Tell’’em you’ll give up the E3 visas. Dumbodrop said it was kool.

 

That's been the line as long as I've been here....

 

That is basically true to an extent (I think its a poor attitude to have/show your fellow pilots). You must always give something up to gain in other areas as the contract is an overall total compensation package and each thing costs the company X amount of money. You can't just pick the best things of every contract and have a perfect tier 1 contract as it would cost the company too much.

That being said, the contract must be improved and it usually does get improved with each cycle as the cost of the contract usually increases as well as inflation. We see where the bar is set at other carriers and we have to decide what we as a pilot group find important.

We can't have everything that is great from other contracts, but we also can't settle for less than standard overall.

 

While I understand your pragmatic approach…Why not? There’s no rule that says that. Matching contracts is not pattern bargaining.

 

I mean, there isn't anything saying we can't. I guess what I am saying is that you can't just expect everything great or better than everyone else. By no means am I saying we can't shoot for the moon (hence why I said telling your pilots "what are you willing to give up for it " is a terrible thing) but we can't be upset when we don't get it and I am sure we will see the best contract in F9 history eventually and there will still be people upset saying they didn't get x, y and z and say that FAPA could have done better.

I think a TLDR is basically that I think they should explain how the contract negotiations work and give people a better answer than "what are you willing to give up?" because it really makes it feel like they don't care about your opinion. If someone asks about X, then explain why it might be tough to get everything and tell them how if they want that, then it might lead to less in another portion of the contract.

But yeah, I still want the best of everything of course. I hope to see the best of the best when we get our contract, especially since it will be 2-3 years after every other carrier has already been at higher rates and better QOL.

 

Give it up buddy...

 

Thomas? He retired 5 years ago.

 

Hold on. You’re surprised that during negotiations the negotiation committee is asking the other side to negotiate?

 

absolutly NO reason to give up ANYTHING.......

self help
self help
self help....

 

I would echo this sentiment (limiting concessions from the labor side of things) from a fundamental perspective. In other words, given management's penchant for changing operations and/or the revenue/business model based on how the tea leaves and chicken bones shake out in the Emerald Palace, I think all labor groups at F9 are at a non-trivial risk of serious QOL disruption due to the constantly changing tides. As such, any position the MEC takes with negotiations should attempt to insulate us from the whims of management and the consequences of their poor decision calculus. ...I would hope that the MEC's starting point is not to surrender anything given the risk that the F9 rudderless ship would abruptly change course and put us in a worse spot than before. I suspect this has been discussed (at least the 1% non-cynical remaining part of my brain hopes...); but then again, I would also wager that it's really hard to create a solid, enforceable contract when operational parameters and variables are all over the place... and will be as we try to deal with an oversupplied domestic market and solutions that involve costume bear paws.

I continue to see the importance of an enforceable contract with teeth... and I reckon that's why management is so reluctant to concede to our points about dispute resolution, examples in the CBA, etc. Case in point... Management is all for letting us drop to 30 in FLICA? Cool. Except that even now scheduling can't keep up with faciliating open time/trade requests in compliance with CBA rules and timelines. So now scheduling is expected to potentially deal with a 40% increase in requests if folks can drop from 50 to 30? Now, I get it... that's an edge case; not everyone in the company drops to 50 and would then drop to 30 if given the opportunity. But hopefully you see the example for what it's worth. I think you could find lots of other scenarios where a lack of investment by the company has either a direct or indirect negative impact on the supposed QOL that the contract affords to us. I hope the negotiators are addressing this in some way that doesn't leave us holding the bag when F9 decides to eliminate contract gate agents and replace them with self-service kiosks and a recreation of the showbiz Rock-a-fire Explosion greeting pax and reminding them to check to see if their hefty garbage sack of clothes fits in the sizer.