Dear Mr Special,

I was just driving my daughter to her riding lesson and was thinking every comment you made or question you posed totally misrepresented what I was saying. Either you are a genius of the English language and carefully juxtaposed the intended meaning of my comments without being obvious or conversely you did not understand a single point I was trying to make.

Here's the last example:

" Would you do me a favor and go onto the UAL Pilots Forum and describe management as generous? I could use a some cheap entertainment."

I was not saying the offer was generous. I was saying FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF MANAGEMENT this offer is generous. (Which by the way links back to the argument on lack of leverage.)

Imagine a headline in the Wall St Journal. Pilot's Turn Down 16% Payraise and then further imagine the comment from the UCH representative "yes, we felt it was a good faith and generous offer". The point is not to look at this from the view of a pilot but from the view of a man like Machiavelli.

What a coincidence. I was just taking my kids to their skiing lesson with Lindsey Vonn. We fly up to Sun Valley in our private jet a couple days a week for lessons with her.

Any solid leaks from the MEC or is this whole based on Kravitt's "source" and the Bloomberg article?

I'm surprised Sunvox. For someone who doesn't take this very seriously, you certainly are spun up. Your summary discussion to hear yourself talk is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack at those who'd vote no.

So here it is Sunvox. You can tell this to you pals while skiing with svergin's daughter in Sun Valley. While you say..

"The company is offering me $82,000 to extend my current contract 3 years AND they will make the folks harmed by LOA 25 whole AND they promise during that period I will never get paid less than Delta pilots",

you don't have a clue what's in the agreement. You take rumored raises, an emotional attachment to LOA25, and "pay" parity with DAL and signal success. You don't know the value to the company in extending our contract. You don't know the value to the company, which the came back to us for(leverage), in their ULR plans and FRMS. Although you'd like to profess, you don't know how much leverage we hold at the present moment. You don't know how much this agreement is costing the company. You don't know the $$ value in LOA25. Yes, LOA25, no matter how much it sucks for the 2172/1436, has a monetary value attached to it. So go to your Haahvaad pals and tells them you're all giddy for this agreement. An agreement which you really don't know the full monetary value, or lack thereof, but you're all pumped up for it because it fills your wallet, tugs at your heart for the 2172/1436, and "pays" you the same as DAL.

For me, I'll wait to find get the factual information, ask questions, and then make a decision. The more information we have, the easier the decision.

And you are no exception. Strike when multiple airlines were in BK after 9/11? Brilliant.

Are you familiar with the gains Dubinsky secured by forcing UAL to park their brand new 747-400s? You might have noticed we have a new CEO and that UA operational reliability has lagged DAL until recently.

Your view is that of a "minion" with delusions of grandeur.

All yours....

Its been way too long since we've had some legacy finger pointing...thanks.

BTW, my (and many others) QOL has taken several huge hits compared to the old CAL contract, so what was brought to the table there was not appreciated either. Lets just move along shall we?

No kidding! Joe is an intelligent guy, but it appears as though his elbow rubbing with corporate big wigs has resulted in a touch of Stockholm Syndrome. For example, I pretty sure the 'company' wasn't pulling the important levers while we were in BK.

You guys need to review your history lessons. UAL went into Bankruptcy in December 2002 and Delta and Northwest didn't file until fall of 2005. Furthermore, APA took a strike vote while in Chapter 11. The concept of whether a union has a right to self help while a corporation is in bankruptcy was untested and is still untested. We had a heinous contract rammed down our throats because we didn't stand up to the judge or the company. There was no question concessions were needed, but the opportunity to add things like snap back clauses and such were absolutely given away without a fight. The UAL network was worth billions and corporate America knew that very well. The fact that the airline industry was next on the list of US industries to have their pensions stripped does not mean the union had to roll over and play dead. UAL-ALPA was scared. I actually emailed all the members of the MEC at the time and got answers back from most. The truth was they knew fighting was an option but they were genuinely scared to try assuming the worst would happen and United would close its doors. Today we know that the United network was and still is worth billions and the robber barons of that day knew that as well back then but they're the ones who had the patience to finish the poker game with ALPA where the prize was the pensions. There are rare times when unions have real leverage and that was one. If you don't see that . . . well what can I say . . . you're wrong.

And, Axl you're 100% correct the company wasn't alone in pulling the levers and THAT is exactly why the union had leverage. Corporate America didn't want to kill United; they wanted her pension knowing full well once that domino fell the rest of the industry would get in line. Sadly the tool they used was BK. All of that was planned years in advance and 9/11 just sped up the process a bit. In fact you could take classes on labor relations in the top MBA schools of the '80s that discussed that exact issue. Go watch the 60 Minutes interview if you think my conspiracy theory is hokey.

You are right on track. There was also a good Frontline episode back then where they interviewed one of the corporate lawyers who advised UAL about the BK. He was chuckling about how the airline BKs were designed to get rid of the pensions. These law firms had lobbied years before to get the BK laws changed and they knew they had the power in BK to get rid of the pensions.

As for a strike during BK. This is the tactic Aloha Airlines used during their BK in 2004 and it worked. The Company thought they had all the leverage and came to their MEC and wanted changes to EVERY section of the contract. The Company said if you don't agree, we will get the judge to throw out the entire contract and your work rules will be whatever we want. ALPA National recommended a strike vote and told the pilots they should be ready to strike if it came to it. The ALPA lawyers said there was no court case that said if a strike was legal or not ( despite the Company lawyers saying a strike was illegal). At first the Company didn't blink because they thought the pilots didn't have the balls to strike. They changed their mind quickly when they looked out the window of the corporate office one day and saw a picket line with almost every pilot that wasn't working.
The Company backed off on most of the issues but still wanted to freeze the pensions. The MEC would not back down on the pensions.
The BK judge called everyone back into court. He told both sides, "you need to go back and make an agreement, because I'm ready to rule, but neither of you will be happy." He told the Company lawyer,
I don't know if it is legal or not for the pilots to strike, there is nothing in the law. But even if it is decided that a strike is illegal how are you going to run your airline if half the pilots don't show up for work?
Then he told the pilots, you are in no better position, there is only one party that has made a petition to the court to buy the Company and they are requiring the pensions to be frozen, so if you don't agree they will most like walk and the company will shut down.
The end result was AQ lost their pensions but almost no other changes to their contract. Infact, they got a "C" fund of 10% to "replace" the pensions. You might say that was a lose, but if they had not taken the strike vote and picked the corporate offices and showed they were serious about a strike, they would have lost the pensions and their contract and got no "C" fund.
United MEC was in a better position during their BK because their were several parties ready to jump in, no one was going to let the Company go to Chapter 7.