I copied this from a post by "Timbo" on the Delta TA thread. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it. Its an excellent take on a lot of things that apply to us at NK.


In my 30 years at Delta, I have seen 5 management teams and 8 contract negotiations. The only contract where we got a significant raise and retro active pay was in C2K, and that took 18 months of fighting with management, and a slogan, "Restore the Profession", and we did...for 4 years.

Good contracts do not come easily. They don't come quickly. If you want a truly historic contract you have to work hard to achieve it and you have to wait out management's BS, that they just cannot afford it. This TA actually makes money for management, not for us.

Right now, we have the best negotiating environment I have ever seen. When we did C2K, Delta had earned $1 Billion, which at the time, was a huge, never before seen profit. Last year, Delta earned $4.5 Billion. This year, Delta should earn about $6 Billion.

Our DB plan was underfunded by about $4 Billion when Delta gave it to the PBGC, and our pay cuts in 2005 were about $1.3 Billion. We are still 18% below our 2004 pay rates, and our retirement funding is tiny compared to what our DB plans were worth at the time, never mind what they would be worth going forward.

The company announced they are going to give $6 Billion to the shareholders, before they restore our sacrifices. They threw this piece of crap at us just for fun, to see if we are stupid enough to fall for a quick 8% raise, funded by concessions throughout the rest of the contract. I don't blame them for trying, but I do blame our MEC for buying into it.

We need to shoot this POS down now, and then we need to reorganize and formulate a new MEC, and a new strategy, because Proactive Appeasement has failed us, obviously, and we need to return to traditional negotiating strategy if we want to restore our profession, where Labor Risk is on the table, where it belongs.

So don't let yourself get all stressed out about this contract. But do tell your friends if they want a better contract, it's going to take a year or so, maybe more. Be patient. Don't stress out, get a puppy, or go fishing, or to the beach, just vote no and then sit back and wait. The sun will come up tomorrow and if Richard wants the Money Making Machine to keep minting billions, he's going to have to come back with a much, much better offer, or the operational performance will start to suffer, no doubt.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

 

Easy to say when pay and work rules are already at the top or close to it and when a 15% defined contribution is getting deposited into your 401k and you're getting a $30k profit sharing check every spring.

 

Would you say Spirit pilots overall are more concerned with maintaining/improving the QOL aspects or getting better rates for the next contract?

I know everyone will say both.. Just hoping people aren't considering giving up things that create the great QOL for the highest possible payrates.

QOL and the min 4-5 days off every week are the biggest attractant to Spirit for me besides domicile. Certainly hope the rates and retirement contribution go way up to with industry standard, just not at the expense of other things like PBS or giving up the transition and min days off.

AA's new contract has nice shiney pay rates but QOL/reserve life/days off/work rules are crap for a Legacy carrier.

 

If you had a min 16 days off per month like southwest you would usually have 4 days off between pairings anyway and if you didn't one week you'd probably have 6-10 days off the next.

I also wouldn't want AAs new contract but I'd say talk to an AA pilot around your relative seniority and really compare how their qol is. I'd bet it's not much better or worse than yours. Is that worth $100k more a year to you along with a 16% retirement contribution?

 

Yeah, That works too..

I do know many guys at AA that have flowed through. None of them are getting close to averaging 16-19 days off a month ever, not even close. Not until they are very senior and it's still rare. Days off are more important to me personally.

Money is useless If you have no life and are a slave to the airline (IMO). After you are making a comfortable amount of course.

If I had the choice of 150K/yr and 18-19 days off VS 220K/yr and 12-13 days off I would take the 150K every time.. so I could actually enjoy life. But that's just me. Of course the group is worth more than that, just using it as a rough example. I know some people on the other side would do anything for max pay because they have no home life.

I suppose on the other hand if the rates are high enough and you can "actually" drop stuff.. It works out the same. I just have bad experiences with drops being denied to staffing every month. So I would never trust that.

I have just never seen any other carriers where even a junior pilot can regularly get as many days off as a Spirit pilot does. That is HUGE. Southwest would be similar I guess but they are in major stagnation mode for the forseeable future.

 

Ask those that were here for the strike just how bad schedules can get without the 4 days off.

 

The 4 days off are key to the QOL here at spirit. We should not give that up under any circumstances, period.

 

How about those 6 days on! love those. 4 days off is the wrong battle to fight in my opinion. I think we would be far better to focus on the trip and duty rigs to maximize pay and minimize time at work. Max of 4 days on on with an average of three a la Southwest...your gonna get your for days off, or more.

 

Work 2, 1 off
Work 1, off 1
Work 2 off 3.
Should I go on?

 

SWA can have 16 days off, but what if you 3 days on, then 5 days off, 1 day on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 5 days off, 3 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 4 days off, 3 days on. That's 30 days total, 16 days off. Not great for a commuter like me. I'll keep those four days off minimum thank you very much.