Saw a sign from one particularly filthy one that said: "We Demand Sweeping Unspecified Change!!!". :rolleyes:

Carl

Two points. First, I'll bet you DALPA opens with less. Second, it's a hell of a lot more than just total pilot costs sailingfun - it's their AMAZING Scope language. You add their Scope along with their pilot costs and that would be an amazing contract for us. More importantly, the NMB would have no leg to stand on for parking us when management started screaming bloody murder.

Carl

Really? You know of items that would make you vote NO to a contract that had you averaging 145k/year for averaging 12 days per month, and the SWA scope language? What's the item(s) that you don't want at all?

Carl

I'm not submitting my survey until I see those numbers, but I have completed and saved it (not submit).

That said, I've been told that they should be out next week.

Something else to consider is that the APA seems to be making progress, if they leap frog SWAPA before our openers, I don't want our MEC having announced that our target is SWAPA +__.

Then there's UCAL in the wings with what, $9B in cash and a profitable airline. Their pilots might do better than both SWAPA and APA.

When it's our turn at bat, I want industry leading and that may not be beating just SWAPA.

You've contacted the DPA advisors and explained this to them, right? That isn't how Seham does it at USAPA, or he did it at PFAA, or AMFA...the group you crossed a picket line to kill.

What makes you think Seham will let Timmy use a third party?

The other method is called Membership Ratification. I knew you wouldn't remember that one. It is how ALPA has validated it's performance at getting contracts.

Sort of. There is no doubt that Washington has become unresponsive to 99% of the population.

However, the "occupy" crowd is becoming a poop magnet. Instead of decrying the subversion of democracy and a genuine free market, they simply despise anyone who has succeeded. With three jobs and over $100,000 a year in earnings, they despise me.

Where we differ is that I worked construction and repaired cars to get through undergrad, then worked a worse job to get through a masters & pay for flying. One morning my boss told me to get parts from a pile that had become an informal latrine. Doing so meant achieving my goals, so I did it.

Now I'm in the big house on the hill and still not safe from market uncertainty. IMHO, the "occupy" crowd needs to "man up" like the other 53% of us that pay our bills and pay taxes.

Atlas hasn't shrugged yet, but he's actively looking at offshore accounts.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that they are upset that the top 1% of the population are amassing more and more of the wealth, while the rest of us fight over the scraps. Pilot unions should share in that frustration. Instead I don't see any sympathy among this crowd.

Bucking Bar, I haven't seen or heard of anybody suggesting they "despise" anybody making over $100,000 a year (maybe the commentators on whichever new channel you watch?). Just frustration about the growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

The frustration with well-paid management as you are left fighitng over the scraps seems like a pretty clear parallel with the Occupy Wall Street crowd. This isn't an insult, just an observation.

By the way, to be in the top 1% of earners in 2010, you had to make over $380,000.

Jayme, this is an unnecessary conversation. The occupy wall street "movement" is a re-election campaign. The territory you're venturing into here is for political blogs.

As to whether or not pilots should join in solidarity because we are unionized or something along those lines? We're fighting the power in C2012, eh?

We're not fighting the power, we're negotiating our services in exchange for money no different than multi-millionare football players did so with the NFL, no different than the NBA players are doing now, no different than what Delta Air Lines does with GoJet, ASA, Skywest, Pinnacle, Mesaba, Alaska and so on- we're negotiating. They're just demanding stuff for free.

Their DC plan funding.

Their Reserve rules.

They get less than us for their DC funding, that's true. Don't their reserves get 14/15 days a month off with a 78 or 79 hour (adjusted for trip) guarantee? If true, that's 30 days a year off more than our reserves get with around 100 extra hours of pay, at significantly higher rates. What do their work rules contain that would outweigh that and make it a net negative?

And remember, it just isn't SWA, its SWA plus reasonable premiums to account for our significantly higher per pilot revenue, plus significant additional premiums for all outsourcing remaining after we significantly reduce it across the board. There are no scope sales, only scope loans. The 9-11 bankruptcy emergency survival contracts imposed under extreme duress across this industry are not some ivy league chortling, brandy sniffing, St Andrews golfing, new world order of the airline industry where we can only achieve small gains here by "paying for it" somewhere else. We can get SWA + reasonable premiums to pay, work rules, retirement and scope, not just pay. That's the point.

As for the "occupants", like any populist uprising, they hit on some veins of truth here and there. But their reasoning and approach and goals are pretty scary. Their "demands" read a lot like the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto. Perhaps the portion of that movement that is hitting on something legitimate can be successfully co-opted by some of the pro freedom and Constitution movements out there. Everything else gets co-opted, so why not this too?