- Establish industry leading Hourly Rates of Pay (3.C. (p. 28))
- Increase in New Hire Compensation (3.A.2. (p. 27))
- Retroactivity of pay rates and benefits from the amendable date
- Obtain an industry leading retirement package using both Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution plans
- And Several Targeted QOL items (sections 5,8,12, 21, 25, 31)
May 2022 is in the rearview by more than a year and several additional MAJOR sections were opened and amended. In the time since the company has issued a regressive system bid, made a significant push toward 4a2x, and announced a total reworking of operations to include numerous public statements about shrinking the airline. ALL of that was meant to send a message to US ALL and that message is SETTLE.
I ask you how could our opening ask on compensation be industry leading when it was made more than two years ago? That's the very first point of the pledge. Do you think the recent closing of that section indicates that we increased our ask and they met it?! We have never had a willing partner across the table. Adopting that notion has kept us perpetually on our back foot.
Our Negotiating chair is on record stating we don't have scope problem we have a volume problem. It strains all credulity to believe the company's Drive initiative was a reactionary response to a recent decline in volumes. Over the course of the last two years they've closed one FDA and announced the closure of the remaining one as well as closing two domestic bases. The planning and implementation of these changes and numerous others takes time and coordination, years not months.
So for the "wait and see" and "I will assess the whole agreement" crowd, the question is surely begged if point 1 does not meet the stated goal what's left to assess? In the totality of events has the Union's suppositions about the usefulness of "focused discussions" proven valid?
It is for these reasons reading the agreement to be presented isn't an assessment it should be a post mortem. This process cannot possibly produce the outcomes stated.
I believe that leverage is not found in dubious quasi legal job actions, but in using our voices to make sure that when the people who represent us go into those rooms they understand WE WILL NOT SETTLE. They need to know that you cannot develop some contrivance to achieve what we desire. Your mission should be to make our positions known and enumerate why. Not horse trade away one thing for another. If the company cannot see it our way we are willing to walk.
So I'm gonna keep saying it. DO NOT SETTLE. DO NOT WAIT. Social media is a powerful amplifier. Make sure your representatives hear you. Now is the time.