Snarge

Mesabah, if you were as management savvy and smart as you portray yourself to be, why on this forum? Pilots fly airplanes really well.

Mesabah

Because I work at a computer all day, and I post on multiple forums across many industries.

Snarge

For personal reasons or someones agenda?

Check Essential

jetBlue guys-

Those of you who read these boards regularly will know that I am extremely critical of ALPA.
The national headquarters makes a lot of mistakes and they spend way too much money.
Some of the things their lawyers do make me want to scream.

But-

I would strongly urge you to vote yes for ALPA.
Leave emotion out of it. Disregard the hundreds of criticisms that can legitimately be leveled at ALPA. This is strictly a financial decision. There is no question in my mind that your career earnings and benefits will be vastly improved if you have ALPA representation. That is the bottom line.
ALPA will get you and your family more money than a "direct relationship".

My 2 cents.

Mesabah

No agenda, I just believe the hierarchy is:
1: strong union = good
2. no union = bad to Okay - depends on management
3. weak union = abysmal - works with management to screw you and weaken labor law.

P-3Bubba

You're better than that Snarge. See what the Union vote instills. Paranoia.

benzoate

Jetblue said we have a traditional PPO plan (ie no seed money or rewards money) just like our peers.

Here is the comparison Jetblue Traditional PPO (Orange) Plan vs Alaska Traditional PPO Plan.



Jetblue wrote:
Quote:
here was also a completely misleading snapshot of our healthcare versus Alaska’s. We intend to make sure that the facts being debated are the correct facts. The publication highlighted a pie chart showing Alaska’s total annual “family of four” healthcare costs were only $4,041. ALPA only used Alaska’s monthly premium annualized with no other healthcare costs included. But, when they calculated JetBlue’s numbers, they added up the following three healthcare costs:

1. JetBlue’s monthly premium annualized ($3,648: an amount $393.00 less than Alaska’s premium noted above)
2. JetBlue’s deductible
3. JetBlue’s out of pocket cost share until the out of pocket maximum is reached

In addition, ALPA failed to offset any of the JetBlue figures with our Seed Dollars of $800 or Healthy Reward Dollars of $800, a company contribution of $1600.

This is not a fair comparison – but a purposely misleading statement of “fact.”


Who is being misleading?

Fins Up

In that case, since the vote is highly favored to pass, it behooves all pilots to vote YES to send a strong message of unity to management.

Climbto450

Yes, it does!!

cactusmike

Actually, the drama there is a direct result of a failed in house union that is completely ignorant to any idea or proposal that does not fit in with their preconcieved mindset. USAPA exists solely to benefit the east side of US Airways. They have a federal injunction in place for a poorly timed, ill conceived work disruption. They have no idea on how to negotiate, they have no idea when or how to excercise leverage in negotiating with management. In short, they are everything wrong on how a union operates.

The APA, while an in house union themselves, has decades of experience in operating. Their pilots saw the fallacy of having "burn the house down" pilots in charge of the union and they have since elected pilots who have negotiated a merger and minimized the disruption of a CH 11 concessionary contract. They have institutional memory and a strong group of pilot volunteers, evidently.

ALPA will give jetBlue pilots the same ability to gain a collective bargaining agreement without reinventing the wheel like USAPA tried and failed to do. Having a little adult supervision can be a good thing. You don't want idiots hijacking the union and driving the ship on to the rocks. You also don't want to go on without a CBA. You need the protections a real contract can give you. And it's up to management to decide if they want to play games or cooperate on getting a work agreement in place. Under status quo of the RLA they can't change your present agreement while you negotiate a new one. They can change your deal today, they can't under ALPA.