I'm not sure how being twice-furloughed makes anyone more observant about something like that. It sounds more to me like someone whom needs a scapegoat to blame his or her lousy timing on.

I, for one of many, am a fairly senior guy. I have absolutely nothing to gain by seeing a lot of "junior guy" issues resolved. An iron-clad, very restrictive scope clause would do nothing for me. Toeing the line during a strike would do nothing for me. And while not a contract issue, this new SA policy sucks for me, too.

But I support fighting for these things, and would be willing to take it to the trenches. That's the sentiment of the vast majority of senior guys. And this is in spite of those younger/junior/narrow-body guys who advocate for me to clear out, make room for them, because I had my chance. I ask them may I please go til I'm 60?


Back when I was hired, the old senior wide-body guys sacrificed for guys like me; B-scalers. We will do it again, because we know right from wrong.

TW

 

You Sir, have class!

Cheers
George

 

The new MEC in 83' decided that the pilots were not bright enough to know all the issues regarding a contract vote so they took away membership ratificationfrom the pilots until 94'. When pilots were demanding membership ratification during the fabled ESOP negotiation the MEC refused to allow the pilots the right to vote. They knew it wouldn't pass. They only agreed to allow membership ratification after the ESOP was passed. There are many on the MEC who think we line pilots are just a bunch of sheep.

 

Results of the recall effort?

 

Here is a quote for ya.."If I say what the thinking is it will be all over the forum before I get to my car." So just because someone hasn't personally called you guys for your input as to the whats and whys and plans going forward are doesn't mean that they are stupid or that one does not exist.

Now I will admit hearing form a friend who has a cousin that was twice furloughed is high on the credibility meter, but there may be some things going on that are not being talked about.

 

I will take your word that you "were there." However, I am not sure you were in the closed sessions and conference calls. The Hawaii meeting was in October, after the strike, this is where we wrote the policy of who would be a UAL scab, I wrote most of it.

My boxes are bigger than yours.

You may be correct on the timming of their first B-Scale proposal, I was not on the negotiating committee. They started out asking for a 24% cut in October of "83". That was the bucket they wanted filled, they didn't care how it was done. Sometime after that, it may very well be around the July Denver meeting, they advanced the B-scale idea. It was not until that meeting that it was obvious to some of us the fight was on.

Ferris wanted to attend that meeting, we said no, apparently very irritated, he then appointed his strike committee. I do know, because of the Cal strike, Braniff, Reagan, a lousy economy, and AMR's undercutting our position, we would have to do something with a B-scale, just not a union busting B-scale.


[/QUOTE]

NO I haven't, I though Dave M has passed, hope not, he was a great guy.

 

The Gang of 7 are still one short. No vote as of 1pm central.

 

Baron so you wrote who would be a sca_? Was it something like if you went to training during, no scratch that, if you you turn a wheel, oops no scratch that, if you agree to come to work, ooops no cross that, if you agree to take someone's job during a job action oops no scratch that, if you turn a wheel and then pay some money back ooops no.

You guys crack me up, nice that you decided who would be one after the strike, no wonder we got our butts kicked. An absolute joke, please don't call this a union!

 

So, what you are saying is, "they did not really mean Word for Word," they wanted an addendum that would transition in some fashion to AMR's contract. That is not "Word for Word." In any case, this idea was a non starter for the MEC. It still had the union busting element in it. We are quibbling.


I will give you this one, a better way would have been to include all the incumbents, but we still had professional engineers at the time who would have no part of a lower pay raise. Nevertheless, it was a realignment, albeit badly done. Just a part of the blue skies politics. You must have been furloughed at the time and just did not appreciate how clever the Ferg MEC was.

 

To be correct, no ALPA MEC, had membership ratification prior to 1983. The by-laws had not permitted it from the organization's inception in the 1930's. The logic was that it was not in the pilots best interest to allow uninformed, management sycophants, and anti-union types to undermine the negotiators. Management would never give their best offer until they saw where the no votes would come from. They would then only have to appease the smaller group.

We did have straw votes, that were backed upped by the membership's right to recall those who ignored them. There was a vote on the ESOP, it was overwhelmingly in favor, and the fact that no one was recalled proves it.

This generation wants membership ratification for everything, so be it. It has only given you substandard concessionary contracts, but at least you can say you have democracy. I would rather tell management "don't talk to me, talk to my rep."

The old way required membership to trust but closely monitor their leadership, now people think they have the union on autopilot. If they don't like something they will just vote it down when the ballot comes out. Unfortunately, it does not work that way, and you are paying the price.