ChipChelios

[QUOTE=Airsupport;881304]so just hypothetically lets do this. I am a little above the middle of the pack here at pinnacle. It has taken me 5 years to get to that point.

lets say a guy at the middle of the pack at colgan has only been there for 2.5 years. Do you think he/she deserves to jump to my seniority level just because he or she belongs to a smaller more junior pilot group?

Ummm...yes! What if the middle of the pack was 10 years? If someone is in the middle of the pack at their company, they should be put into the middle of the pack of the integrated company regardless of how long they have been employed. Would you be saying the same thing if the integration would put YOU at the level of a 2 year guy at your company?

[QUOTE=Airsupport;881304]I honestly think it should be straight date of hire. that would be the fairest way.

No, then instead of you getting screwed someone else would be getting screwed!

Airsupport

Date of hire is unbiased and fair. There are over 500 guys senior to me at mesaba. There are people at colgan senior to me. I still get screwed with date of hire but its fair. If they have been there longer then they deserve to be ahead of me in the seniority list.

Who cares if the middle of the pack is 10 years. When it comes to date of hire then you get what you have earned. Thats all. Even our most senior guy here at pinnacle would drop down to the 20's. But the people senior to him at mesaba have been at it longer and have been on that seniority list longer.

So please tell me how date of hire screws someone. If you have only been at it for 2 years that is all the seniority you should get. You shouldn't jump 1500 pilots just because you are in the middle of the smallest and most junior pilot group. That is not getting screwed that is getting what you have put in. Not some inflated seniority number that wasn't earned.

For example not counting the most recent hires most junior pinnacle pilots have been here for 2 years. They are in the bottom 10% here at pinnacle. Should a new hire at colgan go ahead of the guys who have been here 2 years just because they are also in the bottom 10% at colgan also? Our bottom 10% longevity is way longer than colgan longevity for their bottom 10%

I just want whats fair and no one can make a good argument against using date of hire. If we use date of hire and put in position locks then there will be no problems. you let a guy who has been at colgan for 1 year jump ahead of 3 year guys here at pinnacle just because they have the same relative seniority and you will have big problems.

lolwut

What it comes down to is that Pinnacle's low costs (including their expired pilot contract) allowed them to purchase Colgan and supply it Q400s very quickly after the purchase. At the time these Q400s were put into play, Colgan was essentially acting as an alter-ego carrier (through no fault of the Colgan pilots). Pinnacle secured the contracts, bought the planes, etc, but put them on another seniority list.

These planes should've been Pinnacle planes, on the Pinnacle certificate, flown by Pinnacle seniority list pilots. Due to that, I don't see any reason why any post-purchase Colgan pilot should go ahead of any pre-purchase Pinnacle pilot. They should've been newhires on the Pinnacle list all along.

Thats the only thing I'm arguing here, nothing against Colgan pilots. Integrate the lists however you like pre-purchase, but do date of hire after the purchase date for all Pinnacle/Colgan pilots. Just because the Colgan pilots were handed a windfall with these airplanes doesn't mean they should then be able to use their larger than otherwise seniority list to jump ahead of Pinnacle pilots who should've been benefiting from these planes all along.

This would put the seniority numbers exactly the same as they would've been had they been Pinnacle newhires or had the seniority lists been combined into one at purchase date... which is what really should've happened in the first place.

ChipChelios

I respect your guys opinions on the date of hire thing but...

Integrations should be done with mininal impact on the people being integrated! If you are in the middle of the pack at your current company then you have a certain expectations with regards to schedule, quality of life, upgrade and whatever other good things come with your level of seniority.

Date of hire will take away from the smaller company being integrated by putting people lower in seniority at the integrated company taking away from them what they had at their company before being integrated.

Relative seniority is better because no one looses anything. Everyone is at the seniority level they were at before integration. The impact of the integration is minimal. All that leaves is people who get upset when someone else appears to be getting ahead faster then them. That's like getting upset that some people upgrade in 3 years at Colgan when it may take 6 years at Pinnacle. The price for that 3 year upgrade was working for Colgan.

TristarJS30

Here in lies my problem with using Date of Hire. I've "been at this" for several more years than I've been at Colgan. I spent a few years at another ALPA carrier and unfortunately found myself furloughed. I have only been at Colgan (another ALPA carrier mind you) a year and change, but as I said I've been "at this" (your words) and "earned" every shred of of experience I've gotten (and "put in") during my career.

Should I be punished in the SLI by my ALPA "brothers" because my former company began furloughing? Don't forget, many of the recent new hires at Colgan are former ALPA "brothers" who face the same fate of ending up at the tail end of a much larger seniority list than we signed on for.

How is that fair? And please spare me the life isn't fair remarks. I've "been at it" long enough to know life isn't.

Airsupport

I will answer your question and post my comments.

1. Date of hire doesn't care how big the pilot group is. That is what makes it fair. The pilot groups size has nothing to do with going by date of hire. Comair for example is a small extremely senior pilot group right now.

2. Relative seniority makes everyone lose, except for the junior guys. This argument was made here when we were talking about the signing bonus. Lots of the junior guys thought that the signing bonus should be divided up evenly. All that would do is take away from the guys who have been working under the amendable contract for 5 years just so the guys who just got off probation could get the same amount of money.

3. You are obviously a new hire if you think there is a difference in pain and suffering between working at pinnacle and working at colgan.



Well I have been at this since 1999. That doesn't mean jack squat here. I have only been at pinnacle for 5 years. Thats what matters here. Sorry if you were furloughed, laid off, or your company went out of business. Till ALPA gets a national seniority list none of that matters. When I move on to another alpa carrier im not going to walk in over there with 10 years seniority. It just doesn't work like that. I actually think it was very REVOLUTIONARY that our MEC was able to get the furloughed mesaba guys on board and let them keep their longevity for pay, vactation, etc purposes. It has nothing to do with life lessons or any of that. We are all on this list now. We are all one pilot group now. You being at colgan for 1 year doesn't mean you should go from having 50 people below to having 500.

Going by date of hire is the only fair and unbiased way to integrate the seniority lists. No one can make a good argument against it. All I am hearing is emotions on why we need relative seniority. Date of hire is cold and fair because there is not some arbitrator deciding where you should fall. No group of people deciding your fate. It is a cold hard number that cant be changed and it is what you have earned at the new pinnacle/colgan/mesaba airline.

Look I know the junior guys are going to rally for relative seniority. Everyone has to do what they need to so they can better their lives. Thats fine and I can understand that. Just don't try and tell me how it is fair, because its not.

mooney

it's not alter ego because AxialFlow said so....

Dark Knight

Yes I do believe that without question.

YOU chose to work for pinnacle not colgan. The colgan pilots chose to work for colgan not pinnacle. No one forced you to work for pinnacle.
YOU wanted us to vote in your union, with its merger policy.

If YOU don't want this tell your MEC that you don't want a combined list.

Airsupport

Yes I chose to work for pinnacle. You chose to work for colgan. No one forced me to pinnacle. No one forced you to Colgan. Colgan was bought by pinnacle. Not the other way around.

If I were to tell the mec to not combine the list then you guys would end up on the street. Remember colgan is going away. And since the colgan pilots dont have a contract or scope protecting them pinnacle could just move those planes to the mesaba ticket and re-hire all the colgan pilots at the bottom of the list. Thats what they want to do anyway. Get all those planes on the mesaba certificate. I don't think you want that. Pinnacle saved colgan from going under 3 years ago and we are doing it again now. Colgan bleeds money 3 out of 4 quarters every year. All the pinnacle pilots have been doing is keeping it afloat long enough for them to buy a bunch of q400's and try and salvage it. The company has been using our new contract money to bandage up the colgan and now that name is going away.

Please tell me what exactly is the merger policy? I would love to hear what you think it is.

Like I said I would love to hear a logical, not emotional, reason as to why date of hire is unfair.

I am glad to have the three pilot groups together. I think this will help us all with what little job security we have as a regional carrier and also helps keep the potential for whipsawing us around down. Working together is better than fighting each other. I just want whats fair.

FlyJSH

That statement seems strange. If DOH is appropriate for all those hired post Q400, then why wouldn't it be the best for everyone?? It seems you are concerned only with fairly small segment of the whole pilot group... as if you are focusing mostly on yourself and what would be best for you (might be wrong, but that is how it sounds).