 12 SMEs, and a lot of red faces in the MEC.-

Edits/additional info in brackets

The net result of this ****-up was the firing of Bill Kessler, a respected and valuable scheduling committee chairman who had worked under several previous MECs and was a solid asset to the pilot group, and the loss of SILs at any value. Draw your own conclusions about the desirability of this outcome, I consider it a failure.

Edit: if anyone can offer more information about the chain of events I’d appreciate it. More knowledge is always good.
BTW simply saying “you’re wrong’ is not offering more information.

Edit: sources maintain the MEC directed Bill Bartels to fire the scheduling committee chairman. Apologies for the possible error.

NuGuy

The above is completely wrong. The MEC directed the MEC Chair (BB at the time) to recall the Scheduling Committee chair.

I got the full story from the MSP reps at the time, and your facts are all incorrect.

beernutt

So by ‘completely wrong’ and ‘all incorrect’ you mean correct except for that detail? Ok. I’ll edit my post.

NuGuy

No, pretty much the whole thing is wrong. I got it directly from the people who were in the room when it all went down.

beernutt

Do you care to share any of the ‘facts’ your people told you? I’m repeating what my ‘people in the room’ told me. Or just keep saying “you’re wrong”?

I admit, I’m a little saddened by your statement that Bartels didn’t act on his own in the firing of Bill Kessler. It might have been the only decisive act he did during his entire tenure.

tunes

that's not why they were pulled down, but you already knew that.

tennisguru

So any rumors on when the TA language will be finalized? Is there still going to be a 30-day memrat window even though that puts us past the Nov 28 deadline?

TED74

I'm no secretarial genius, but I do know that we can do better than "to show they were tough" in re-creating historic events. I don't think any elected DALPA representative is so simple-minded as to have this be their motivation, and if the body of the MEC agrees by majority to pull down a provision that had measurable interest in the union...it was for good reason. That's not to say you must AGREE with the reason(s), but I think it's healthy to acknowledge the complexity of negotiations and the many moving parts of establishing or terminating agreements between a union of (formerly) 14,600 pilots and the relatively inexperienced negotiators of a large Fortune 500 company.

A 1 year trial term for the company to give VBs a try was negotiated, and the company didn't implement in that year. It was negotiated for that term because union representation felt that the pilots they represented wanted to try it... not wait a year with nothing to show for the work at the negotiating table. A lot can happen in a year, including a lot of bad or discouraging behavior by the company (and it did). For example, we ran very hot (hotter than most pilots seemed to want) and didn't hire enough pilots to give existing pilots the means to exercise their well-deserved, contractually-established QOL items (e.g., bidable vacations, adequate manning to allow for schedule changes like PDs and movement of reserve days). In categories that the company felt manning was excessive, they offered sub-55 hour SILs. But they did so without accepting ANY RCC inputs in those categories, which were provided to meet the requests/demands of pilots rightfully complaining about sodomizing rotations that squeezed our...um...turnips a bit too tight. A secondary method of converting overmanned status into (pilot-demanded) quality of life improvements would have been to open additional vacation weeks in those categories for bid / move up; again, the company refused. Basically, they sought to convert imbalanced over manning in certain categories (remember, were overmanned overall) into cost savings by selling qol to the lowest bidder (low value SILs) and ignoring more pilot-friendly options. When they finally implemented VBs, they did so without the contractually-mandated coordination/concurrent of DALPA, continuing a trend of liberal interpretation of our contract (at best), or flat out contractual violation (at worst, but also consistent with intentional contractual violations in recent past like the A350 delivery fiasco or A350 instructor line under-fly). Acting within the explicit authorization for either side to pull down VBs for ANY reason, ALPA did so. They determined the theoretical gains of VBs, that would positively affect some pilots while negatively affecting others, were not adequate enough to justify letting the company act so clearly outside the bounds of our PWA. Some pilots prefer this black and white, rigid enforcement of the contract... even when holding the company accountable creates some bad blood. Our most disagreeable MEC has been consistent in this type of contract enforcement. They have made hard choices that haven't uniformly affected this decidedly non-uniform pilot group, but they've done all of it for reasons far more nuanced than "looking tough". Their negotiations tactics and strategy have resulted in the VEOP and numerous LOAs since (and preceding) COVID. I think looking narrowly at something like the trial VB pulldown in isolation misses the broader complexities of negotiations and contract enforcement. To hear my representatives be characterized as "most disagreeable" by an emotional CEO tells me we have the right team at the MEC, but you all can judge for yourselves.

tunes

Possibly tomorrow, maybe a few more days. Should be done this week for sure. There is a 7 day review period for the MEC then a meeting to vote on the LOA at the MEC level. As for the 30 day memrat, that is the standard unless there is a decision made to shorten it.