Again, no one at United has ever asked me to introduce myself by my full name- and I actually work here; so I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that they want us to do that.

They do encourage the business card thing although, again, I’ve never heard anyone recommend we include personal contact information on those cards. Understand, I’m not commenting on whether people should be participating in extra customer interactions right now, just trying to clarify which elements of what you’re pointing out actually are being suggested by the company & which are just personal choices. I have no idea what you saw on FB or when or where it came from, but the fact that you see one guy out of 16,000 doing anything tells me very little. The reality is, until recently this was fairly common & as time goes on it’s becoming increasingly less so. Organic change takes time. I don’t claim to know whether the company cares about that, but if they do, they are certainly noticing the dropoff.

 

Those guys really really love the hat.

 

AFAIK, AA never filed for mediation. Same with UA.

Delta did file for mediation. And they were close to three years into mediation when they got their deal. That’s well past the average time spent in mediation of cases handled by the NMB over the last few years. That means it was becoming more and more realistic that Delta could have been released from mediation. Delta posed a credible threat of legal self help to management.

Filing for mediation is the first real step in beginning to build leverage under the RLA. Without ever filing for mediation, there is absolutely zero credible threat of legal self help. If there’s no credible threat of legal self help, then if I were airline management, there wouldn’t be much incentive to play ball or not string out negotiations.

The pilots legally have to keep showing up for work and doing their job. If they attempt an illegal job action, management can potentially hobble the union via a crippling court-imposed fine like the $45M hit APA took back in 1999.

Outside of that, what’s left? Pickets? Frowny faces? I don’t know how compelling any of that is to management.

 

I would 100% agree with all of this IF there was actual leverage in it by being able to actually strike. If Management, ALPA, politicians and customers all know that there is zero credible threat of a actual strike then it is not the leverage that we all wish it was.

 

Although technically correct, I think you miss the mark by a wide margin. DALPA tossed our opening position on the table to management in 2019. Some slow roll negotiations ensued. As DALPA became more entrenched, Management quickly filed for mediation. Then Covid hit and the last thing DALPA wanted to do was "negotiate" in front of a mediator under such poor circumstances. Then came the recovery and DALPA started having more leverage with the exponential pilot hiring(after early retirement fiasco) and the the CEO made a stupid comment on CNBC saying essentially, "The pilots will never be able to strike"(with we all know in our heart of hearts). That irked the mediator who the told management to bring their last and best final offer....which reaped huge gains over what had been previously settled. It basically became super mediation at that point.

So, the 3 years is technically correct and that may be longer than average, but the time frame was far from average too and was epically challenging with with the pendulum swinging wildly on who had the leverage.

Personally, I think UAL missed the boat on filing for mediation because to do so now would probably get a 2 years mediation window. That may be all good for some, but sounds like a losing strategy to me at this juncture.

 

I think your analysis is pretty accurate.

Pros for mediation:
It will...eventually bring management to the table. Key word...eventually.
A strike vote after a year in mediation would actually mean a real threat, even if the government has an unofficial mandate to not release(that would be illegal, but it's the government, right?)

Cons for mediation:
The heavy lifting has already been done by Delta (thanks widget people) and any mediator won't push for us to have much more than DL.
Prior to DLs (and now a more than likely AA vote) mediation would have been smart, but our MEC dropped the ball and picked up a TUMI, which really hurt us.
Mediation won't move the ball forward in any meaningful way, but has a very real threat of extending our negotiations for another year or 2.

Bottom line IMO - we missed the mediation boat under the last MEC. We should have been screaming for this at the beginning of 2022, then we'd have been in mediation for a while now. SWA filed for mediation back in Sep 22. Perhaps we should have filed then, but our MEC was in the midst of recalls and mudslinging, so disfunctional at best.

We had to do a purge at our MEC and that honestly cost us a year of pay and benefits. Only some were screaming for mediation back then as we were all "hoping" management would see the light because SK said we'd only take 2 weeks.

Personally I think we have 2 choices:
1) Push SK for an "acceptable" AA type deal now. Maybe we see Delta "equal".
2) Punt and file for mediation and basically sit in limbo for another year or 2

Here's 2 things that I think will happen if #2 happens:
1) Large numbers of LCAs and instructors will quit and return to normal line flying, guys will bid down to WB FO from NB CA because they know they aren't going anywhere. They will have to rebuild the TK ranks which will take about 1-2 years, and will be much harder since the current UPA is not commuter friendly.
2) United Next will be significantly handicapped to the tune of large #s of delayed or cancelled deliveries

If this happens, pilot motivation will be crushed, ALPA will become much more militant and United will once again be a joke of an airline since the pilots won't be pulling on the same rope to help make the company better.

SK is playing with fire here. He's trying to proverbially "thread the needle" instead of paying up. He's a self proclaimed "gambler" at heart and he thinks saving $200 million over the next 4 years is worth it to him because he wants to line his management team's pockets.

IMO we get SK and management to sign off on a "super negotiation" the way DL did last fall. From what I understand they all met for 2 weeks in Charlotte and didn't leave till the NC and MEC signed off on an AIP. We don't have a mediator to force the hand, but we tell them that if we can't agree by Jun 14th, they will file for mediation and tell pilots that by doing so we "Don't expect a contract for another 2 years"... That will be the key to in essence breaking the United Next plan for the next 2 years, which is SK's baby. We don't want to break United Next, and neither does SK, but I think we all know that is our leverage, but it's leverage that in essence will be "cutting off our nose to spite our face". Do we want that? TBH, I think a final survey needs to go out and if the majority wants to trash United next, so be it.

We have to threaten the United Next plan in a meaningful way. We can't tell guys what to do, but if we punt and go to mediation, we send a message that we won't see anything for years. This is the only "real" leverage we have and in the end will probably only get us an extra 2-3% over Delta assuming the economy recovers and doesn't tank. With goodwill lost, we will never truly become a powerhouse like the United Next plan delivers and likely SK will be replaced in a year or 2. That's reality IMO.

 

Great post Zoomie.
I’m disgusted by the amount we have lost because of Todd Insler and the MEC that coddled him. The amount of damage that they did will never be fully understood since it’s so immense.

Until Insler shows some humility and remorse, he should be treated like the pariah he has become.

 

Feel like running for MEC chair in the future? I’m 100% on board.

 

That’s probably realistic. With Delta, and possibly American having similar deals, expecting to significantly raise the bar over the highest of the two is probably unrealistic. We should try to go as high as we can, but we’ll probably end up just slightly over in total cost regardless of how we get there.

 

United has already lost the battle of who values my days off more this summer.