Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 828666)

DH pay counts toward a GS. The differnce is that DH only does not count toward the 5:15 minimum pay per day in line construction if its a DH only day. You could have deviated the DH and showed up at the first leg and you still get paid for it. You would have had your month go to 77:40 if you did not break the 70 hours.
GS pay for reserves works out well. I doubt you will ever see the company pay double pay on top of the cap and payback days. Regular lineholders don't get the payback days. The company tried very hard on the 1113 contract to eliminate the PB days for reserve GS's and we managed to hold onto it. In the end you will make more money with the PB days in most situations.

Originally Posted by Tonne (Post 828541)

I heard rumor - emails have been sent out for interviews.... anyone have any knowledge of this??

Originally Posted by capncrunch (Post 828652)

I'm not trying to bring this up again but since you asked. Nope. I start off at 3% behind my relative position, by mid career I fall to 10% behind and when I retire I'll be at 3% behind. Am I complaining about that, no. Im happier that we merged. I like the new Delta and am proud to be a part of it. All I'm mentioning are some inequities that the FNWA new hires received predicated on pensions we did not receive. Maybe a courtesy "that sucks" would make the pill easier to swallow. As it is right now, new hires will go into the same aircraft I'm in and be making more than me with their retirement. Simply put, total BS.

Rant over. Falls on deaf ears any way.

Originally Posted by 80ktsClamp (Post 828449)

Exactly, ftb. Unbelievable making the choice not to hold 767A and then complaining about it. Then again, we are pilots...

Originally Posted by Nosmo King (Post 828660)

Let me see if I can move some of the irritation in the correct direction, management.

We are complaining quite a bit about "holes" in the contract and things that we should have cherry picked from both PWAs.

They are valid complaints because there are very few times that a pilot group will have that much leverage in a negotiation.

This is why management hires consulting firms.

A consulting firm will advise management on many issues, one of which is time deadlines and whether they should allow negotiations to be compressed or dragged out.

IMO fNW management has used this in the past to drag out negotiations when times are good and we wanted our piece of the pie. They have also used it in concessions while they gauged the reaction of the pilot group to the latest proposal to gut the contract. It's one of the many tools they have in their arsenal.

In the case of the NW/DL merger their decision may have been driven by cash position or a they may have been told it was a way to reduce negotiating leverage of labor or it could have been a combination of many other things. We will probably never know unless management chooses to reveal their secrets.

Whatever the reason(s), BOTH MECs were time compressed by management deadlines. Both were given a very limited amount of time to hash out the MAJOR issues in a LOA/JPWA. This left limited time and manpower to learn each others contracts and glean the good stuff while excising the bad stuff. So the MECs did what they almost always do, they look at pay, retirement, scope, benefits and whatever they think are the major issues of the pilot group at that time.

That means a lot of the goodies fell through the cracks because we didn't have time to be do a thorough comparison of both contracts side by side.

Things that might have been changed if we had more time to analyze? Here's a short list from this thread.

Short Call
Reserve guarantee and rigs
Retirement/DC
Commute Policy
AE/APA
Instructors hotel and per diem
PBS

Other things I wish we had changed or done differently?

BCBS instead of UHC (Not likely considering where RA's last job was)
fNW long term sick conversion
<insert dozens of items here>

IMO it was an excellent strategy by management to reduce our negotiating power. Whether it was a by product of other factors or a primary negotiating tool doesn't matter.

I would bet good money that this discussion is going on at UAL/CAL headquarters.

If you want to be mad at either or both MECs, that's fine, but be mad at them for not finding a way to get the time needed to do a more thorough job. They did the best they could with the time they were given.

Originally Posted by hoserpilot (Post 828646)

What Rubbish!!!!! Should have been 3-2 USA.

Originally Posted by acl65pilot (Post 828680)

As much as I would like to see Double Pay for GS for reserves, I like the PB day option better. Now PB days with double pay for an IA. I like that idea.

Originally Posted by sailingfun (Post 828661)

I have had several pilots tell me that but most were working off different dated lists. I saw in print no pilot moved more then 1.5 percent when using apples to apples seniority lists. I moved 1.1 percent back.

Originally Posted by hoserpilot (Post 828646)

What Rubbish!!!!! Should have been 3-2 USA.