757Driver

I suggest the exact opposite. PBS is an unmitigated disaster over here at CAL and thankfully its united many of the pro-company Pilots to take a harder stance.

Avoid PBS like the plague.

PS, the above statements by Shackone and EDP scare the living crap out of me. How are we to defend our profession if this is what the military keeps churning out, I'll fly for free and screw everybody else.

REAL Pilot

Easy on the military steroetype. Shackone and EDP don't get it. If you look/work in the industry long-term, you will see "the fleecing of labor". Then spineless labor accepts/excuses the excesses and continues to subsidize public transportation through contracts "that let us live another day". The union infers that next time will be different, but is it? It could be different, but with a splintered group that will not draw and hold a line in the sand, the erosion continues. Most military guys I know are willing to back their principles with action and not accept the continual lowering of the bar.
Without collective/national efforts AND WORK ACTIONS, the decline will continue with the continued market pressures. Yes, there would be casualties but that would be the cost of doing business and the group as a whole would be better off.

757Driver

Excellent post RP. Unfortunately at CAL the biggest sympathizers I run into are recently ex-Military. I'm not inferring that all Military types are Management sycophants but I'm finding that the newly released ones seem to be until they get a great big sh!t sandwich courtesy of management.

Again excellent post and I wholeheartedly agree with you 100%. Its time to take back our contracts and the cost won't be cheap.

I'm willing to do what it takes, are you?

X Rated

PBS is only as good as the work rules surrounding it...and the ability for the Union to maintain control as much as the company. I'm sorry that it's a disaster at CAL, but if you get a decent running system you'll never turn back to sequence bidding.

X Rated

fireman0174

No horse in the race, but I've always taken the stance that if they want something bad, it's probably not good for the employees.

I love it when the company says PBS will improve the quality of life ... until you realize their idea oif quality of life is to work you more.

shackone

We didn't work more when we used pref bidding.

I always looked at PB as a QOL issue. Depending on seniority, PB gave us a much better handle on what we wanted to do every month than the traditional 'bid package' system did.

PB, as I understood it, was all about efficiency...getting the job done with the least amount of excess manning. I suppose those who think that a labor contract is supposed to provide the most money for the least work for the maximum number of people will always oppose such a view. That sounds good until we look at the real world outcome of such thinking.

aa73

Pref bidding at TWA was a dream come true. Run by both TWALPA and the Co, it worked like a charm (based on what others have told me.)

PBS at AA would be a whole different animal. These people are just not that trustworthy, folks. Look at our TTOT (trip trade with open time) system - it is a disaster because the company controls when and if manning even allows a trip trade - and this after the Co promised us unlimited green (tradeable) trips when they were selling it to us. Now throw PBS into the mix - youch! I predict no open time, trips built to 90 hours and 10% reserves. Productive, but what a disaster for the pilots!

I'll stick with hard lines, conflicts and vacation drops, thank you very much!

Jetjok

As you, I agree 100% with Shackone's comments. However, I disagree with you on your comment about reserve pay. I sat reserve for two years, the first as a flight engineer and the second as THE junior-most MD-11 captain. In both cases, it meant I had to be away from home for even more days than a normal line-holder. As well, all the days where I wasn't used, I was on my own nickel. Reserve pilots are paid, not for actually flying the line, but for giving their company the flexibility that's required to account for guys going sick in the field, guys just forgetting they have a trip, additional flights that need to be manned, last minute sick calls, etc, etc. I would think that the vast majority of us would rather fly than sit around waiting for "the call", but since our companies require this flexibility, I just don't see it going away. Southwest guys work a lot, and maybe that company uses reserve guys as semi-line holders, but I know that that philosophy just will not work at FedEx, UPS, or a number of other long-haul airlines. Besides, if you've ever sat around a crashpad for 16 straight days, you'd realize that it is "WORK."

130JDrvr

Here at the pad we call all that reserve time... "Living the Dream!" Day 8 tomorrow...

Past....

ExDeltaPilot

Agree with you on the reserve comments. My point was when the airlines are way overmanned you get guys getting a lot of pay with little work. I agree sitting around a crash pad away from home is WORK. I don't think the companies really looked at what reserve manning they really needed to fill the schedule and when business was good you could overhire and worry about the extra guys later.