DrJekyll MrHyde

Considering our plans, that's actually rational.

DrJekyll MrHyde

I can't say that our MEC would have acted any different, but your MEC was first to reach the end of the 1-year scheduled sessions; and we've been watching. Would you like us to unlearn any lessons from watching your group, just so you can have some company? Our group wants a great contract at Spirit, and I'd imagine the feeling is likewise. This isn't some petty competition between pilot groups, I wish the Spirit pilots well.

kspilot

I'd like to see a discussion on unelected bureaucrats getting to determine what a pilot is worth instead of the marketplace. Or how those bureaucrats essentially reward companies who use legislation to artificially drive down labor costs and punish carriers who comply the RLA legislation and NMB mission as it was intended by having to compete with those who don't. In my mind we aren't even negotiating with the company, we are debating the company for an audience of 2 people. When they decide it's okay they wave a manic wand, grant us leverage and only then do negotiations even begin.

HacksawDuggan

They may be unelected but the NMB is comprised of presidential appointees which makes them indirectly elected. Not like the workers at the local DMV.

What 100% needs to happen is retro in every pilot contract.

kspilot

Great, then in the USA why is a presidential board determining what wages should be?

Nick1984

It’s not, it’s mediating two groups. It doesn’t determine anything in this situation other than the ability and impact of ‘self-help’ on interstate commerce, which is federal jurisdiction. That’s why it is allocated to a federally appointed group. Arbitration and mediation are not the same, and one has to be entered into voluntarily by both groups. What F9 is enduring is per the RLA and the contract FAPA agreed to, and it has nothing to do with wage fixation by the government.

http://www.nmb.gov/about-nmb/nmb-overview/

kspilot

So in determining the ability and impact of ‘self-help’ on interstate commerce they don't indirectly control wages in your opinion? When the Spirit pilot group gets essentially told that the companies give was reasonable enough to kick a determination on self help down the road indefinitely even though it is significantly less than other carriers compensation packages are worth the NMB isn't basically concluding, on their own, what someone there is worth? And if the NMB didn't exist and wasn't currently preventing self help at both ULCCs would both groups would be paid what they are in SEP of 2017? When the disparity in total compensation at F9 vs someone flying the same plane on the same route is as it stands today I can't help but believe the RLA and NMB are being used to much as a tool by management.

DrJekyll MrHyde

The NMB is a political institution, created to protect corporations under the guise of protecting interstate commerce. It's entire purpose is to act as a roadblock to labor self-help and in turn give corporations the upper hand in negotiations. Think about how much political power the railroads had in 1926. We have to play their 1926 game, where the management group can do nearly anything (that in comparison would be considered a work action if it were the labor side) and we have to do everything status quo with a fake smile, despite management doing everything they can to get a rise out of us. It's the only means we have of getting to self-help.

You'd think ALPA had amassed enough size to take on making amendments to the RLA, such as time limits on mediation. Someone once told me that ALPA was afraid to open the RLA to amendments in fear that it could become worse than it presently exists; but I disagree.

sulkair

I am forced to draw the same conclusion. The NMB is the final determiner of what you're worth. I can't see any way around this fact.

Until the Spirit situation, I had hoped the NMB felt airline pilots should be paid what other airline pilots are paid, but apparently this isn't the case.

Extremely troubling.

TurboFanMan

Wasn't the LOA 67 deadline set by the arbitrator Oct 9th, or 10th?
Based on the issue date of his letter?
I thought maybe we would be hearing something on that this week or next.
I should say the date he would like to see it resolved.