I'm going to guess we won't see the Contract Survey results. I can't imagine anyone said, lets allow more outsourcing. Very disappointing.

 

You're always offended Nu. This isn't a comment about the NWA pilot group.

To suggest that the guys on the MEC don't play politics, that's what's absurd on it's face. You're not that naive, are you?

I just think it's pretty clear what those five do (they always follow the same script), just as it's pretty clear what the others do. Irrelevant to us anyway, since it's inside politics, and it's out of their hands now. Our turn to vote.

 

Actually, for not being a Northie, I find Sinkr8 to be remarkably dead on in his assessment of our reps. What I find surprising is that a fellow Northie can actually say with a straight face that our reps don't and haven't played politics in the past. I guess that whole RvG thing was a fever dream. My bad...

 

HUGE NEGATIVE ...

ALPA has had a full week to get ready for this. And according to the latest code-a-phone, "the TA will be posted to the website, and a series of Negotiators’ Notepads will follow over the next several days." What the heck???

Why can't it be posted within 10 minutes of the MEC vote so we can read the freaking TA?

This is 2012 ALPA ... not 1992!!!

 

I'm just glad there were some NO votes, in years past, there was much arm twisting to get a unanimous Yes Vote...

"To show Strength and Unity" to management!

Puh-leeze! I never bought that logic. Under that logic, most lazy line dogs wouldn't spend 15 minutes reading a T/A. Instead, they would say, "Well the entire MEC voted YES to it, and they have much more detailed info than I do, so they MUST know what they are doing...so I'm voting yes too." or words to that effect.

Now, it would have been nice, if the T/A was sooo good, that it was a slam dunk, unanimous YES vote, done in 15 minutes, and released to us a week ago. Obviously it wasn't -that- good. They spent a week debating it, and still 5 voted against it. I hope those 5 put out a Con paper too.

In light of that fact, I want to hear the good, bad and the ugly. I think the split vote will cause more line dogs to take a much closer look at the T/A, before voting. At least I hope they do. I hope there's a really good turnout at the road shows to discuss it.

I'm getting really sick of hearing, after most prior contracts;

"WHAT? They can DO THAT?? We Gave THAT up TOO??"

Um...yeah...so why did you vote YES for it?

Because the entire MEC did.

 

Source:
http://www.unitednegotiations.com/em...-to-pilots.pdf

Jeff Smisek
President and Chief Executive Officer

May 21, 2012

Dear Pilots:
I want to thank you for your professionalism, as you provide our customers with safe and reliable air transportation every day.

As I’ve said ever since we merged, my goal is to bring work groups together in a manner that is fair to them and fair to the company. Fairness, in a highly competitive business like commercial aviation, means paying competitively, and receiving in return competitive services so that our customers will want to fly us and our investors will want to invest in us. We need to charge competitive prices for our products, and pay competitive prices for the goods, services and people that we need to run our airline.

I’ve spoken to a large number of you in the cockpit as I have traveled around the system, and I share your desire for a quick resolution to contract negotiations for a joint collective bargaining agreement. Since March 2012, when NMB mediators and the parties established the “small group” negotiating process, we’ve made substantial progress in reducing the number of open issues. We are fast approaching the point that the parties will begin to negotiate the key remaining issues.

I’m sure by now you know that Delta and its pilots’ union recently announced a tentative agreement which, among other things, provides significant pay increases, along with efficiencies for the carrier and scope changes permitting expanded use of larger regional jets. The new Delta TA raises the market pay for commercial airline pilots, and effectively sets a new competitive standard for pilot pay. We will be responsive to the impact of the new Delta TA in our negotiations and will need to adjust our current contract proposal to be competitive with the Delta TA. Our proposal will include significant pay rate increases that are competitive with the new Delta TA, as well as scope and work rules that are competitive with the new Delta TA and permit us to remain competitive in the airline business.

Now is the time for all parties to put aside political differences and posturing, and focus on the remaining open contract items. What I ask of you is that we work together to complete our negotiations promptly.

We’ve been negotiating long enough. Let’s get this done.

Respectfully,

Jeff Smisek





So we get this from CEO of UCAL before our own MEC?

 

No kidding! What are they waiting for, a volunteer to crank the mimeograph handle so they can get enough blue copies for all of us? (OK, I'm old)

 

http://www.unitednegotiations.com/em...-to-pilots.pdf

PF's link didn't work for me (had "..." in the middle), but it's easy to find from the main page. I see my link has the same thing, but you can go to www.unitednegotiations.com and then the rest of it is: employees/uploaded-assets/Jeff%27s-letter-to-pilots.pdf

I am very disappointed that "Jeff" has details of our TA before we do.

 

Since this TA apparently does allow more 76 seaters, what do we get for that? Do we get to take DCI from 50% of our departures a day down to 25 or 30% as a result?

Why would the NC sign off on it if there weren't major gains in scope otherwise?

 

Thanks I fixed it in mine too