Bye Bye ,Leverage
 

I’ve argued the safety issue of forced upgrades (which to me is the greater concern), but I think those who are brushing that element aside are also overlooking what a terrible negotiating decision it is. The company has always had free rein to do with NH FOs as they please, but their need to fill CA positions in parity has often worked to our advantage. For example: consider the large growth we’ve seen in mid continent hubs over the past couple of years. This has come largely because, although the company could send all the NH FOs to SFO & EWR, they couldn’t fill the CA seats. This forced them to build more flying out of places like DEN & IAH where more of our pilots want to live. (Heck, we actually got a FL base- which we’ve been whining about for decades- purely because the company couldn’t staff EWR voluntarily.) While ALPA has been encouraging the company to do this for a long time, the company has been reluctant to do it because it costs more $$$. Finally, they realized they had to pay what it cost because they had no alternative. I.e., send flying where the pilots want to be or have no captains to do the flying.

Now they have a much cheaper & more efficient alternative- send as many NH FOs & CAs as they want to the undesired hubs. Pilot desirability now has no impact on how & where they build flying.

In essence, we’re creating a new subset of the pilot group-prospective crews- that will do the work we don’t want to do for cheaper. Today, if none of us wants to sit RSV in SFO, there is pressure on the company to improve RSV rules or commuting benefits; or build more flying where our pilots live. Tomorrow their solution will just be to send full NH crews there.

This will give the company a massive advantage in all forward negotiations. Any time we put pressure on them that the pilots want X, they will know that there’s a crew out there willing to go without X just to get on property. (That has always been true of FOs, but once it is also true of captains, the company’s incentive to appeal to our requests will drop to zero.) Want RSV improvements? Nah, we’ll just get NHs to sit RSV. Commuter benefits? Not when we can just send NHs to the undesirable hubs. Restrictions on reassignments? You guessed it. The incentive to open- & maintain bases like MCO completely dries up when the company can simply staff EWR with NHs. Today we’re negotiating against the company. Next cycle we’ll be negotiating against every pilot on the street who wants to come to UAL.

I gotta hand it to Kirby- he’s been playing chess against our checkers this whole time. Delay, delay, delay. Stash $$$ in a mattress while he wears us down; then once he has a big enough retro check to wave under our noses, ask for forced upgrades & sign quickly. (Isn’t it interesting how the one thing in this contract that is a major concession is the very thing that was absent from all polling & negotiations updates?)

Right now we feel like we’re getting a lot of what we asked for, but I think the time will come when we realize what we gave up to get it.

100% - filler

I agree, 100%.

Devil’s advocate: it’s ultimately not good for the pilots if they thwart substantial growth of the airline.

This didn’t even make my top 100 list of things I care about in the contract.


We wanted Delta money, we got a single work rule that doesn’t apply to a single one of us on property closer to Delta’s rules (no minimum Delta hours required to upgrade).

This is not an unreasonable take. If a not insignificant subset of our pilots is happy sticking it out in the WB right seat for 20+ years until they can jump the trash can, (and yes I look at those lines and it can be a great QOL so I get it), then there has to be some reasonable backstop that fills NB CA seats if we don’t fill them (keeping in mind the paid move provisions, removal of freezes and other improvements, etc all activate in this TA before the accelerated CA provision can kick in). We value the number of widebodies we fly. It’s fantastic. Do you think we’ll take the 100 787 options if we can’t staff the NB’s to get pax to them? I don’t think the solution is mini pilot bases in everyone’s favorite outstation or positive space for all. I would have been happy with a greater pay split between CA/FO to incentivize things but we seem to pattern bargain there.

There has to be a semi-same way to fill seats and this is one viable way. Freezes are waived before it happens (a plus), paid CA moves happen (a new incentive), and the training and flight hour requirement is still more stringent than Delta’s (we seem to remember every moment where we lag Delta with laser precision while forgetting every moment where we’ve got better contract wording).

It's an apples to oranges comparison comparing min requirements for forced upgrades to min requirements to voluntary upgrades. Not even close to the same thing.

You could also get forced to Guam as a NH. I’d call that substantially worse if you and your family are living on the east coast and not able to move there.

Ah yes, the old “gotta see it from the company’s perspective”. A classic in one-sided negotiations. They would have paid for captains, but we told them they didn’t have to.

If those incentives are so great, why does the company need the forced upgrade provision? It’s basically an open admission that what they’re offering is below market value.

how do you know they didn’t pay for it.. what did we get in exchange for this provision? We don’t know but someone does

Ah yes, the old, 'I'm voting yes, but I'm going to scream about how terrible this contract is' thread.

Here's an alternate thought - maybe, just maybe, this is targeted to other airlines' CAs to jump ship and come to United. You know, F9, NK, G4, B6, AS, LUV, among others.
While I applaud the enthusiasm over this one issue, it's already been beaten to death, drug to the glue factory, repackaged as Elmer's glue, and is currently for sale in individual containers on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Elmers-Liquid...1zcF9hdGY&th=1

so they can have worse new hire work rules?

The rationale I've heard most often from those airlines' CAs is they don't want to take the pay cut/ are worried about the music stopping.
Every airline has good and bad work rules, etc. If one likes, they can cherry pick how Mesa (insert any airline) is a better place to work than United.


Feel free to return to the regularly scheduled hand wringing over the TA.

Desperation is setting in…

then make it optional .. not a forced upgrade

Which is fine. Make it voluntary & let them come. If pay/QOL is good enough & they feel comfortable, they’ll upgrade.

It already is optional and the reserve rules suck so bad they’re getting 100+ unfilled Captain slots per vacancy and the TA doesn’t over much real improvements to make. 5+ years of reserve appealing.

Now, go back and read the commend I replied to and tell me why I replied the way I did..

This TA will pass for sure both MEC and MRAT
and complaining will not change the outcome
Even though I don’t like some changes
I am a yes vote

Everyone explaining that the TA will pass, yes I know. Most guys were already yes votes 6 months ago. Other than a couple nit picky things, I was pretty happy w/ the bullet points. Final language had a big Trojan Horse & I wish the union had been upfront about it. I think most people would have been a no on forced upgrades in a poll (had it ever appeared in one) but now that it’s sitting next to section 3, the morality gets a little fuzzy.

I had initially put my $$$ on high 80% pass but I’m downgrading it to mid 70s. I think some will drop out over this. Not enough.

And this is a b**ch board, so I’m exercising my membership rights. Nobody is being forced to listen to my wailing, yet here you are, so DM me if you want my shrink’s #.

The unfilled CA vacancies are also a result of extremely rapid growth. Watch what happens when we reduce class sizes and slow down vacancy bids.
Unfilled CA vacancies is a good thing. It sure beats the alternative.
And take my word for it - reserve beats the heck out of being furloughed.

Dont take this post as me seeing dark clouds on the horizon.

Exactly. Our NC sold high. This provision will be useless under normal, low, or no growth periods. If the company spend negotiating capital on this, it’s their loss. I’m glad our NC was able to monetize this.

This is is exactly what I have been highlighting to folks…. I am hearing a lot of the. It’s all perspective arguments or the st one time upgrades used to take forever… Once this leverage is voted it away, it is gone for good..

Theres very little to commend, but plenty to criticize, which is the whole point of this thread.

100%. We’re not giving up leverage, we’re selling leverage while the leverage commands a high price. That’s smart. Once either another black swan or the 0-hero ab initio pipelines fully spool up the Captain vacancy leverage will go away.

Not a black swan, but jet fuel prices are on the move. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/ee...4_rgc_dpgD.htm
Several problems here. OPEC is reducing output, rig count is down in the US, and the SPR is at its lowest level in four decades. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/Le...s=mcsstus1&f=m
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oil_rotary_rigs
https://apnews.com/article/saudi-ara...4bdf052921125c

This isn't a big problem as long as we can pass the increased cost on to consumers.

Don’t forget the war on oil!

POTUS just shut down half of Alaska for oil exploration and drilling. Guess we’ll have to rely more on the clean and environmentally friendly way the Saudis, Iranians, and Venezuelans extract their oil…

Probably to reduce our environmental impact by reducing support for carbon based fuel.

Council 33 FO Rep Mario Martins’ piece on this TA nails it. I urge everyone who has not read it to do so. I entered this AIP/TA with full optimism and a sense of urgency based on where we stand from an economic cycle perspective. Sadly, I am a hard “no” on this TA. I won’t be complicit in what I view as an assault on the foundation of our careers. Section 8 amounts to a cancer that threatens to consume us from the inside out.

We aren't all in C33, care to cut and paste his missive?

And what exactly did we get for that high price? Point to any single item in the TA that is industry leading. We got marginally improved work rules in some areas and concessions in others. This leverage will be squandered for nothing.

As an outsider (and my pet project:)) I submit that the profit sharing coming up to Delta's AND making it pensionable might be worth as much as 1.5 Billion dollars over the course of the contract. So, even though it may not be industry leading, it is far, far superior to what you had and had a price tag associated with it.

That's why it's called negotiations, not ultimatums.

Agree with the sentiment that caused the start of this thread, and I also don’t see how the NC “sold high”. Our rates, DC, etc. were thankfully a product of the market, not us negotiating for them. Of course this was after we dodged a bullet shot at us by a squad of dunces; but our work rules continue to be inadequate. Be it a negative change in how sick time works, or the wholly terrible global reserve rules that it seems every reserve will soon endure. The goal of distracting this pilot group again with a few dollars while assaulting various corners of the related sections appears to have worked according to what I assume was the plan. Pilots tripping over a few bucks at the expense of solid language is a real shame. SK sleeps well tonight.

Bingo. If market forces alone would get us parity with the current leaders we would’ve had delta profit sharing for years. I’m more concerned about where our contract was to where it is now vs whether we lapped delta or not. If market forces alone would get an airline to parity with another why did AA get such a turd?

Are you saying global reserve rules are now applying to the nb fleets?

well as some off the max’s can do global trips you are going to start seeing narrow body bases become global. EWR will most likely be the next one (Cleveland I believe already is)

Absolutely. We started it with the Azores and it’s going to spread. You see those Lingus 321s over here? Iceland Maxes? How about Westjet’s Max up in EDI or CDG? JetBlue is launching over the pond now. It’s coming.

Just for future knowledge, on the ALPA MEC website you can go to the E Library and see every council and MEC email sent out.

Weakness and lack of unionist philosophy at APA and within AA. The abject failure of AA pilots to raise the bar in this negotiating environment marks them as pariahs and freeloaders.