The authority existed since 2004 when the XJT contract was ratified. Nothing stops the company from exercising their contractual right to invoke section 26 when introducing new aircraft. There was no change in that section I the contract. It had already existed.

 

The ASA MEC exercised their rights under the TPA agreeement. The Arbitrator will determine what the language and the "intent" of the language means.

Questions:

Did the XE MEC provide a copy of the TPA agreement to the Arbitrator prior to his services, as a mediator or arbitrator?

Were there things agreed to by the Company and the XE negotiators prior to submission of final open issues to the Arbitrator? YES there where!

Which came first... The agreements OR the Arbitration?

 

Is anyone else tired of union politics? ALPA and our MEC's are so useless. How anyone can look at the steaming pile of crap we have for a union and say we are better off is beyond me.

Industry wide our pay is pathetic for the training and level of responsibility we have. FO pay is criminal and captain pay is nothing to brag about either. I've always hated unions and my opinion only gets stronger with each passing year. I'm sure the pro union goons will be chiming in soon. Love your pathetic unions if you want, but they are screwing you.

 

This may sound weird, but I'm not a "huge fan" of Unions either, however I think they are a necessary evil. (At least in this industry) I would be lying if I said there hasn't been occasions where Union Politics created such a distraction that the "work of the pilots" took a back seat to someone, or "something's" agenda. I don't know If that makes sense but hopefully you can kind of see where I am coming from. one thing you can't deny is how robust ALPAs committee structure is and how great/beneficial such things like the JS Com, Aeromedical, ASAP, Scheduling com etc. If for nothing else it prevents the company for just changing things whenever they want (JBlues Health care for example)

 

XJT has plenty of leeway regarding Medical benefits in our contract. There is very little defined in terms of out of pocket expenses etc. Deductibles went up last year right?

 

FWIW, the merged XJT pilot group is larger than many with independent unions and could easily contract out all the "services" we already buy from ALPA if we formed our own union... If we could ever get on the same page with anything...

 

Yes, but the company will pay 70% or 75% of the premiums. Also, they have to provide the same plans that they offer other employee groups. So I they want to stick it to us, they have to screw the entire company, including themselves.

 

This is exactly how I feel about ALPA and pilot unions. ALPA is only what your pilot group makes it. At my last company we had some great guys that used the ALPA resources to get us a great contract. Without their hard work and smarts we would have never had what we had. An airline like ExpressJet has a lot of obstacles to overcome with a split pilot group and pilots there just to get time and move on. What's the motivation to fight when you plan to leave asap? I'm lucky enough to be following Joey to Spirit.

 

I'm with ya... I hate our union. They don't do much if anything for me and all I hear about are meetings in Miami or another sunny destination that my dues are paying for. The childish bickering and middleschool antics I've seen from BOTH sides are ridiculous. Get it the F done! Don't get me wrong, I don't think much of the management team either but I have no say what so ever about that.
As much as I hate unions, the company has been built with one in place and has grown with one. Therefore they expect it, deal with it, plan for it and would hose the pilots first chance they got if it were gone. Therefore a union is a necessary evil. I'm interested in an in-house union, but it would have to be after a TA/Contract/Integration and we'd need some of these dinosaurs near the top of the list to get on the same page as everyone else on both sides.

 

Disregard

Filler