Quote:
Originally Posted by ShopVac
Nice theory but it just doesn't fit. This melt down has been developing for well over a month. Do you really think that that relief was never asked for in all that time? Are we to believe that all the deal makers were not available on the eve of shutting down the airline and the waiving of section 25 caused an instantaneous reaction restoting us to only a 1% cancelation in 12 hours.
I dont think so.
We entrusted Ackerman with the administration of our CBA and he opened the floodgates to recalls and division.
Whether or not they asked for relief before is irrelevant. Prior to this most recent event I don't think the MEC would even entertain the idea of sending it out to a vote. The IROP over the past few days was pretty bad by any standard, and something had to be done to get the ship back on track. If it had been allowed to be taken to a vote, the time it would have taken to do that probably would have caused the operaton to shut down, and a "yes" vote would have been a moot point. I don't like how it was done, but it did work. I am just frustrated by the whole situation. The reason for this IROP is because management was being too cheap and not investing in infrastructure- Most importantly crew scheduling. Lack of quantity (and quality) schedulers is at least 90% of the reason behind the IROP. Then they were still being cheap by asking for relief from our contract. The best solution was to place every open trip (for both pilots and FAs) in Flica with a 200% premium attached to it and the mess would have been fixed in a matter of hours. Instead they asked for relief from our contract and it took a couple of days. And cost the company much more money. Some of that money could have been in our pocket.
I agree that management has set us on this crash course for some time now. I am honestly not surprised by this most recent meltdown. I know management is blaming it on the weather/ staffing etc, but hopefully this is a lesson for them that being cheap doesn't always save you the most money.
Now back to the original topic: If Ackerman should have told them to pound sand, how would that help/ hurt us as we go into negotiations? I guarantee the company would have used it as an excuse to stall or offer well below what we deserve in the next contract. Is it going to help us in negotiations? Doubt it... We have just witnessed that they will spend an insane amount of capital, and do whatever they have to do to make sure we don't get any piece of the pie. Either way I think we are screwed. #updatingmylogbook