Ego! Would you ever defend yourself in criminal court?

Nope. Just take a look on JetFlyers for the number of guys asking for tax accountants or advice on using our legal plan to get out of a speeding ticket.

So let me get this straight - you are advocating for a "professional negotiator" - whatever that is - but clearly someone who is not a pilot, will not live under our contract, cares about nothing more than his pay check, won't be around to see if his negotiating skills actually paid off since work rule and other challenges come up years after signing date, has no idea how to read incredibly confusing parts of our contract, has no experience with any of our contractual language, grievances, or issues, couldn't care less about you or me and will never ever see you again once the contract is signed? That's the guy you want because he has the title "professional negotiator"? Tell you what, give me some actual names and bios. I think this idea of an outside professional negotiator is the biggest lie the naysayers have ever delivered.

Ever hear of these guys? Airlines hire them, including FedEx. You can do an internet search to find their counterpart just like I can or APLA could do some research.

Exactly!!! 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

ALPA seems to think Cherion is good enough for my retirement but I guess that’s different 🤔

You’re funny.......lets take a look at the last three contracts negotiated by “our union negotiators”......Industry leading?....doubtful....concessionary.....absolute ly......did we run out of the “war chest” of money we were promised by ALPA and concede early? Perhaps. I was at the meetings....there wasn’t much cheering going on when the highlights of the TA were presented. Here’s the point. A pilot looking across the table from a learned company negotiator is almost always going to blink. And the company negotiator has been trained to look for weakness, inconsistency and openings to better the companies cause. If we (ALPA) were to use the same type of negotiators at the table, there is no reason our NC Chair could be right next to him at the table and whisper, “that’s BS, we can’t go for that”, or, “you’re on point...keep pressing”. Out of the many “polls” and “Surveys” the union takes all the time, why not bring this question to the crew force? I think you’d be surprised at how many of the members would say, “let’s bring in the big guns for a change”. But, as previously stated, our own d@mn egos’ get in the way.

So hold my beer...... I had a family member involved in negotiations and I remember him saying, "using an outside firm is the biggest false fallacy this pilot group has ever propagandized'. We have local and national attorneys involved. I hear it said by pilots at other properties on these forums all the time also. Did we not hire an outside law firm at some point in contract 06 or 11? That lasted about 6 months because we spent more time and money catching the law firm up to speed on our contract than actually them negotiating anything. It was the biggest wast of money... The company has their own in-house people just like we do. The company doesn't hire outside people to run negotiations. They may use consultants for specific pieces like we do, but not run the show. They understand you put the same people back at the table so they understand the "how we got to this" and "why". You also want pilots involved because guess who understand the application of the contract the best? The people working under it.......

You guys make it sound like it's only the pilots on the NC that go in and negotiate. You do realize they have "seasoned, professional labor relation attorneys" that work for ALPA with them, right? Not to mention SMEs appropriate for the section being negotiated during that session.

Yes Sir!!!! They act like we just take some regular Joe line guy and send him to negotiations on his own accord. Unreal the lack of knowledge of how things work by some in our pilot group. I think The Union just put out a communication in the last Positive Rate a few weeks ago explaining this whole topic. I guess they have no time to read the material but they have plenty of time to get on the forums and pound their chest.