CJC Pilots to start contract negotiations
 

From the latest FastRead:

Contract Negotiations Scheduled to Begin September 23
Our first bargaining session with management will be September 23-25. This is the first of what will become monthly sessions for our Negotiating Committee to sit down with management and negotiate our first contract.

The Negotiating Committeehave the MEC’s FULL support. If you see them in the crewroom, on the crew bus, or are swapping airplanes with them, wish them the best of luck! They have spent the past few months training and preparing to bargain for the benefit of all Colgan pilots. Your participation in the web survey earlier this summer was invaluable to their work. They have the pulse of the pilot group and will make those concerns known to management at the table. Our Negotiating Committee speaks for us!

hope they didnt get training from ALPA, since roll over and die seems to be the theme these days

Is there any talk of merging the seniority lists of Colgan and Pinnacle or are the plans to keep the companies separate?

from what I am hearing we will all be one happy family seniority list wise by the end of next year. However management wants to keep the actual operations seperate.

thats just terrific., both of your companies stink and neither of you will help the industry, keep up the good work......you two should just become one company and be called Nurse Sharks Express, "bottom feeding from one place to the next" .

Real classy of you.

BOORRRINGGGGG.

i can understand his frustration. I am trying to be optimistic but i am not expecting much. Half of their pilot group has no idea how bad they have it or how beneficial certain work rules can be. I have two of my old students over there and another friend who is a captain over there and after almost every conversation they are amazed at how far their work rules have to come.

What do you mean you know your schedule at the beginning of the month prior?

You can trade trips via the computer without crew scheduling?

you get trips that touch your vacation paid and dropped?

You get per diem on day trips?

You get halfway decent overnight hotels?

What do you mean you get 6.5% 401K matching for the first 5 yrs?

and yet they are all excited for all this new flying while they are bending over backwards, juggling to make half the money of their competitors pilots.

The only thing we are excited about is having a chance to negotiate.

real classy of me? Im being realistic bud, we make more as FOs on 2nd year pay than you do on 12th year pay , granted yeah CJC usually has quick upgrades, but regardless, you chose to work there so therefore you dont have any argument....and dont give me or anything the "whoa is me" BS "we are lucky to have contract negotiations, blah blah blah" .....you know what you were in for when you applied there.......ya we are all doin the same job and workin hard but you (Colgan and Pinnacle) have to find a way to bring things to the next level in this industry with your TAs and such....but judging by Pinnacles new TA which is useless it doesnt look like that is gonna happen.

How do you really feel? You must be another one of those FO's for life.

I chose to work here so I don't have a right to argue? Get over yourself... I am happy that we will be starting the negotiation process, I am volunteering my time to our pilot group during the negotiations, I am angry with the current situation here, I am doing everything I can to better my profession and ensure that what I accomplish today will affect other in the future in a positive manner. Besides running your mouth on a forum what are you doing for your profession? Are you walking the picket line with Amerijet pilots? Your airline might have been the first one to offer you a job, it might have the best payrates in the industry, it may have a great contract.... great if that works for you. Colgan works for me for a multitude of reasons... it fits my needs for the time being. I won't disagree that there isn't room for vast improvement but thats why I am involved with the union.

You probably could have had a much bigger impact on the industry by bypassing one of the lowest paid airlines in the industry and went to a better one.

Yeah... especially had there been anyone else hiring while I went through my second furlough.... but thanks for your concern.

Yeah, yeah, we are the scum of the earth. We kill baby seals. Satan created the Colgan pilot group.

I'm glad you chimed in with your vast 25 months of experience.

For the record, Pinnacle pay and ASA pay are pretty darn close (and unless I am mistaken, the Pinnacle contract is older). Besides, aren't you folks getting bought by Mesa?
http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...-mesa-asa.html

Quote:
If you are married. You can guarantee at least 12 nights a month you won't be getting any action at home. Enjoy those lonely nights at the Radisson with your laptop and hand lotion. Meanwhile, your buddy the computer programmer is pulling down as much as the almighty regional captain and he get to get with momma any time he wants.

On a side note. Is that crappy salary you will make worth the average of 144 nights you won't be able to tuck your children in bed? I hope that $31 per hour at CAL (if you make it that far) is worth missing out on every holiday your friends and family will be celebrating without you while you sit ARC in Newark.

This jet jockey is on his way out. I won't be looking for a cubicle job either. Cubicle jobs keep getting referenced here. There is such a thing called entrepreneurs ya know. There is truly unlimited income potential in running your own business.
End Quote


So CAL isnt good enough for you. How is your own business going?

And why don't YOU (mregan) give THEM (Colgan and Pinnacle) a chance to bring it to the next level with their TAs and such???

A TA does not a contract make (if you don't understand how things work)!
The pilots of Pinnacle will decide their fate now and until they do maybe you should cut them slack as they work to raise it to the next level. They may just stand together and tell their MEC we aren't taking this contract.

The same goes for Colgan. They are starting the process. They realize the terrible working conditions and wages they have been working under for years. That's why they are trying to improve conditions and voted in ALPA.

So give it a rest already. It's not like your contract put you guys at the top of the heap either.

geez, what's with all the negativity? would you guys rather that colgan had never unionized and had never tried to get a contract? which scenario is better?

and dont say you're rather colgan didnt exist because that's not reality.

i disagree. even if not me or him, there would have been an endless supply of guys willing to take that spot. if all the people who campaigned for a union had gone to different regionals, colgan would continue to be a crappy place without ever a hope for a contract. and that would make no difference in bettering the industry. at least now we're improving our situation through our own efforts. bringing in a union to an airline is not an easy feat, and certainly not as easy as merely walking into a union job. at this point when we havent even started negotiations, i dont know how anyone can say we're bringing the industry down. at least wait until the contract comes out - if we get a mesa-esque contract, then you have a point.

mregan, you guys have a good contract but your airline has been unionized for a lot longer than we have... it's that much time you (and when i say "you" i mean all the guys that came before you) had to work on getting better work rules. plus it wasnt until last year that you had a pay raise - which means even you accepted a regional fo position getting paid $19/hr.

Not all of us are dropped into an airline with a contract that others had to fight for. You have zero reference on what it will take to build an airline to a decent place to work, you were given it by the sweat of others.

I personally could care less what anyone thinks of Colgan and our pilots. And for the Colgan pilots on this site, don't defend yourself or the reason you came to Colgan to anyone. You do not have to defend your decisions in life to a 24 year old regional F/O who thinks they know what is best for everyone.

They're the next MESA. Look what Horizon pilots are paid to fly the same plane. This is why it is so important that HR3371 passes. Therefore people with a little bit more invested in their careers will be hired instead of some uneducated f'up who has no business in a professional field. 4yr degree and 1500 hours or NO JET FOR YOU!

Are you serious? You must spend alot of your time flexing with your uniform on in front of the mirror..."hi there, I'm a major airline pilot"

You know, I never met a pilot who spit rhetoric like that in person. I wouldn't be suprised if an old resume of yours was on file at both companies.

Too easy, ready for it.....

NO JET FOR YOU

Oh, I should not have been hired at my experience. What's your point.

Those were the rules then, I played by them. The new rules will be better for us all. You seriously aren't saying that low time pilots being hired by the airlines are a good thing, are you?

Doing some math I estimate you had 970/70 when you were hired to fly your shiny jet. What do you have 300 hours at a 121 now?

My point is that you are not qualified to speak about people needing to have 1500TT to be hired at a regional. Are you one of the "uneducated f'ups" that you speak of who have not business in the industry.

You can not say "I got hired when things were different, now they should not be that way." You sound like a hypocrite using that logic.

Also where do you get off bashing Colgan when you are trying to get on at Mountain Air?

Mountain Air flies boxes and most of the pilots there fly 300-500 hours a year and make in the mid 30's, as ATR FO's. I clearly stated that I thought it was wrong to be hired at my times. If it meant a better career for me, I would have stayed at my old job for a few extra months to get the 1500 hours. When were you hired at Colgan? If it was the only outfit hiring then I can kind of see going there. But if it was during the regional hiring "boom," what made you choose Colgan?

It may be hypocritical for me to say that there should be higher hour requirements to get hired at a regional now than what I was hired with, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Why I decided on Colgan is my business and nobody elses. This is the point I have been making, you have no more of a requirement to tell me why you went to a regional with those times as I do to tell you why I decided on Colgan.

We are all grown adults and to think that people must justify their life decisions to anonymous people on a public forum is laughable and pathetic.

The Juice, everyone knows Colgan is the lowest bottom feeder there is. And many are there because it was their only option and were last on the hiring bus. You must have missed the meds today in prison. Q400s for 50 bucks and 21 respectively? Less than a ERJ? Get real. If you don't care what people think of colgan, then why do you keep replying?

Do you have your CFI yet?

What does that have anything to do with it? You keep posting flamebait and wonder why people constantly disagree with you. Your company is flying with poverty wages while good regionals like Xjet have furloughed a ton at the expense of CAL so they can bring in people that will fly a 78 seat plane for 17K per year.

1. Mountain Air IS a good company. I have applied to them, and would again.

But again you are talking out your a$$: a fourth year FO makes $31,500. To make "the mid 30's" right out of the gate, you need to fly the Caravan (or get hired as an ATR street captain, but I don't think they do that). Unfortunately, you do not have the flight time to be hired into the Caravan (heck, you barely have 135 IFR mins).

But many of the folks flying today, would never take a job flying:
- An overgrown 172 with a steam gauge six-pack, no GPS, and no FMS
- five stand-ups per week (effectively, that is the schedule)
- in Toad Lick, Arkansas (been there, done that, got the skeeter bites to prove it) and NOT be able to commute
And do it all SINGLE PILOT, with nobody there to keep you from flying into a mountain.

2. I will say why I chose Colgan.
I could get and hold a base where I wanted (I have never and probably will never commute).
Colgan flies turbo props. For old fashioned puddle-jumping, there will always be a market for turbo props, so less chance of being furloughed.
And with 5000TT, 2500 PIC AMEL, and 1000 turbine PIC, most regionals wouldn't consider me: too experienced.

3. Yes, you are a hypocrite.

Actually, it was an ASA guy who started flaming..... just for the record.

Then you chimed in.

Good luck with the contract negotiations! :)

Thank you.

your right that most of us at places with decent contracts didnt earn those contracts in negotiations but WE DID CHOOSE our carrier for those reasons. DId we go to the first place to say yes? probably not. Those places with halfway decent contracts were harder to get hired at way back when everyone was hiring.

In my opinion, you and every colgan employee should be ashamed of how you are treated and paid. You ARE NOT a small turbo-prop carrier anymore and its time to quit being sorry for yourselves. Your pilot group is pathetic for working under those conditions for that small amount of pay for the amount of lift you are providing. I know your company has it problems but there are ways to show solidarity and to get your point across to management via slowdowns and maintenance right ups. I am afraid that wont happen because of the caliber of applicant who your company hired who are just happier then pigs in mud to be employed and getting a measly paycheck.

Good thing those people worked so hard to earn those contracts before your company decided to swoop in and undermine their hard work. Your company flying those airplanes has brought the pay and work rules that were previously on that lift back to the stone ages. You want us to be excited for you guys starting negotiations? The negotiations have been ongoing well before your company decided to fly airplanes for CAL. the arrival of the q400 operated by colgan has been nothing but a major set back for pilot pay and work rules. Even if you do get a good contract with an industry leading pay rate.... just wait until someone comes in and underbids you. Great Lakes flying a q400 and expanding all over the place with brand new people too excited about shiny new airplanes to care about the profession or making a mortgage payment.

Slowdowns and bogus write ups are illegal self help (a good union worker would know that, or is it just us low caliber folks)

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOPE, Great Lakes is... when it comes to pay

Great Lakes is an EAS airline. The day that great lakes gets q400s for cal and they start flying them fro 15 bucks an hour then yes they will be the new low...