Joflyin

I interviewed on April 28th and they offered me a class for September 7th.

HiFly5

Quick question for anyone who is in the know about union info. Now that the new contract is in place, what kinds of things will the union be pushing for next? What is on the priority list as far as QOL improvements? Anything?

Thanks

RadialRover

There biggest struggle for QoL is getting the company to actually, meaningfully adhere to the contract and implementation schedule.

HiFly5

Definitely. Thanks for that. Would you say the pilot morale has improved since the contract? Or is the company still having a negative impact on things.

RadialRover

Initially pilot morale improved, but since the company has started working around the contract and been unable or unwilling to meaningfully implement the provisions in the new contract (aside from pay), it has deteriorated for guys that were initially very on board. They’re not seeing the probability that the company can implement the upcoming phases of the contract; part of that is not having the staffing to do it, and the other part is seemingly contempt for the pilot group from middle management.

HiFly5

I see. What specifically is the company not implementing? I have a CJO and I am just trying to learn what I can. Thank you.

YerOnGuard

What parts haven’t been adhered to? Long call reserve, line improvement period, real time open time have all happened. Maybe not the ways they originally wanted, but not for a lack of the company trying. They shoveled tons of money towards aims to get the software coded in time, but aims is dragging their feet.

I would be happy to scream from the tallest building if the company was intentionally trying to get away with not implementing, but that’s simply not what’s happening. Not the fault of the company that aims isn’t holding up their end of the deal. In the mean time, they have made alternative ways of implementation which have worked.

RadialRover

Yeah…no. First off, they dragged their feet initially negotiating the contract which effed away their ability to hire and retain going into an aggressive expansion of the flying schedule. Second, honestly no they haven’t made a great effort to implement as bargained. If they had, there probably still wouldn’t be people that were enthusiastic about the contract still leaving.

YerOnGuard

We aren’t talking about that though. We are discussing your claim that they are failing to implement certain parts of the agreement. I believe that, so far, they are implementing (to the best of their ability, given the constraints by an outside software vendor) as scheduled.

While we are on the subject of unrelated things, let’s attack those too. I don’t think our hiring is an issue, I haven’t seen too many empty classes lately. We are stacked with new hires out to September.

With regards to retention, I’m inclined to agree with you. We shouldn’t be losing 6-8 year captains to other airlines. In some instances, I can see it because generally those guys are commuters and are making QOL gains for switching. Overall though, no we shouldn’t be losing those and retention numbers should be better.

I don’t disagree that their tactics during the early stages of negotiation weren’t great, but that’s par for the industry. Alaska is a great example of just how bad we could have had it here. In that light, we got lucky.

Now back to the original question I asked you, what are they failing to implement? You claimed they have been unwilling to implement parts of the new contract.
Which part of the contract have they failed to implement? If you can show that they, through malice, miscalculation, or plain stupidity, they are not implementing, I’d happily agree.

I’m all for holding feet to the fire, but I just can’t get onboard with being frustrated towards them for no reason.

ablack722

Spot on. Seems like some people on here didn’t listen to the union call a week ago.