03-30-2024Quote:
Unfortunately, that paradigm has now been set. As you pointed out, in 2006 and 2015, an extra benefit was arranged for members who had attained a certain age (and to the surprise of no one, that group included a majority of our senior members). The next time around we will have a large group of pilots that will be saying "Hey! I missed out the last two times and now it is my turn. Where's my cookie?"Originally Posted by IrishSkies
3. Do NOT entertain any offers that do not address the crew force with equal compensation, it doesn't have to be the same but it does have to be equal $. A couple of examples; past payments to senior members for retirement healthcare and bonus $ for members who notify the company of their retirement date a year in advance ( I think that applied to pilots age 53 or older at the time of signing?)
I never thought it was good idea to give special carve outs to select groups - nothing good ever comes from it from a unity stand point in the long run. I will resist that “give me what I got coming to me” sentiment the next time around as well, even though I will be at "that age" when the time comes. The problem here is we have too many of the “I got mine crowd” that are always looking for more and don’t care how they get it or how it affects the rest of the crew force - five more years in their seat, in a TA, freezing the A Plan, whatever.
I certainly wish we were more of a “all for one and one for all” group but we are not – far from it. Why weren’t we emphatically against the change of probation starting at activation instead of BI that we voted in as part of the 2011 bridge TA? Because it only screwed over new hires that weren’t even here yet and didn’t affect us.
If there is one thing I believe now, it is that too many of us are in it for ourselves and care nothing about the shared sacrifice, doing the right thing, and collective effort required to get the best TA that we possibly can get for as many of us as possible. Hell, even some of our more "respected and reasonable" APC posters, while acknowledging the shortcomings of the 2015 TA (many of which didn’t affect them), stated they were voting "yes' because it was "good enough for them." We were out of money in 2015? Hell, why didn't we try and put forward a vote for an assessment to keep the fight going when we had the company at a huge manning disadvantage, that had them begging for vacation cancellations in nearly all seats for two years after signing?
You add that to the silent majority of our pilot group who are basically sheep, don't even bother to read or understand the TA, and blindly vote the way the MEC wants them to, and I have absolutely no hope of us ever accomplishing even a small fraction of the ideas posted in this thread. It appears 3% pay raises are pretty much enough to get close to a 50% “yes” vote right off the bat.
Call me a jaded pessimist – oh well. Back when I was on the 727, I was standing at a computer terminal in Alliance on one of those 3:58 hub turns. Across the table and to my left at another computer were two grey haired captains talking, who were ecstatic about their retirement age now being 65. This was right around the beginning of 4A2B and this is where their discussion ventured. I actually heard one of them say (and this is a direct quote): “what we really need to do is ****-can about 500 pilots off of the bottom of the seniority list.” Unity? I’ve never seen it here in any form or fashion and I don’t expect to see it in the future. I’ll try to do my part and continue to vote “No” when I can’t stomach what I am reading, but I really don’t believe it will do any good.
