You are ok with a complete overhaul of our MEC and preparing for the inevitable JCBA......?

.....Then do something about it! Recall your reps then or step up if you don't like it! Bu you won't, just like every other person sitting behind a keyboard b!tching and complaining. I've said it before, everyone wants to be involved now and everyone is a professional negotiator. Look at the turnout when it comes to LEC elections... how many stepped up last time and how many participated in the election process? MEC Chairman elections will be this fall... we will be over 5k pilot group by then... how many do you think will step up? How many ran for the NC committee position? It's the same crap at every airline.

As far as the "pillars", since I've heard this argument before.... So if they would have gotten pay and profit sharing, but no increase in per diem (like Spirit TA...and eating out on the road has gotten $$$), they should have walked away because they didn't achieve the per diem pillar? The same crap is going at Delta... They had several pillars, not all were achieved, so should they have not sent the TA out? Same is happening at Hawaiian...

 

I get what you are trying to say but not really a good example. I am sure everyone would be ok with pay and profit sharing improvements and no per diem improvements lol

 

So, let’s conduct a poll:

How many of you posting on this topic thread have ever actually been on a Negotiating Committee?
Who amongst you has sat across the table from Airline Executives and their lawyers and conducted actual Contract Negotiations?

I’ll go first.

I have. Funny enough, one of the lawyers I argued against was none other than Ellen Ham. She’s like something out of Central Casting…

Show of hands, now.

 

I couldn’t agree more with this perspective. Keyboard warriors/negotiators is all that is on here. The bottom line is this TA will pass with flying colors. It’s all get and we aren’t giving up anything then a hypothetical bargaining position that is pure perception. However, It is amusing to read all the interesting and diverse perceptions on here. Now keyboard warriors please pile on I have thick skin.

 

Not gonna pile on you, but tell us why you think JB has offered large raises and a multi-million dollar bonus if it's not out of necessity?

 

and while you were negotiating would it have made it easier or harder knowing the pilot group behind you had expectations and was willing to go to war over it.


the problem is the pilot group. The surveys were weak. The union however does a very poor job in educating the pilot group. In fact the last survey, In oct(or nov), didn’t have any questions on profit sharing. Pretty hard to put a value on it, when it isn’t asked.

 

In all fairness to the pilot group, this time around the MEC tried to gin the group up at the drop of a hat, as if it was an on/off switch…. Here’s a red lanyard! Labor dispute over the holidays unless we get what we want! …… nevermind here’s the best we can get ! I’m still kind of whiplashed over that, hell I was mailed a red lanyard and instructed to be enraged and to be ready for a fight however we reached the TA 2 days after I received it. Contrast that to TA1, and the failed NEA LOA where the group was energized ready to tough it out until the NC delivers something that lets the air slowly out of the tires. The MEC/NC is somewhat at fault by the inability to properly time, cultivate then harnessing that energy/frustration, more like they routinely throw a wet towel on it before it gets to critical mass in some sense betraying that energy. They keep letting the air out of the tires prematurely.

One substantial change I would suggest is the recognition that survey data stales fairly quickly especially in the industry events of the last 2-3 yrs. If they can manage to keep a real time quantitative pulse on the rapidly changing opinions and expectations of the pilot group that would help immensely.

 

It was the same case for LOA13 - take a survey in the fall of 2020, when there’s no vaccine and we’re only flying 10% of our schedule… then come out with an LOA four months later giving away Scope in exchange for furlough protection… when there’s a vaccine, airlines are recovering, and there’s zero chance of furloughs.

Then sell it like we’re all going to get furloughed…

 

Exactly my point…. Then they say, well that’s what the survey data indicated. They need a better real time pulse on the group.

 

So the argument of step up and volunteer if one doesn’t like what’s happening isn’t a valid argument. It’s a typical canned response from those who volunteer for a position with high visibility and don’t like criticism. In our current MEC state, our guys are hand picked to either support the chairman or thats it. It’s the main reason why almost every vote that has come up in the last 3+ years is always agreed on unanimously.

I drove 5 hours round trip during the FLL recall vote, and while I have no issues personally with any of the LEC guys at the time, I didn’t agree with their positions on our MEC. My issue is this wasn’t a negotiation, nothing was to be given away. It was told to us compensation and profit sharing were the target. I don’t like that the target wasn’t met so I’m a no vote. I’m tired of the we will get them next time mantra and excuses; it will continue forever ad nauseam.