Crazy Canuck

Dude, this guy just refuses to be wrong. You could present him with all the evidence in the world, he isn’t going to change his mind lol

pinseeker

The company has to offer all open positions to pilots currently on the seniority list before they can offer them to a new hire. By making the bids so long, the company saves training cycles for new hires. Instead of most new hires going to the 757 while the current 757 pilots train to wide bodies, the company is able to hire directly into the unfilled wide body slots from the system bid. If they did a smaller bid, like 100 wide body FO slots, they could only hire into a wide body if all of those slots were not filled.

BLOB

This👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Let me clarify…..I am certain that our current training system was negotiated with the intent of allowing pilots to have a little more say in when they went to training. Unfortunately it seems like that only holds true for the most part for captains upgrading or captains moving laterally….I’m sure somebody will illustrate where a captain has been hosed as well. (If so, try to do so without saying abrogate seniority since it makes you sound like a wannabe lawyer). I think unfortunately for the first officers this has not proven to be the case for many because there were no constraints on how many new hires could flow into a particular seat at the expense of people on the property who held a bid to that seat. The massive bids negatively impacts our control regardless of any system that we have I believe.

This is why I would caution against making a whole lot of quality of life changes in the contract. The company always knows how they WILL interpret a particular section and the union only knows how they THINK the company will interpret a particular section. None of our negotiators go into negotiations intending to give away quality of life issues. However we are at a bargaining disadvantage due to this.

Pay Rates and Retirement (increase…not re-write) please.

FXLAX

Let’s not capitulate 90% of possible contract improvements out of fear. That’s exactly how management wants us, fearing. It’s worked on many many pilots hear, seems like.

BLOB

Not fear….just limiting the areas that can be manipulated. The more “language” we add in the contract the more we open up loopholes. You can’t manipulate a pay rate.

pinseeker

Neither side opened the filing of vacancies section of the contract, so our current system bid process will not change.

pinseeker

The current system affects both captains and first officers. The pilot group wanted to have more control of training dates. They didn't like the old system of being assigned a training date, possibly trading that date, only to have the new date changed. We wanted a system that allowed you to bid on a date, and that date wouldn't change. Even if the company had a two year bid, you would know when you were going to training and could plan your life around that. Obviously, that is not what we got. As you said, the company knew how they were going to implement the system based on language while the MEC told us how they "thought" it would work.

FXLAX

So you are afraid of what may be negotiated because of how it might be interpreted? Either way, I would say that your mentality plays to management’s desire on your indefinitely locking in many “good” work rules.

This is correct. And also not my point. Unless you feel this will be the last contract negotiations ever?

pinseeker

So you are talking about the next contract. You do know that we have been on the same pay scale for almost two years? You know that we have been negotiating for 16 months? However, you are already talking about the next contract? SMH!!!

BLOB

Kind of like after an election when they’re already talking about 4 years from now.

perfect is the enemy of good. Don’t settle but get what matters and can be won in this contract. Don’t add more loose language.