The best way to give up the upper hand is by discussing specific negotiations on any forum online including facebook. Nothing wrong with griping, but the issue starts when people start throwing out I want "xxx" and "xxx" as now the company knows exactly what we want and will use 1/4 of that as a starting point. All for complaining, but no specifics please!

The other bargaining chip is loading up the company with valid grievances. A lot of times it does force some change.

^^^this. A lot of people hesitate or don't believe in the grievance process because we live in the era of instant gratification. Yes grievances aren't rectified immediately, but neither was Rome. They work and are one of the best negotiating tools we have. You've probably heard it hundreds of times, but if you have a specific comment, concern, question, request, please let your reps know, they are listening and are trying to vote on your behalf the best they can even if it doesn't seem like it. Only a united union can instigate change, remember that.

It is pretty high. CA rsv lists have 6 RE's, only one of them is a flow. Rest are AA outside the flow, UPS and ULCC's. A few more have class dates, just haven't sent their notices yet. And this is just reserve captains. Add the lineholders, and FO's (bunch of them are getting hired at Spirit/Frontier/jBlue).

What seniority are we talking though? I saw a lot of those RSV CA's but it doesn't help people who are 1500 or better.

600-1700 is the range, roughly.
There's a bunch in the sub-1000 category too, but they won't show on the reserve list.

I've got to imagine there's some truth to this. Didn't we give up get something a couple agreements back in exchange for giving up a grievance that was going to cost them?

I know captains here that have offers at Delta, United, Southwest, Spirit, and FedEx that have class dates in February and March and they're waiting to put in their resignations right before their class dates, so there's more coming.

the one grievance I wanted to file bc the company was blatantly violating the contact the union said “no we agree with the company””, but yes the contract does say that”

I had something very similar happen once. Very frusterating.