We are ALPA's Commodity
 

ALPA is a business. It's a business that doesn't produce, pack, ship, or deliver a single product. The Union's commodity is a Pilot Group that is forced to pay them no matter if their service is good, bad, or ugly (agency shop). They make their money off of us, from agency shop (2015 CBA Section 29) to insurance products to VEBA/Post 65 PRP to wet leasing... Their latest money-making scheme is this new retirement plan. They stand to make a fortune off managing it especially if they are able to push this thing on to the rest of the airline industry. What happened to the survey results the first time they pitched it to us? It's a shame that for all of our hard work and all the money we pay the union, all we get is a single vote on such a critical life-changing agreement. For the reasons of non-industry leading pay, non-industry leading retirement, and ever-expanding wet-leasing, I'm voting NO. Please join me! We don't have to eat this! We always pass these bad agreements and then complain about them for years after. Let's do something different this time! It only took about a year to get a much better TA after Delta and United voted theirs down a few years ago. Let's just say NO for once!

You are aware United isn't even close to a TA right? Have you followed whats gong on over there? Believe me you don't want to bet the farm on their process.

It would be much better to get people to join you if you don’t make such egregious mistakes as you did in your argument. You blew your credibility with not knowing who manages the new pancake-lite retirement plan

UAL guys are still arguing the Continental and United merger.

I've been hearing about ALPA's profit motives for 30 years.

Sure wish I knew where to buy stock.....

Howdy Huck!
 

Almost like the "bad ole APC days"...I don't think we've both posted on APC on the same thread in 15 years!

Believe you? What makes you the expert? Ok then, believe me, the OP is correct here.

BINGO-NAILED IT ON THE HEAD. This is why our TA is a joke and does not even come close to meeting inflation. Scope do not even get me started. Tony C. summary does not even begin to explain

What exactly are you referring to in the TA that doesn’t come close to meeting inflation?

Pay rates.

A plan.

Two rather important items, I'd say.

pay rates are well behind inflation.

retirement is well behind inflation.

overrides and other fixed dollar amounts in the TA have not been adjusted for inflation

That’s what I was assuming, but he didn’t say. And yes, I’d say they were important too. Very important.

Just was wondering if he had numbers that were different. I did a calculation from BLS calculator that showed we needed approx $241K for the A plan to be worth what it was in 1999. Doesn’t come close.

But what I got for pay rates (only for the top rate) was slightly below. However, the TA web shows it above. If he has data that shows pay rates farther below that, it would be good if he could put the numbers on here. World like to see as many calculations we can get from others so I can see what reps say

Most inflation calculations show 17, almost 18 percent inflation since our last pay increase.

for someone on year 2 or 3 widebody pay the proposed raise isn’t even 14%…

that’s extremely sad/pathetic, especially when you consider the sacrifices we made during Covid that made the company billions to buy back stock with.

Yes. I was wanting him to specify if he had anything else. I got A plan at very far below inflation. Also got pay rates lower as well, but not far below. Still not good But you also mention overrides etc. That’s good. I totally missed those

Another easy comparison is to social security payouts. Since our last pay raise in 2020, beneficiaries have received cumulative COLA increases of 16.6%. And unlike our TA, they didn't horse trade anything else to get it. Maybe I'm just an entitled pilot, but I think beating SS increases shouldn't just be a goal, it should be a given. Pathetic pay rates only begin to describe this disaster of a TA. Easiest NO vote in history.

What up! It's still an Algonquin Round Table around here.....

Ok, don't believe me....go peruse the United message boards on this site. You can learn all about the Toddlers and Recall

They videotaped the Roadshow. They showed what inflation was since the first contract and where we are in relation to that line......Counting our pay raise in Feb, after DOS in Aug....this would give us something like 17.1 don't quote me on that...number is not in front of me.

It would be helpful to have a discussion based on math if you did have the numbers in front of you.

​​​​​​If that 17.1 is correct, then that means by some metrics we would just barely match inflation, and by others still be lacking. But I don't have those number in front of me either.

So while *maybe* matching our pay to inflation, we then gave away: QOL items, opened a gaping hole in scope, and effectively axed the defined benefit plan...all to fund the pseudo pancake retirement plan?

This assumes no inflation occurs over the next eight months. Current inflation is around the five percent mark with no signs of shallowing out.

Besides, when was the last time we shot for just matching inflation?

Stan, Laughing Jakal, Boomerbus, all these dudes, don't give a rat's a$$ about payrates. They see this TA through the lens of leaving in the next couple of years, just like Pat.

To those of us trying to stop this decades-long negative trend in QoL which we cannot seem to escape here (because the company plays us expertly), we are going up against the company's low offers AND the union's sales jobs.

When you see our pilots settling for barely matching inflation, and our NC/Speculator's charts full of asterisks, and still insisting on calling our payrates a win, it gives you an idea of what we are up against with this vote.

You wouldn't need to "sell" a good TA
 

Collectively, the crowd is smarter than the experts. Many members have brought up excellent points and rationale. I'm glad to have access to more information than we used to have before internet. The union is not a monopoly on the TA narrative. Humans are a primitive species and can easily be persuaded with psy ops, fear, arrogance, half truths, and so forth, please help me brainstorm more.

It's a struggle to get wages to keep up with inflation. The government is against you in this. I used to expect a real raise so I had more purchasing power. Now we are gambling on investments to keep up and if we win, if we actually have to sell and realize some gains to live on we owe more taxes, so really we have a melting ice cube of wealth.

We should not give anything up to fix our A plan. They are offering a Hobson's choice to make you choose the MBCBP. Don't be jealous of the young guys just yet, time will tell the outcome for them in retirement.

A colleague kept repeating "I want what Delta has." I took a look at theirs and the AA AIP and was gobsmacked at how much better it is.

Oh believe me, I care about pay rates.....No matter what you say or do...If this passes....My pay goes up $100k a year over 4.5 years.....I will spend some of it on Costco Jeans and New Balance shoes......

Cloud....why don't you PM me....find out who I am....I find out who you are....we can talk on the phone....find out we're just regular guys who don't agree on something important.....Open invitation, but my time is valuable....if you're just going to deride me or harangue me I won't give you a whole lot.....Just think...you can come back here and tell everyone what an idiot I am......Tony C knows me......Call him.....I doubt he would call me an idiot.....he also knows I'm not management or work for the NC or MEC.....like you, I am a pilot here issuing my opinion.....seems like things don't change...I wasted my time on here years ago....seems like a narcissistic outlet.

Sure, I get it...I didn't take pictures of any of the slides or anything....it was pretty self explanatory....There was someone in front of me that was taking pictures of the slides....PM me and I'll tell you who it was so you can contact them.....

Like I said, they were taping the road shows.....I'm not saying we were blowing inflation out of the water...but to say we are well below is patently not the case......sometimes big +...sometimes little -.....LIke I said...pretty self explanatory unless you think NC is purely fabricating numbers and lying about CPI

Hopefully they will book mark certain parts of the video so you can "Skip ahead to your favorite action", so you don't have to waste time on stuff you'd rather not hear from them on.