I’d prefer this thread not get personal and withholding names is Ok, but does anyone know background, experience, legacy airline, previous committee work, etc of the UAL Negotiating Committee?

With advocates like these….

 

Are you insinuating that better negotiators would have been able to overcome the current financial situation of the company, high fuel prices, war in Europe and a potentially massive recession and got the company to just give us more stuff? And if we are able to get more in the future, how much more and how long and does it make up for what we would give up by voting this down?

I’m just trying to understand the logic behind no and how that helps us. I am as upset as you are because I had higher expectations, but I am also pragmatic and trying to make a financial decision and not an emotional one.

 

An adept negotiating committee would have known to simply state, “we’ve yet to reach an agreement”. Instead, we have failure. So yes, I think it’s fair to ask about the background and credential of the committee members.

 

Thank goodness you’re not on my NC.

 

It is neither good financially nor for QoL.

 

How does a “raise” that doesn’t cover inflation help us?

 

Reserve doesn’t need to be more of a sh!t sandwich than it all ready is, and then there’s lying about scope changes. So no, how’s that for logic?

 

So let’s just vote it down. You’re in a giving mood it seems. Why not just take nothing more from them by voting this down? Think of all that would save them.

What gains have you found so far in the TA?

 

The Tumi suitcase?

 

On the face of it, better negotiators would have taken steps to at least establish the option to build leverage under the RLA by entering mediation at some point in the 3+ years since your contract was amendable.

DL’s contract became amendable in Dec 2019 and they opened talks with the company in April 2019. They filed for mediation in Jan 2020. They only waited nine months to file for mediation.

They have now been mediation for 2.5 years, which is normally around the amount of time that would be considered a minimum for a release to begin to become realistic. Covid happening in the interim probably extends that typical timeframe, but they still started the timer and have now racked up a lot of time in mediation. That’s huge because it has created the option, if they want it, to begin flexing the possibility of using the economic weapons available to labor.

Your guys’ contract was amendable Jan 2019, with a 270-day early opener - meaning you could have started talks in May 2018, almost a year earlier than DL did. I’m not sure when you guys started talks, but earlier would have been better. And AFAIK, your NC has chosen not to enter mediation for at least 3.5 and maybe as long as 4+ years now.

That has huge implications for you guys because it means you currently have zero leverage under the RLA to even tease the possibility of self-help. You won’t have that until years down the road and only if you enter mediation now. It’s not even an option for your pilot group at this point. For some reason, it’s as if your NC decided to shut the window on perhaps the most powerful source of leverage available to a pilot group.

That leaves you guys with the pilot shortage as your main source of leverage while Delta has that same leverage available to it AND ALSO has available to it the at least equally powerful leverage of the plausible possibility of creating a “book away” effect among its passengers if their passengers begin to hear rumblings of a possible strike in the offing.

For those reasons coupled with the turd that was produced, I’d say it’s reasonable to question WTH is going on with your NC. Maybe there’s a good explanation for all of it. It’s hard to imagine one, but maybe there is one.