Show me what wasn’t factual... is it perhaps that I don’t whine incessantly about our “hourly rates” being “lower” than our legacy counterparts’? I’ve merely pointed out that the work rules matter probably way more so than the rates, otherwise, we’ll have crowds leaving for Omni...

 

I didn't realize that the reserve improvements in our contract included double time for every reserve day. I guess I need to re read the contract.


You're telling me? I've been telling folks this very thing for decades.

I didn't realize that there was a clause in our contract that pays double time+ for non commuters sitting reserve . Since I don't do reserve, and unless we do some kind of long call, never will, I am not up on that part of the contract.

 

Why don't we have both industry leading hourly pay AND our current work rules?

I'll give you a hint...... The answer is in this and many other threads.

 

Come on Slip... you know better.

Living in base means trading your line for reserve blocks with reserve commuters who’d rather fly than risk paying for hotels or even bidding it in DOT when OT pickings are slim.

Daily reassignment pay during the ole bait n switch also helps quite a bit. Personal best 3-day reserve was around 35 TFP simply due to scheduling piling on assignments and pushing back my return back to base.

 

Slip, we were the first at bat, and our rates were industry leading at the time TA2 was announced. We were leapfrogged by Delta when they got their TA after we started voting. United matched. American was left in the dust until their CEO decided to match.

I know it’s not a sexy narrative, but that’s what happened.

 

Yup. I do. I suspect you do too.

I should pick up some of these 12 tfp reserve days! Sounds very lucrative. I don't live in domicile though, so I am, apparently, not eligible.

You get bait and switched on reserve too? I thought you were already on reserve, when you're on reserve? I guess that explains how Thunder averaged 12+ tfp per day for 4 months. In the winter, no less. He must get bait and switched every single day!

 

What about the all the "we already make enough money" concessionary votes before you got hired that put us behind in just about every measurable way?

We finally had a union that represented the pilots instead of management, with a goal for a change, and the momentum to achieve it. We blew it. As usual.

That said, with the level of resolve this pilot group has, I am surprised we got as much as we did this time. At least I can work more to make up the difference.

 

No Slip, we didn’t blow it nearly as bad as you think. We missed out on some things, LTD/insurance stuff comes to mind. That’s a big ticket item to me and that’s why I voted no.

But in reality, you don’t publish the Platform, go to the Company and say... you can afford it, now pay up! You can try, but that right there handicapped us. We didn’t ask for the moon and settled for the Platform. We asked for the Platform and settled for over a billion short of it. Isn’t that how negotiations work?

In my opinion, we may have screwed ourselves by publishing a reasonable document instead of a rather lofty one, but then again we needed to rally the membership, and the Platform did accomplish that. I do think Jon and the NC made a mistake of indicating how they were voting because of the “if it’s good for Jon, it’s good for me” crowd. It should have been a simple presentation consisting of pros, cons, what was gained, what was lost and let the chips fall.

I don’t think we’ll be going back to the old ways. You guys were still under the influence of Herb’s way that a handshake was good enough. Gary clearly ended that era by lying to us and getting the SWAPA he deserved. I just don’t see us going back to SWAPA 1.0 ways.

 

I agree about the LTD, but that was not even close to the only reason for rejecting it.

Agreed.

Membership polling showed that "we" were not willing to do what it took to get any closer to platform, which is why Jon "endorsed" it. He knew that a strike vote with this pilot group would've been the kiss of death.

LOL.... It took over a decade for GK to (almost) get the union he deserved. Now, we just need the membership he deserves!

That means that folks have to stop embellishing their pay vs. days worked numbers etc.(:cough: T1 :cough. Whether you actually flew or not, reserve is a day of work.

This stuff plays right into GK's hands, just like it always has. Guys like Myron have been using this argument for as long as I've been here.

 

The contract that we voted in was a huge improvement over the last contract and over the laughable TA1. Could we have gone the distance and maybe gained some improvements? Yes, but the improvements would have been incremental and would probably have been outweighed by the time and therefore money lost doing it.

Just look at pay per day for reserves. What a huge and underrated gain at the time. Reserve used to be like a leper colony and now you see guys picking up reserve blocks left and right. How much money has that made our pilot group? I bet it will be in the millions soon if not already.

Meanwhile, the same no voters would have still been entrenched and whining like they still do now in their safe spaces (Prune) because the koolie snowflake yes voters gave away the store.

No, reason and logic won the day and we walked away from the table with a fair deal. Timing dictated Delta and then United leapfrogging us, but that same timing should be on our side next go around.

Did we get everything I wanted in this contract? Not by a long shot, but that’s the downfall of being in this communist working man’s paradise union. I don’t get everything I want. We achieve what is best for the majority of the members and move on. Same with vacation voting. Funny how the same 5 guys are still shouting voter fraud and election rigging on the swapa forum because we didn’t vote what THEY wanted.

Next go around, we are going to be in a better place. How do I know? Look at our union leadership. They aren’t taking trips to France or Oshkosh and wearing hats emblazoned with their company names on them. They aren’t carrying the company’s water. They are advocating for us, as it should be.

We need some big improvements in the next contract. Pay, of course, but that is such a small part of the secret sauce here. Work rules and pilot disability and associated benefits are my two biggest peeves. No more scope, no PBS, no givebacks.

To answer the OPs question, it depends. The way we make widgets here is so different than most other airlines, it just isn’t a fair comparison to say we make x per hour. The 1.15 conversion works out pretty good.