Mesa E-mail
04-02-2008 | 08:23 AM
#31
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 299
Likes: 0
From: ERJ CA
PART 2
----------------------------
The State of Our Union:
· The “Strategic Plan” adopted by the MAG MEC in the Fall of 2006, and distributed to the pilot group thereafter, clearly anticipated the impact pilot attrition would have on MAG’s operational performance. At the same time, it also predicted, quite accurately, that the pilot attrition would also impact our leadership group. The MAG MEC committed nearly two years to developing and maintaining a “leadership pipeline” of pilot volunteers, so that all of the various ALPA committees would remain constantly viable and fully-staffed, even as pilot union volunteers left MAG for careers elsewhere.
Our Scheduling Committee continues to review bid schedules and work with management to improve pilot schedules. The Scheduling Committee volunteers also assist individual pilots in resolving scheduling issues, improper assignments, and Flight Time/Duty Time issues. Scheduling Committee Chairman Captain Darrell Cox serves on the ALPA National Flight Time/Duty Time Committee which is currently tasked with working to revise the FAR’s related to Flight Time/Duty Time.
· The MAG MEC Central Air Safety Committee continues to perform a great service to all MAG pilots, working with management to improve the safety of MAG’s flight operations. Safety Committee volunteers also assist and advise individual pilots in safety-related investigations, and provide assistance to our ALPA attorneys in defending individual pilots in flight operations investigations and FAA proceedings.
· Our Grievance Committee continues to process a steady stream of Grievance Investigation Reports (GIR's) from MAG pilots. To the usual mix of grievance issues have included payroll discrepancies, failure to notify of delays, “hold backs," junior assignments, reassignments, and the Grievance volunteers have been inundated this past year with large numbers of GIR’s from recently-resigned pilots who did not receive vacation and final paycheck payments. The Grievance Committee volunteers must devote large amounts of time to each of these payroll cases, and have been successful in resolving virtually all of them. Currently, eight grievance arbitrations are scheduled over the next nine months, and our Grievance Committee volunteers will be working with our ALPA attorneys to present the scheduled cases.
· The pilots of MAG also benefit from the tremendous resources of ALPA’s National organization. In addition to the services of ALPA’s Aeromedical Office, and legal assistance for grievances and FAA matters, ALPA National has assigned a number of experienced pilots from other carriers to assist with key MAG projects.
The State of Contract Negotiations
· Faced with the reality of MAG’s deteriorating operational and financial condition, the MAG MEC made a strategic decision last fall. The MEC elected to approach management about embarking upon an “expedited” negotiation process, with meeting two weeks each month, aimed at achieving a new contract “sooner rather than later."
· The MEC, with the advice of our professional advisors, concluded that this expedited process offered the best chance for immediate, substantive contract improvements for our long-suffering pilots. An expeditious resolution of our negotiations would also give both parties the opportunity to benefit from an enhanced contract and allow us to face the challenges in our industry working as a team. MAG Management and the MEC executed a “protocol agreement” for these expedited negotiations. The MEC’s directions to the Negotiating Committee were to secure a short-term contract, with immediate substantive improvements addressing the key quality of life issues noted by MAG pilots in our polling.
· Your Negotiating Committee prepared a suitable proposal, which was reviewed and approved by the MEC. It was then presented to Management December 21, 2007. All MAG pilots may rest assured that the proposal submitted by our Negotiating Committee reflects the many comments and survey results from our pilots. There is nothing in our proposal that is not already being done by our major competitors. There is no doubt that our proposal will cost the company money. We cannot address the key issues and resolve the areas that are deficient without their being a cost associate with it. MAG Management has enjoyed the benefits of a below-standard pilot contract for four-plus years.
· The parties have met two weeks per month since, with several conference calls as well. While a final agreement has not yet been reached as we write this letter, the Negotiating Committee has reported that significant progress has been made and they remain cautiously optimistic. The parties are meeting again this week, and the Negotiating Committee will issue an update at the end of the week (or earlier if developments warrant).
Discussion
Mesa Air Group is obviously facing a situation that we have never seen before. These challenges are real, they are serious and they threaten the survival of our company. We as pilots have to acknowledge and address two separate issues before us and we need to focus on each one individually. We have the negotiations process which is targeted at resolving the issues that this pilot group has faced for a long time. We need to improve our current situation by modifying our contract to better suit our needs.While this process plays out we also have to recognize the state of the industry as well as the challenges that MAG faces. Although the state of MAG could ultimately wipe out any progress or changes that the Negotiating Committee is working for, we hope that the company will recognize that during times like these we do need to work side by side to resolve all the issues at hand. Our pilots have clearly shown the entire company how unhappy they are with the environment in which they operate in. There is no need to debate the facts; it is simply time to recognize where mistakes were made and what we need to do to get the situation resolved.
MAG has evolved in many different ways over the past 5 years as our business has expanded and we moved into environments that required a different approach to meet our obligations to our code share partners. Unfortunately, our current contract did not address all of these needs and ultimately our pilots came up on the short end of the stick while the company tried to meet all the obligations that were required of them. Your Union approached the company to address these issues and to make changes that we felt were necessary to keep everyone on the same page working for the same goal. Unfortunately, this has not yet been achieved. Ultimately, we ended up with an environment where pilots felt there was no resolution, and given the opportunity, many of our pilots felt that their needs could be better served working for a different carrier. We believe our pilots have demonstrated that they feel their interests are best served at moving away from MAG and seeking employment with other carriers. We need to acknowledge that attrition is to be expected when the major airlines are hiring. Our concern should be that during 2007, 40% of our attrition was from the right seat of our aircraft. The natural progression of our industry is that Captains will leave to pursue higher paying jobs and larger equipment, First Officers will generally stay long enough to enhance their resumes to make them marketable to the major airlines. Unfortunately, we have not seen this at MAG and we feel that our attrition within the first officer ranks has been abnormal and clearly indicates how our pilots feel about working at MAG.
Although the current situation and news is alarming, we want you to know that we working with Management to address our needs as well as those of the company. It is not time to panic and make quick decisions; this is true for the pilot group as well as our MEC. Keep in mind that even if the company was to agree to everything that we wanted, it may not have changed the current situation with Delta. It is possible that if MAG had addressed our issues that we may not face this dilemma, but this would only be speculation because we have no control over how Delta plans to cut capacity under the current economic crisis.
Although there is a lot of bad news for everyone to consider, we all know that things can change very quickly and this whole situation could look very different a week from now. With this in mind we would like everyone to recognize that there are many things going on and we will do our best to keep you informed and up to date. Things may change from day to day but everyone needs to not overreact and wait for the facts to come out and avoid the rumor mill.
Thank you for your continued support and on-going professionalism in the face of the daily challenges encountered as a MAG pilot.
Fly safe,
Your MAG MEC Officers
----------------------------
The State of Our Union:
· The “Strategic Plan” adopted by the MAG MEC in the Fall of 2006, and distributed to the pilot group thereafter, clearly anticipated the impact pilot attrition would have on MAG’s operational performance. At the same time, it also predicted, quite accurately, that the pilot attrition would also impact our leadership group. The MAG MEC committed nearly two years to developing and maintaining a “leadership pipeline” of pilot volunteers, so that all of the various ALPA committees would remain constantly viable and fully-staffed, even as pilot union volunteers left MAG for careers elsewhere.
Our Scheduling Committee continues to review bid schedules and work with management to improve pilot schedules. The Scheduling Committee volunteers also assist individual pilots in resolving scheduling issues, improper assignments, and Flight Time/Duty Time issues. Scheduling Committee Chairman Captain Darrell Cox serves on the ALPA National Flight Time/Duty Time Committee which is currently tasked with working to revise the FAR’s related to Flight Time/Duty Time.
· The MAG MEC Central Air Safety Committee continues to perform a great service to all MAG pilots, working with management to improve the safety of MAG’s flight operations. Safety Committee volunteers also assist and advise individual pilots in safety-related investigations, and provide assistance to our ALPA attorneys in defending individual pilots in flight operations investigations and FAA proceedings.
· Our Grievance Committee continues to process a steady stream of Grievance Investigation Reports (GIR's) from MAG pilots. To the usual mix of grievance issues have included payroll discrepancies, failure to notify of delays, “hold backs," junior assignments, reassignments, and the Grievance volunteers have been inundated this past year with large numbers of GIR’s from recently-resigned pilots who did not receive vacation and final paycheck payments. The Grievance Committee volunteers must devote large amounts of time to each of these payroll cases, and have been successful in resolving virtually all of them. Currently, eight grievance arbitrations are scheduled over the next nine months, and our Grievance Committee volunteers will be working with our ALPA attorneys to present the scheduled cases.
· The pilots of MAG also benefit from the tremendous resources of ALPA’s National organization. In addition to the services of ALPA’s Aeromedical Office, and legal assistance for grievances and FAA matters, ALPA National has assigned a number of experienced pilots from other carriers to assist with key MAG projects.
The State of Contract Negotiations
· Faced with the reality of MAG’s deteriorating operational and financial condition, the MAG MEC made a strategic decision last fall. The MEC elected to approach management about embarking upon an “expedited” negotiation process, with meeting two weeks each month, aimed at achieving a new contract “sooner rather than later."
· The MEC, with the advice of our professional advisors, concluded that this expedited process offered the best chance for immediate, substantive contract improvements for our long-suffering pilots. An expeditious resolution of our negotiations would also give both parties the opportunity to benefit from an enhanced contract and allow us to face the challenges in our industry working as a team. MAG Management and the MEC executed a “protocol agreement” for these expedited negotiations. The MEC’s directions to the Negotiating Committee were to secure a short-term contract, with immediate substantive improvements addressing the key quality of life issues noted by MAG pilots in our polling.
· Your Negotiating Committee prepared a suitable proposal, which was reviewed and approved by the MEC. It was then presented to Management December 21, 2007. All MAG pilots may rest assured that the proposal submitted by our Negotiating Committee reflects the many comments and survey results from our pilots. There is nothing in our proposal that is not already being done by our major competitors. There is no doubt that our proposal will cost the company money. We cannot address the key issues and resolve the areas that are deficient without their being a cost associate with it. MAG Management has enjoyed the benefits of a below-standard pilot contract for four-plus years.
· The parties have met two weeks per month since, with several conference calls as well. While a final agreement has not yet been reached as we write this letter, the Negotiating Committee has reported that significant progress has been made and they remain cautiously optimistic. The parties are meeting again this week, and the Negotiating Committee will issue an update at the end of the week (or earlier if developments warrant).
Discussion
Mesa Air Group is obviously facing a situation that we have never seen before. These challenges are real, they are serious and they threaten the survival of our company. We as pilots have to acknowledge and address two separate issues before us and we need to focus on each one individually. We have the negotiations process which is targeted at resolving the issues that this pilot group has faced for a long time. We need to improve our current situation by modifying our contract to better suit our needs.While this process plays out we also have to recognize the state of the industry as well as the challenges that MAG faces. Although the state of MAG could ultimately wipe out any progress or changes that the Negotiating Committee is working for, we hope that the company will recognize that during times like these we do need to work side by side to resolve all the issues at hand. Our pilots have clearly shown the entire company how unhappy they are with the environment in which they operate in. There is no need to debate the facts; it is simply time to recognize where mistakes were made and what we need to do to get the situation resolved.
MAG has evolved in many different ways over the past 5 years as our business has expanded and we moved into environments that required a different approach to meet our obligations to our code share partners. Unfortunately, our current contract did not address all of these needs and ultimately our pilots came up on the short end of the stick while the company tried to meet all the obligations that were required of them. Your Union approached the company to address these issues and to make changes that we felt were necessary to keep everyone on the same page working for the same goal. Unfortunately, this has not yet been achieved. Ultimately, we ended up with an environment where pilots felt there was no resolution, and given the opportunity, many of our pilots felt that their needs could be better served working for a different carrier. We believe our pilots have demonstrated that they feel their interests are best served at moving away from MAG and seeking employment with other carriers. We need to acknowledge that attrition is to be expected when the major airlines are hiring. Our concern should be that during 2007, 40% of our attrition was from the right seat of our aircraft. The natural progression of our industry is that Captains will leave to pursue higher paying jobs and larger equipment, First Officers will generally stay long enough to enhance their resumes to make them marketable to the major airlines. Unfortunately, we have not seen this at MAG and we feel that our attrition within the first officer ranks has been abnormal and clearly indicates how our pilots feel about working at MAG.
Although the current situation and news is alarming, we want you to know that we working with Management to address our needs as well as those of the company. It is not time to panic and make quick decisions; this is true for the pilot group as well as our MEC. Keep in mind that even if the company was to agree to everything that we wanted, it may not have changed the current situation with Delta. It is possible that if MAG had addressed our issues that we may not face this dilemma, but this would only be speculation because we have no control over how Delta plans to cut capacity under the current economic crisis.
Although there is a lot of bad news for everyone to consider, we all know that things can change very quickly and this whole situation could look very different a week from now. With this in mind we would like everyone to recognize that there are many things going on and we will do our best to keep you informed and up to date. Things may change from day to day but everyone needs to not overreact and wait for the facts to come out and avoid the rumor mill.
Thank you for your continued support and on-going professionalism in the face of the daily challenges encountered as a MAG pilot.
Fly safe,
Your MAG MEC Officers
04-02-2008 | 10:50 AM
#32
Portuguese Troubleshooter
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 370
Likes: 0
From: Burrito Bomber
04-02-2008 | 06:07 PM
#34
Gets Weekends Off
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 413
Likes: 0
From: ATL
First of all, if you're typed in the RJ, why are you unemployed? Second, if you want to support your family and make their QOL better, Mesa is not the place. If putting a roof over your family's head is an issue, a regional airline salary (especially Mesa) will not suffice. Look at another industry. Surely a pilot considering Mesa is qualified in something OTHER than flying RJ's. All anyone is saying on here is there are better opportunities out there and if you cannot wait for those opportunities then you don't need to be flying. I don't buy the "provide a livelihood for their families" argument. We all have responsibilities.
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