Relaxing the Scope Clause is Good?
 

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Nah, not worth it.

Quality post.

Why thanks. Copied a post from a regional forum but decided later it wasn't worth it. Suffice to say it appears many are happy to allow the tail to wag the dog.

I'll bite....I'll be your huckleberry.

Why would relaxing scope be good, and whom would it be good for?


My perception on relaxing scope....

1. bad for pilot wages both short term and long term
2. bad for career progression
3. bad for career expectations
4. bad for pilot benefits, and retirements
5. reduces bargaining power of the piloting profession
6. lowers the intrinsic value of a price of a pilot
7. reduces motivation of those who may want to enter profession
8. reduces signing bonuses, discourages investment
9. would be the same effect as age 65 was to age 60. stagnation.
10. would only benefit institutional investors who want higher value for their shares, and/or management who wishes to off load stock.
11. Would be seen as a colossal failure for ALPA, almost as bad as having management break the union as in 1983 all over again.
12 would limit the bargaining power of ALPA not only at one airline, but at many. Once other carriers pilots see ALPA give in on something like this, credibility, and face would be lost. We would never be able to hold our heads up with pride if Management beats us with scope relief. I would rather fall on 1000 swords.

Relaxing the Scope Clause is bad. Agree with the many reasons baseball posted above.

Unfortunately, I think the MC and Negotiating Committee are headed down that road, or at least laying the groundwork for it.

I re-read the MC's Labor Day letter the other day and came across a tidbit in the Q&A that I had overlooked on the first reading:
Put another way, we will agree to changes in scope if they benefit career security for pilots.

In the same letter, the MC articulated what he perceived to be threats to our career security: the CRJ-550, JV Scope, and the fact that "management can park literally all of our mainline wide-body aircraft, and up to 160 of our narrow-bodies, and they would still not be required to remove one single RJ from Express service."

Are these true threats or is this the smoke screen being laid down to give the NC cover? The CRJ-550 has limited utility in limited markets and the company hasn't so far shown interest in having Delta-style JVs to outsource widebody flying.

It seems to me that the MC is setting up the messaging so that when they move on Scope, he can declare victory and say "we said all along we wouldn't make changes to scope unless it benefited career security for pilots and we've kept our word. We've limited the number of 50-seat RJ's, gained some JV protections, and now have RJ-to-mainline aircraft ratios. We also have a no-furlough clause! However, in order to secure these industry-leading protections, tough choices had to be made so we've agreed to remove/relax the 100-seat scope choke language. Pilots need to have a long-term focus based on protecting the profession over a 30-year career, and not focus on short-term gains."

It will be sold as a victory, but the company will have moved the line yet again.

I wouldn’t read too much into this. All they said is that they wouldn’t agree to any change that weakened our scope. If they changed the language to better our cause it would be worth a read. Regardless of what they come up with, we still get to vote.

Ok. Stop wasting your brain cells. I read a post on another APC for where some RJ pilot was commenting about backing United down regarding a jumpseat agreement. I was going to post his comments but decided it's not worth it. I couldn't delete the thread at the time so just typed some filler.

Union communications should be kept simple....as in pilot simple.

Union to membership: Scope is not for sale.

Membership to union: We hear you loud and clear.

I think you got it backwards