This is kind of scary. It means none of the 3 airlines have veto power. No matter which one you work at, you are all essentially allowing 2 other airlines to vote on and ratify your new contract. Even if the contract is horrible for your airline, and every single pilot votes no, it could be imposed on you anyways.

And it doesn't allow a small minority to control the vote either. We are all in this together as one group.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't like the idea of the vote at Colgan controlling if this thing passes or not.

And I don't mean that as a knock against Colgan, just that 500 shouldn't control the destiny of 2500.

Wrong. Since no single group has a majority, no single group can sell the other two out. The result will be compromise.

What I meant is that, currently, these are 3 seperate pilot groups who had been previously intending to negotiate their own contracts.

Now, no pilot controls their own destiny as the others can overrule you. Sure, that will be good for after the merger, but in the meantime it means other airlines' pilot groups could essentially impose a contract on you.

Very extreme example: They negotiate that CRJ pay will double. In exchange for this, Q400 pay will be dropped to $5/hr. 1501+ of the pilots are CRJ pilots. Colgan doesn't fly a single CRJ, doesn't give a single yes vote, but they are still powerless to stop their pay from going to $5/hr.

And the biggest thing is that if a TA is reached and it is horrible, all 3 groups will vote it down.

I believe that a majority of pilots at all 3 groups want exactly the same thing.

A situation like this would never happen because the Colgan MEC does have veto power.

Our MEC's are not going to let a total POS get passed on for a vote.

The only POS is this thread. I'm sure you guys can find something more productive to do.

That won't happen. No way, no how! Each MEC has veto power, as Bartok put it. If that were to be proposed, which it won't....the piece of poo TA needs to be first ratified by each MEC. So, in your example, it would never make it past the CJC MEC.

Agreed!

Exactly, see above!

They negotiate that CRJ pay will double. In exchange for this, Q400 pay will be dropped to $5/hr. 1501+ of the pilots are CRJ pilots. Colgan doesn't fly a single CRJ, doesn't give a single yes vote, but they are still powerless to stop their pay from going to $5/hr.

Wrong again. The low seniority Pinnacle and Messaba folks should be smart enough to realize an upgrade to the Q may be in their future. SO, selling out the Q folks is not in their best interest. Yeah, they may give a little on the pay for the 30 Qs to get a bit of a rise on the 57 900s, for example or some other compromise, but nobody on the MECs and the rank and file WANT to cut off our arms to save one leg.

There will be individuals who argue MY type should get more, but they need to look at the BIG picture: We may well be here for longer than any of us hoped (like me). The contract must be something we can live with for a while AND (hint, hint to the negotiating committee) MUST have a built in increase for each year AFTER the contract expires (tip of the cap to the Mesaba folks/contract).

I don't know what is in the Pinnacle contract but our Mesaba contract DOES have Q rates. Yes - they are the same as CRJ200 rates. Believe me when I say that it will be a significant raise for Colgan. Just as our jet rates would be a raise for Pinnacle.

We will not negotiate less than the December 01, 2010 rates. Now does that mean we won't get less. Well it's negotiation's so it's possible but I think the best we at Mesaba can expect is status quo with health insurance and prescription reduction AND a split in the FO rates. I mean raising Colgan 38%+ and Pinnacle quite a bit is going to be very difficult.

I never expected this Nov 15th deadline to get completed. I think there were some hopeful people and our unions certainly doing their best to get it done, but Uncle Phil has kept 9E guys going for 6 years so a sudden change to get speedy just doesn't compute.

Now this is what I suspect is happening now. After agreeing to a bunch of really not that important things, those things suddenly come off the table. Our guys are going to negotiate and the company is coming with a script that they literally read off of cards. If there are no answers on the card, that's all they say. The meetings will get very short.

Know that management people are reading these posts and seeing the loud, unhappy minority trying to kick sand in our faces. I know they are because during our bankruptcy, I wrote something explaining a concept to a relative newcomer to our company. Low and behold the outrageous example I used on our Mesaba pilots website was brought into the negociating room. Please be careful what you say here.

We are all Pinnacle. That's the bottom line. Lets keep an undivided front and get this thing done. Few will be happy. Colgan will get a windfall (good for you - REALLY). Mesaba pilots will wind up getting less benefit but I think most could get behind it if we weren't threatened with 1/3 seniority and downgrade BS.