Originally Posted by herewego

Reserve rewrite had some actual improvements.
Vacation fiasco was a failed attempt at improvements.

Originally Posted by herewego

And while ALPA only negotiates QOL items during contract negotiations, we can negotiate QOL items outside of pay talks. Sometimes it's good, but yes indeed sometimes it an unmitigated disaster such as the recent change to our vacation policy. Got to wonder if our last president was such a mouthpiece for management who talked up how good the horrible and overwhelmingly failed pay package of May 2018 was as an attempt to light a fire on an ALPA drive. Same question about the vacation policy changes.

KB said it was not worthwhile to furlough unless it was for a minimum of 3 years because our non-contract dictated that they actually furlough in reverse seniority order. Had they done that instead of targeted furloughs there would have been multiple training events, BroFO to CRJ FO, CRJ FO to BroFO, BroCapt to CRJ FO, and CRJ Capt to Bro Capt along with reimbursed displacements to bases those pilots didn't want to go. Instead of not following our Non-contract they came up with being able to bid down to 58.6 hours if your seniority allows without losing benefits and increased our golden days from 3 to 5. They also allowed pilots to take a year of so of leave, which more than one did to go fly Kingairs in a very hot and dry environment for a tax Free wage higher than they could earn as a regional airline pilot, while still keeping their seniority.

I don't know whether Envoy would be better off without a union at this junction. Kind of doubt it since their culture and contract has developed around having one.
Do you believe that Skywest would be as big and successful as we are if we had had a union for the last 10 years of explosive growth since the last (7th?) union drive? That is the crux of my opposition to bringing a union to Skywest. Things are not perfect, but long term Skywest has been very successful and profitable without one. I have been able to share in that success and profit and have been able to build up enough of a nest egg that I won't have to work to age 65, much less 67.

Do I believe that unions can be a good thing? Yes. without a union the life of a major airline pilot would be much worse and much poorer. There is a high supply of pilots who want to be at the big show, and by banding together as a brotherhood, they have been able to raise wages and QOL items beyond what the natural laws of supply and demand would dictate. There have been many setbacks over the years with loss of pensions and more than one bankruptcy along the way, but by being the Big Dogs of the transportation world they paused the good life knowing that good times would return along with higher pay and QOL in the long term.
Regionals don't have that luxury of being the lead dog that sets the pace. We are contractors for smaller aircraft that the Big Boys didn't want to fly for the wages that their management was willing, or could afford, to pay. We have grown and shrunk at the behest of majors management, and no amount of union brute force will be able to overcome that immovable object.

Hey word302, I thought of one more thing that has really gotten worse (other than your attitude) in the last 5 years. Pilots who only contribute enough to their 401 to get the company match have had to put in another 2% to 6%. I guess if you're contributing to a Roth 401 instead of a Traditional 401 your taxes went up too. Wasn't it about the time you started that we went from a 2%/4%/6% match to a 4%/6%/8% and the new 10%/12% match brackets? Are you taking this hit contributing enough to your 401 to try make sure that the HCE's can contribute the full IRS limits or are you just waiting to make it to the show where Mainline contributes enough that you won't ever have to worry about your retirement funds? Or are you one of those that haven't contributed enough, meaning the HCEs failed the parity test in spite of getting separated from the rest of the employee groups?

Originally Posted by herewego

Reserve rewrite had some actual improvements.
Vacation fiasco was a failed attempt at improvements.

Originally Posted by TFAYD

Reserve “improvements” went sideways for a while too.

The record of QoL improvements outside pay negotiations is checkered at best.

However, SKYW has the best rigs - but those came with pay packages ....

Originally Posted by word302

Our rigs are matched by others, but yes, they were negotiated with a pay agreement.

Originally Posted by RJDio

Are they all still based on original scheduled time? In other words only apply to trips left untouched from the bid package?

During the slow times CS would break up the trips (F1234A,B,C, etc.) to eliminate the soft time created by the rigs. Reserves got screwed usually.

Originally Posted by mercys ghost

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/06/28/...work-slowdown/

Yay unions!!!