China brought us da COVID!! 😜😜

 

"We pilots get burned every time."

No, we burn ourselves every time. - Concessions have never worked.
Again, management watches as we go down in flames.

"...if a Trip for that Category cannot be assigned without disruption of days off, the number of disrupted days off shall be no more than four (4) days per assignment."


​​​​​​So now, every reserve, Basic or Global, can be assigned a 5 day trip on their last day of reserve. And they can do this as many times as they want–all they have do is shuffle your remaining RDOs. Bye bye Basic HDOs. This is a HUGE concession for all the Basic reserves."

Just say "No"!

 

Good point. However, doesn't anybody else think the company is going to announce another round of additional furloughs (effective 1 Jan) before the vote closes in order to scare up a few more votes? Obviously, I'm hoping against this...

 

Humm not so sure about that. I read a few posts before this TA stating full pay to the last day.
The upper portion of Jr group is basically voting on a soft furlough. We're not in the initial furlough plans but certainly are in the 3900 plan.
I think many of us Jr groupers are thinking, "I can beat 35hrs of MPG." But if one goes non-current what is to say the company will send you to TK? WB FOs not displaced, they schedule your MV or LOE yet? Landings class? If no I'd be very concerned.
Heck, incomplete consolidation after training is a concern, etc, etc.
Any Jr pilots in Jr group still non current from the spring?

 

Not my words but posted in another thread. I think it’s a good synopsis:

Here is my personal synopsis with some possible scenarios:

Let's start with the scenarios if the TA passes:

Best case scenario:

2600+ furloughs canceled (2850 adjusted with mitigations)
Cares 2.0 passes and company accepts: NO MPG cuts until Cares funds run out. NO furloughs until December 2021,.
Thousands of displacements canceled
Pay protections for those on the displacement awards, even if displacement not canceled.
5% pay raise/if demand returns.
11k LTD
70 seat RJ’s
First Class Dhd
People on seniority list in case of a merger

Worst case scenario:
Cares 2.0 doesn’t pass: Furlough delayed until June 2021 with no cares act passage, then ~2000 instead of ~2600. If company furloughs more, agreement terminates.
MPG cut to 35 hours for the junior folks and 52 hours for the middle, 60 hours for the top until agreement terminates.
5% pay raise/if demand return.
70 seat RJ’s
11k LTD
First Class Dhd
People on seniority list in case of a merger


Here are the scenarios if it doesn’t pass:

Best Case:
Thousands of furloughs starting in 2 weeks.
Most displacements proceed/are final.
No mpg cuts.
Company in the middle of next year with strong demand will recall the furloughs. Good luck trying to train 2-3 thousand of pilots coming back from furlough in addition to new vacancy bids in a relatively quick way.

Worst case:
Thousands of furloughs in addition to the ~2600 announced
No mpg cuts for those still here
More displacements and downgrades
The company was going to go down this path anyway.
Furloughed people on the list in case of merger (Ask how that worked out for the LUAL guys)




Arguments from people opposed to it:

Argument
You knew the hazards when signing up for this career, furlough is part of the business. Why should I subsidize your career?

Answer:
You also knew the hazards when signing up for this career, being part of a union and a staying strong together is part of the business. Although I think United, especially with all the scabs, loves to eat their young, I hope that most people will look past the cut and see the greater picture. I bet, most of the middle and senior group would be a hard yes if they were much closer to the bottom. And no, you are not subsidizing the junior guys. I would argue the junior guys are subsidizing the middle and senior guys. How many will be able to keep captain and/or widebody pay while displacing and being much more senior in their seat and being able to pick up trips? How many will keep their high paying seat? 50% mpg cut for the junior group while a fraction for the senior group is bs. This should’ve been even across the board cut.

Argument:
The company is using this so that they can make us essentially part-time employees.

Answer:
There are clear snapbacks in place to bring mpg back into place. Do you really think they want thousands of pilot sitting around at half mpg while paying for their benefits? That is not efficient. They want to squeeze every bit of productivity out of you. Look at what happened in 2008-2009 after the furlough people were flying almost 100 hours a month.

Argument:
The company is using this to squeeze us and there is plan is to file bankruptcy so they can squeeze us even more down the road.

Answer:
No, see above, they would want to make everyone fly the max hours and be efficient, the mpg cuts would not be a smart thing to keep.

Argument:
The MPG concession is not worth it, keep the contract intact, FPLD.

Answer:
I hope most people see the bigger picture. Having thousands of extra people on the seniority list and having thousands of people not be displaced has huge implications with bidding and pay. Yes there will be mpg cuts if cares 2.0 doesn’t pass or funds run out and demand doesn’t return, but these are not payrate cuts, you will work less for the same pay rate. The big benefits of having people below you in BES and thus being a higher percentage for bidding is something I think most people are also overlooking. Additionally, for thousands, they will be payrate protected and the mpg cut for a big portion of the group will be significantly less than what everybody is proclaiming.

Final thoughts:
This is by no means a perfect agreement, as seen by the junior/middle/senior group split up which insane. But, as a whole even in the worst-case scenario it is an easy yes vote. If cares 2.0 passes and if demand somewhat returns this will end up being a HUGE win for everyone involved. Even in the worst-case scenario above with cares not passing, thousands of pilots will A. Keep their jobs, but work much less (junior group). B. Have their displacements canceled, AND even if they don’t get their displacement canceled, be payrate protected. And C. Have people many more below them in BES and seniority list. Will this fix everything and we will go back to 2019? No, it won’t, but it will provide much needed time for the majority of people at the bottom, for the industry to stabilize and provide significant benefits for the majority of the group

 

One thing I forgot to add is the 655+ early retirements allowed by this TA in the if this passes categories.

 

I'm in that "unconsolidated" WB FO from the spring group...sent a PDR, still have no idea where I would end up in this whole thing. Just sitting around waiting to retrain and reconsolidate until June???

 

So how is this unity for someone who waited until a certain percentage to bid a higher paying aircraft and then was displaced to a lower band. So now the option for them would be reserve on higher band At 52 hrs (which they Intentionally bid to avoid) or accept the additional pay cut on top of the 52 hrs for the lower pay cut but lineholder. But you will have thousands of guys junior to you making captain pay (they were on reserve) but now more senior as fo but still receiving their captain pay.

That’s huge for this middle tier guy. And now my decision is back to reserve costing me 120k for / 2 years or line holder lower pay costing me 215k for 2 years. Commute either way


isn’t that asking a bit much for me to give up? Where does it end?

 

You do realize the whole part of the TA about “industry true-up” makes it financially painful for the company if they are an outlier to what the industry is doing in regards to those metrics, revenue, etc.? They’d have to provide a bump to pilots for not being in the same ballpark as others...unless you are suggesting the airlines will collide to keep block hours low on purpose.

 

And how close are you to the top of that bottom group? Company has indicated they are likely to furlough up to 3,900 by next year. This TA will likely retire another 655 pilots. If you are that close, you are likely to move up into the next tier after retirements accounted for so the MPG cut wouldn’t be what you stated.

And for the record, I’m a YES because I wanted three things:

1. To save pilots from being furloughed in a tough economy, job market/prospects...keeps an income, benefits, retirement.
2. No scope relief and this tightened it up
3. Clear ways to unwind this especially if the company was heading to bankruptcy.