dumpcheck

Boom. Lower the caps and floors; not the guarantees. Caps limit the ho’s. Reduced floors allow voluntary reduction of hours on an individual basis.

And while we’re continuing the philosophical discussion advocating that our union agree to relax a pay protection (MPG) in order to make the pilot group more efficient overall in order to motivate the company to keep more bodies on the payroll, do you acknowledge that:
1) Many junior pilots are pay protected to sit home and getting CA/WB pay for not working multiple months. There are 3-year pilots getting paid DOUBLE what some 20-25+ year pilots are bringing home (73 MPG CA/WB vs SRL NB).
2) Some of these same pilots will get furlough pay and/or be pay protected post displacement due to training protections at higher CA/WB rates.
3) Insert here whatever “bump games” that maximize pilot pay versus allowing the company to maximize efficiency.

Do likely furloughees enjoy these protections for these months? How should we reconcile these inefficiencies/imbalances and “share the sacrifice?“ I mean, it all comes down to being a more efficient group to save jobs, right? It’s not only unrealistic, it’s selfish to suggest that we maintain protections (ie., decrease efficiency) that protect individuals as long as it suits them, but then relax one of the broadest protections for the entire group to increase efficiency under the pretense of saving jobs. Not only will the company abuse such concessions in ways we can’t even conceive, it is a non-starter to mandate a reduction in hours to the entire group. It is especially offensive to senior pilots who have chosen to sit on junior seats for years versus chasing max pay rates: one of the main protections they have actually benefitted from is MPG. I speak as a double furloughee who frequently reduces his MPG and will continue to do so...VOLUNTARILY.

dumpcheck

Excellent post.
MUSFM

AxlF16

Can we all please use the correct terminology when talking about our contract?

I absolutely dispute that lowering MPG directly saves furloughs. Chew on that and get back to me.

XHooker

Yeah, but...

A) Assuming the company knows its desired staffing, its dream is to have every pilot on reserve flying to FARs. Reason being, the cost of a pilot flight hour is the hourly wage plus all of the fixed costs. Fewer fixed costs (each pilot) leads to lower cost structure. So right away you’re wanting something the company doesn’t want to give you, also known as negotiating. This is not a time we want to be in negotiations. Now, admittedly, the company only has the roughest of ideas what they want for manning right now, so they might be willing to give a little on this since it gives them some flexibility, but I doubt they’d be willing to cancel all the furloughs for anything less than a draconian drop in MPG.

B) Ever seen the movie Bedazzled? Guy makes a deal with the devil but repeatedly gets screwed on technicalities. That’s what’s likely to happen to us. There are so many “what if” scenarios I can think of that can arise when you drop MPG I won’t even try to mention them. We’ve got some sharp people working for us at ALPA, but the company has lots of smart people, too. If I and my little pea brain can come up with a bunch of ways we get screwed by dropping MPG, just imagine how many the smart folks in Willis can come up with. A pay cap is the best solution, but is an absolute non starter for the company. For evidence of that, witness their latest memo to inflight stating basically “reserve or not, you’re gonna fly your rears off, because we’re furloughing to the bone.” Fortunately, the line construction caps in Section Five of the UPA prevent that for us somewhat.

C) This isn’t a function of a bunch of heartless old guys saying “suck it up and die like an aviator” to the potential furloughs. A pretty big chunk of the list from 12-25 years seniority has either been furloughed or directly in the crosshairs, so most of us are very sympathetic, but in that experience we also understand the law of unintended consequences. We’ve got a contract, let the company work within it.

JUNEBUG82

Is it a concession if it is a trade?

i.e.

1. Pilots agree to work fewer hours
2. Company agrees to not furlough

duvie

i still think that there are a lot of our pilots who are very selfish and who consider lowering MPG an affront to the pocket books more than the contract. Hopefully I’m wrong

and masturbation... well, if a handful of people trying to hear and respond to the ideas, sometimes well thought-out, but more often pile-on cheap-shots and single sentence refrains is masturbatory ... I don’t know what you call debate and discourse. I’ve got nothing to gain from lowering MPG. I’m going to be a NB FO, or if there’s a winter flare up, the furloughs will go FAR deeper than me and the +/-5% change in furlough numbers that a MPG change would affect wouldn’t affect me.

and this negotiating in public argument is so plainly used when the status quo favors (the collective) your opinion. If the union came out tomorrow with a proposal that we lower MPG to 60 for 6 months, I challenge any of the ardent anti-concessionists to tell me you wouldn’t be on here posting with a vengeance. So please .... no negotiating in public on APC... give me a break.

duvie

the level to which MPG would have to be reduced to facilitate this is not palatable. It’ll take 3 years of retirements to get us to 90% size and I don’t think we’re gonna see anything this high even with a healthy rebound.

many pilots would probably be able to stomach 20% cuts for a finite amount of time, but losing control of MPG as long as demand remains below previous levels... even I don’t see that as a good idea

So although I’ve argued against the “it won’t work” mantra, I just don’t see that promise as one a majority of the pilot group could embrace.

John Carr

Agreed. “But.....but, who is ALPA or any other pilot to tell ME how much I can/can’t fly!!!!!!!”

As we’ve all heard before throughout our careers.

Well, in a logical sense, sure. Ever heard of a “bait and switch”?

And sadly, as we’ve seen previous, it doesn’t take a Ch.11 to extract a concession, etc.

As well as people NOT reading the fine print comes to mind. Something about “No more than 50% of block hours going to regionals”, till the fine print was examined, what have you.

Think Charlie Brown and the football.

AxlF16

Let's see what the furlough fund vote looks like before calling our pilot group selfish. Is this your new argument? Fear. Selfishness. What's next?

Any manager reading this would be thoroughly pleased at the lack of basic understanding (and willful ignorance of) our own history. They'd bust a gut just knowing that we're busy trying to figure out how to change our contract when we don't even understand the one we HAVE.

You've made your point clear. Others have made their points clear. Whats left? Reading and heeding the ALPA emails is a good start.

Huell

While I don't agree with all of this I do think you need a cap ... *****s will be *****s unless you make their prostitution illegal.

We have a lot of guys that must have attended VJIT.

Ho's will be Ho' unless you make prostitution illegal.