Why are so many unable to have more than one thought at a time? Failure to improve retirement significantly will mean that the same people who are now denigrating the focus on retirement will be the ones complaining down the road that it never got fixed. I hope that we are smart enough to walk and chew gum simultaneously.[/QUOTE]

The ones retiring had plenty of opportunities to improve retirement.

 

I think the point was that the same will be said of you if we don't do it this time.

As for plenty of opportunities goes, in 2006, the TA top pay rate didn't exceed $260 per hour until the last year, and that was only on the A380 that we never got. 2011 was an extension until FAR 117 rules were published. So, the only contract that pay rates exceeded the current $260 limit was 2015. Yes, we should have fixed it then.

 

The ones retiring had plenty of opportunities to improve retirement.[/QUOTE]

And we didn’t. So now, this contract, is the time we DO. Significantly improve it — to make up for those missed opportunities.

 

Understood! It should be fixed now but we can do that, get industry leading pay, make QOL improvements and not give any concessions at the same time. That much we have earned.

 

This 👆

Everybody complains that the retirement wasn’t fixed in the past 20+ years….well FedEx didn’t grow into our retirement until the end of the ‘06 contract! Details matter.

Yes it would have been great to fix it in ‘15. Unfortunately union politics torpedoed that However it was not the complete dereliction of looking after the pension as the young whipper snappers imply. This is your chance to fix it… will you?

On a different note, it does suck that a guy walking out the door who won’t “get” to work under this contract can vote but the guy still on probation with 30 years to go can’t. Different subject for a different day.

WE will all get to see what was negotiated and vote accordingly soon. Conjecture, whining and the circular firing squad is just not a good look.

 

And we didn’t. So now, this contract, is the time we DO. Significantly improve it — to make up for those missed “opportunities.”[/QUOTE]

 

We all should fully expect the MEC to vote no and this to drag on for another 8-12 months. It would be a complete waist of a strike vote not to. Go back and bargain for more. We have leverage… let’s f$&@ing use it now!

 

After 36 years of concessionary contracts, and economic cycles, I can say with confidence that, only a few items can be fixed at this time., say retirement and a little pay. Purple had their chance to improve a lot of issues in the past around every single peak season when the company was making billions. However the "INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR MENTALITY/ greed " that has plagued the pilot group for decades has only divided the group into short sighted pilots who hang their argument on one issue and miss the big picture most of the time. How do you go for 24 years without a retirement increase?? Forest through the trees... Additionally, Given the economy, you don't have any ammo in the gun. When you did have it you didn't use it. It doesn't matter where on the seniority list you are, a retirement fix needs to happen now. There's no magic formula in a future contact that will make up for 5 more years of of lost wages in retirement between the ages of 65 to say 85. As somebody else said, It will be your turn some day. If the contract is crap, vote no. Otherwise take the deal and fight another day. We are ALL in this together.

 

Saying we didn’t fix everything on prior contracts is similar to saying how come guys worked at a regional so long and didn’t fix their slave wages. They had multiple contract to vote down or go on strike. Matter of fact you could say they were stealing jobs from legacy pilots. If they would have voted down their crappy contracts the last 20 years and pushed for the wages they are making now the legacies would have brought all those jobs in house.

Why the huge crying about knowing what is in the TA. You will find out soon enough. Nothing is going to change between now and when they release it. Read it, if you don’t like it vote no.

The negotiating committee stays in touch with the MEC and I would hope they are both on the same page as to what would be acceptable. If they are out of touch with the crew force then it will get voted down.

Remember the company negotiating team is only trying to give enough for a 51% pass vote. The union negotiating team is trying for 100% yes vote which is much harder ask!

 

What in the actual he11? How about we don't "waist" our opportunity to see this thing. You literally have no idea how the dynamics of the strike vote, the UPS strike threat, the Delta contract, the American TA, the WN strike vote, the UA strike vote, and the railway settlement affected negotiations down the stretch. How about we take a peek before we make any decisions.

If the NC brought the MEC something that is untenable to them, then something is extremely broken. I'm not seeing indications of that level of dysfunction.