Hear! Hear!

I say the new contract needs an update to the bidding timeline:

3rd - Bids Open
9th - Bids Close
14th - Awards Posted

* Bs shall be posted within 24 hours of captains.

Wouldn’t do any good. That would be just another contract item that would continuously be violated with no real repercussions.

So "QOL" (what a ridiculous term...sort of like "inclusion" it is used so much in a flippant manner that no one really even knows what it means) now means that a reserve should not be able to be used by the company as a...reserve...so more guys in base can get premium pay to fly a trip that is easily assignable to a reserve and has been for decades prior?

Don't think the negotiators are going to be wasting much time pursuing that fantasy. Might as well say "QOL" by demanding premium pay for driving to work during rush hour. I mean doesn't that impact your "QOL?"

We need to work hard on improving the quality of our trips as we fly them (improved DH language, which has been mentioned recently, is a great example) and that is where we need to place our emphasis. Trying to restrict the company's ability to run the trip coverage sequence as it currently exists will take a bit more effort.

By the way, I agree that there are a few areas there which should be improved (such as the ability the company has to assign a trip to a reserve that conflicts with his regular line days off in the next month, all for no premium pay, when they could not do that if it interfered with his reserve days off!...that should never have been in the contract to begin with. However, that is not the same as just saying "reserves can only cover in base trips, period."

There's nothing ridiculous about the term QOL... just thinking that it has a narrow definition, or that anyone's personal definition is universal for everyone. For me, QOL items are any contractual changes that aren't explicitly or solely compensation (e.g., pay rates, vacation/training valuation, etc).

I could be in a very small minority, but I could theoretically vote yes to a contract that increases PWA value by a billion dollars without touching pay rates. An increasing percentage of us have decades left and aren't topped out on anything yet (longevity, sick leave, vacation, category seniority). I'd like to strike now and insert QOL items into the PWA that will be hard to extricate in the years ahead. Our payrates generally won't wander far from industry standard, IMHO. And PS captures profitability if we remain an industry leader.

I am actually sort of along the same line of thinking (though ZERO pay increases won't sell). We actually did a good job post BK of dramatically improving the contract one small item at a time. Sometimes with side letters, sometimes with formal section 6. Compounded together it all made a significant improvement to our lives. I could list ten things off the top of my head, but I'll just list PS deviation from dh, hotels for CQ for anyone living > 50 miles away, and bidding for CQ as just easy examples. We didn't have any of those a dozen years ago.

While section 6 negotiations are the "primary" source of improvements, in the past we have secured a lot of improvements outside of it. Keep the emails to your reps flowing, if you want to influence them. They are the ones who direct the negotiators, etc.

I'm not here to defend the company but your implication that they release our PBS schedules late is incorrect.
The few times they have been released late was due to something inadvertantly being illegal or missed.
You want to change the time line,go ahead, But one of the few things that seem to consistently work well is the awarding of our schedules.
Now the PBS interface/webapp is another discussion.:eek:

The May B's are out!!!!!!

Costing is the biggest single part of contract negotiations. The company and union cost out every single item. In the end the company wants to have a reasonably competitive cost per block hour for pilots. Within that number they really don’t care where the money is spent.

And here is the reason for Ed’s comment that he will/wants to wait for United and AA to come to a contract agreement before us. If they don’t then he knows Delta will have to pony up big time. Whereas if he waits he can point to them and claim we will be non competitive if we get what we are asking for....

Denny

Yep. So hopefully UA and AA knock it out of the park to give us more leverage.