Consider this.
 

My perception is that a lot of LUAL guys are concerned that the only reason a Continental guy would vote NO on this TA is to delay the whole process so that the Continental side can continue to upgrade captains and ultimately shrink the UAL side out of existence.

I don't see that from where I sit as a furloughee on the CAL side, but I think this is the perception.

What do you guys think? And what could be done to show the LUAL side that this is not the case?

I don't think sUAL guys care WHY sCAL pilots might vote NO. They DO care that a delay in a JCBA and ISL results in exactly what you highlighted...sUAL stagnates/shrinks and sCAL grows. Regardless of the motivations of the sCAL pilots, the effect on sUAL pilots is the same.

Bingo!!!....Plain and simple. We all know that this TA will be voted in by the pilots of United or voted down by the pilots of Continental. There is a very good reason for this. The effect of a continued delay does not harm the CAL side one bit, NOT so for the UAL side. On Saturday, we all will have a JCBA, the clock to seniority integration will continue clicking and we will become one seniority list in a matter of months. This 4 way struggle between CALMEC, UALMEC, UCH and the NMB will finally have reached its long drawn out conclusion.

You ask, "what could be done to show the LUAL side that this is not the case?". Well, IAH union rep, Ben Salley, made a statement a couple of days ago that he would resign before he took any of LUAL's rightful flying. That's a pretty gutsy statement considering that in 8.5 months LUAL will be getting 737-900ER's. An aircraft for which we have 0 simulators, 0 instructors, 0 training syllabus, and 0 payscales. I'm pretty sure that training will be done in IAH with or WITHOUT us if this TA fails.

The vote of yes or no will have little effect on the SLI. It may drag it out longer, but you will end up in the same position on the list and at the sound of it, with a far inferior contract than you should have. Even the scabs are voting no. Geez.

oh and the 787, 777, 737 (other than the latest order) were placed years before this merger was announced.

Name me one Scab who is voting NO.

Bearcat, I could care less how any Continental pilot is voting much less the scabs. "At the sound of it, with a far inferior contract than you should have." I realize that it's not perfect, but it's way better as a whole than the bankruptcy contract that I've worked under for the last 10 years. Are you a CAL guy?

What's that got to do with the price of potatoes in China?

Of course they are. They will continue to steal flying and upgrading at other's expense.

My opinion as a UAL pilot is not that Ben Salley would like to take my job, it's that UCH management would want to play the whipsaw as they are able. Whip saws go back and forth, they are not just one way.

I would not blame CAL pilots on bit in this. They have not blamed UAL pilots for the fact that 70 seat RJ's are flying over the CAL system just with UA market designator now.

Hopefully Saturday this BS will all be over one way or the other and we can try to get 11,500 pilots pulling on the same end of the rope to either a) defend and improve the JCBA going forward or, b) figure out how to bring the company to the point of improving the JCBA to make it acceptable.

Come Saturday, the time for yes or no is over. It will be time for moving forward as a group to to improve the profession.

This is stupid (and as they say, you can't fix stupid). L-UAL lost it's flying when your CEOs decided not to buy new airframes, shop for a merger, parked airplanes, and opened up scope like it's Christmas morning. That is the destiny that came with your choice to work for and stay at L-UAL. Please, please, please, don't blame L-CAL pilots for the outcomes of the past decisions made by each and every L-UCAL pilot. Now, with that said, I do think going forward, we need to be one team, one union, one list as soon as possible ... fight the enemy that really is controlling our collectives future.

Yea, those '83 scabs can finally upgrade now that we are merging. :confused:

They are already widebody captains.

Outstanding and accurate in the same breath. We are not here to steal anything from anyone. We are voting no on this agreement as it is sub-standard, period end of story. While I too see the reality of what the UAL Pilots are facing, this agreement is still sub-standard. Vote the way you will but don't blame us for what's occurring as there is only one real villain, and that role is being aptly played by management.

Cast your ballots but remember, we could sit here and call the LUAL guys all kinds of names for caving in and serving only their self-interests due to the perils they are facing. I chose not to do that and will honor the results, whatever they may be, come Saturday.

As Slats says above, like it or not we will possibly be a lot closer to being one Pilot group by Saturday and what direction we row from there will be more important than the results of the TA vote.

Flown with plenty of NO vote scabs. Names I will not post.

Good post 757. We have voted differently, but still a good post.

+1.........

That is simply not true. Every day this goes on, there are more junior 737 Captains being upgraded. Assuming that ALPA merger policy is followed, the SLI snapshot was taken quite some time ago when these same pilots were F/O's. There won't (and shouldn't in my opinion) be a flush bump to remove these newly minted Captains from their seats even though they wouldn't be able to hold them based on combined seniority. If this TA goes down, the problem compounds exponentially.

The ALPA Merger Policy had to be re-written after the USAirways debacle. From what I understand, it will be re-written again due to the delay in this JCBA and it's effect stated above.

We are talking about the 737-900ER's that were ordered post merger and will arrive on the property to replace L-UAL 757's starting in August. If this TA goes down, and the L-UAL 757's are parked without these airplanes going directly to the L-UAL pilots, I expect Ben Salley to be true to his word and resign. Not from the CAL MEC, but as a pilot for UCH.

I like many do not blame the CO pilots for the l-UAL situation. However, I don't think the captian bids will go unfilled either. The fact is, management has chosen this course.

Who to blame doesn't matter. The fact that management has chosen this battle is why the UAL guys resent the continuing junior captain bids on the CO side. This is our future, and people will be voting accordingly. I certainly don't trust management to all of a sudden to become magnamious and treat both groups with respect and equality. That is why many UAL voters will be yes, not the crappy contract.

Thank you for being a gentleman in this post.

Personally, I think this agreement is worthy of a "Yes" vote from LCAL AND LUAL pilots. The people (not just ALPA) that cost these things for a living say that it's better than DAL's starting in 2014. I also think that there are some truly significant work rule improvements that the LCAL pilots will experience that are superior to what DAL has. However, I can solidly appreciate that my opinion isn't shared by all. Provided that one is working with ACCURATE information, and not the arguments that have been firmly shot down by the SME's from some of the random "30 Reasons to vote no" missives, I fully and totally respect each pilots vote, regardless of direction.

I don't at all think that LCAL pilots are voting no en masse to "stick it to the LUAL pilots". Judging by my own journey through understanding this TA, I'm guessing that there is much misunderstanding of what's actually in there, especially when it comes to work rules. As the LUAL work rules are the vast majority of what is in the TA, the LCAL pilots won't be nearly as familiar with them as the LUAL pilots are. The improvements in Add Pay, 5 Hours/Day and Line by Line, and the extra money LCAL pilots get in their B-Fund don't get NEARLY as much attention as the twice-per-year inverse reassignment, but I think they are MUCH more important. Mostly, however, I think LCAL pilots simply don't have as much at risk as the LUAL pilots do, hence an easier time voting no. You are looking at some growth either way, hiring, industry leading upgrade times, ok pay, and a contract that you seem content to live with if a renegotiated contract takes another 6 months, 1 year, 2 years.

What concerns me is that I think the vast majority of the LCAL pilots do not agree with the consensus of the costing experts from all parties, and don't see this as an industry leading contract. They consider it substandard. That's ok, but that's usually where I see the argument stop. A "No" vote is registered, and then.... what? I'm assuming the goal of turning down the TA is to get a better agreement. I hear all the theories sported by average line pilots with absolutely no concrete information about what's happening behind the scenes that caused the vast majority of our reps to support this TA about how Jeff NEEDS this deal, how you "always turn down the first deal", and how the company can afford to give us more. What I don't hear is the plan for extracting that money. What I don't see is Jeff negotiating any differently than he has been for the past 3 years. What I don't feel is that the NMB or the parties that actually have the power to affect our contract will feel that we are getting a raw enough deal that they should force the company to open it's checkbook in any substantial way.

It wouldn't surprise me if the NMB were willing to "move the deck chairs around the Titanic" within 6 months. You want full retro? No problem. Take back the Guam over-ride, keep the LCAL pilots B-Fund at 12+%, and allow the company to exclude the Q from the 76 seat cap and you can get full retro (which goes up $40-$50 million per month). Trouble is, that every pilot has a different set of things they are voting no on. In the above scenario, you capture the "no because of retro" vote. But you then open up a whole DIFFERENT set of no voters based on what was given up to GET that full retro.

The only way it works, is if you assume the NMB will agree with our position that the TA SHE NEGOTIATED and considers industry leading is substandard, and forces the company to once again open their checkbook in a substantial way. I have news for all of us. Tigers don't change their stripes, and Jeff ain't doing it unless he HAS to.

It's a business decision. Accept the TA, and you have a known quantity, and in 2014 by all parties costing analysis, an industry leading contract. Turn it down, and the future is uncertain. Any new deal has to be worth MORE than $40-$50 million a month NET to the pilots to break even, substantially more to make it worthwhile. But you also induce outside risk factors such as the fiscal cliff, economic collapse in Europe, a nuclear Iran, North Korea firing off more rockets, etc. etc. Any one of those things happen, and the chances of the company being forced to increase their offer goes to nill. And in hindsight, we will have made a BAD business decision. Perhaps the fiscal cliff will be averted, and the economy will explode, giving us ample leverage to demand a significantly better deal. I personally don't see it happening.

Man, I need a nap after writing that.

Last thought.... I think we all owe a beer to DAL's management. If they hadn't been so brilliantly tricky to go out and negotiate a deal quickly and early, we wouldn't have anything anywhere NEAR this good of an agreement to argue about. They took advantage of Jeff's delay tactics, and it cost him HUGE. Which still makes me smile.

There isn't a plan because most of the no voters really believe a better overall contract is going to happen.

We are all smart enough to know that it would take a year or more to get a new agreement and ALL THE SAME ARGUMENTS would come up again about the new one. Guys would come on here and say "They fixed ___ but not enough for me to vote YES".

Its the same company, same negotiations, same NMB, same MEC's, same pilot groups. Nothing significant is going to change.

The interesting thing is the hypocrisy of the NO voters. Their posts are laden with talk of "Its the same management, they aren't going to do anything different" when it suits them to say it, but when they try to convince pilots to vote NO, magically "Management will rush back to the table and have an open mind and want to make all these changes, etc"

I predict 62.1% Yes vote down from 62.3% earlier predicted with 92% of pilots voting.

GB...you are a closet DOH guy. Own it! How can you state these Captains could not hold these bids based upon a combined relative seniority. The only way would be for L-UA pilots (jr seniority) to receive a windfall /leapfrog award at the expense of another group( our junior pilots).

I keep on looking, but I just can't find relative seniority in alpa merger policy. Maybe the three arbitrators have a different set of glasses than I.

ST...My point is more focused on no windfall for or against any group...so what does that leave you....pretty much where you started.

Honest question: does ALPA's merger policy still say the arbitrator must - at a minimum - consider longevity, career expectations, and category/status?

I'm absolutely NOT a DOH guy, so you've just proved to me that your credibility is ZERO. DOH not a fair methodology of merging seniority lists, though I would benefit greatly in this case if it were. Do you know how close we came to merging with USAirways? You think I would have wanted DOH then??

I can EASILY state that these Captains wouldn't have held the bid in a combined SLI. Anyone who was awarded Captain under the latest superbid that couldn't hold it at the merger date will not be able to hold it after the seniority list is combined. The merger date IS the snapshot date. Oh, and it's not going to go straight relative seniority either. That would be a windfall for LCAL pilots. Deal with it.

Yes. Directly from Airline Pilot Mag..

The new policy states
that the factors that must be considered in constructing a
fair and equitable integrated seniority list, in no particular
order and with no particular weight, now include but are
not limited to career expectations, longevity, and status
and category.

Yep. And here is the trick that the arbitrator has to figure out.

If a CAL guy was going to be a 737 Cap in 2 more years, he should be able to do the same on the integrated list.

If a UAL guy was supposed to spend his last 8 years as a widebody Capt, that should still happen.

If they can't both happen, there should be an equal trade-off of whatever. We all know it won't be perfect.

At the snapshot date UAL had 72 aircraft that were 777 and 747's and CAL had 22. The junior widebody FO at UAL goes below #4800 because most of the jobs above that seniority are widebody CAP and FO.

They are going to "math" this thing to death, and try to make it an equal deal (i.e. NOT relative seniority, NOT DOH, NOT matching up the JR Capts at each airline, etc.) and come up with a solution.

Either way, we don't get a vote and its probably going to get mixed reviews, but there shouldn't be any windfalls for either side either way.

Well said!

I agree with you LAX, but I keep running in to CAL pilots that say a furloughed United pilot has no career expectations. My classmate that was going to be number one on the United list for the last 15 months of his career was still going to be number one on the United list after recall.

R

GB...fair enough and relax. Ask your merger folks about the snapshots. If you believe, there is only one snapshot (merger date), then you are correct on the latest Capt upgrades and i can understand your viewpoint. However, I've heard from our merger committee members, that there are numerous snapshots, used pre-and Post the merger date used as background data in arguing for and developing an ISL. It accounts for retirements, medical, seat changes etc that will effect how an arbitrator panel awards...

Coto, with all due respect. How can a guy have career expectations when he has no idea when, if ever, he will be recalled? How can a guy even know how many aircraft or the status/ size of his company when/if that recall happens. I've read your post's for a while now, and I understand why you would take that position, I just don't see how it is a realistic position.

I'm sure our merger committee members have differing opinions of the snapshot protocol. We've seen that strategy being played our for awhile now seeping into the contract negotiations. Both sides will put forward their arguments, and we will see how it all turns out.

I'll relax Saturday. And frankly, your condescending remarks are not worthy of a response going forward. Best of luck to you

There are many UAL pilots that have said they feel bad for the furloughed guys because as furloughed they have no career expectations. So it comes from both sides.

By this same logic, no one has career expectations. God forbid something occurs tomorrow and United decides they need to park half the fleet and furlough half the pilots. No one could realistically hope their employer will be around forever. For the first time in 5 years United pilots begin retiring today. Unless you want to make the claim that United was going to liquidate (not likely with billions in the bank), even with zero growth you can easily see that all of the pilots that have a desire to return, would have been recalled in the next few years. I would imagine no more than half of the 1437 will return. This is what has Pierce grasping at straws such as LOA 25, pay banding and keeping United pilots at CAL from getting over $750 in pay on the first of the month even though they are earning close to ten times that. A furloughed United pilot flying at CAL does better on two of the three required considerations for an SLI, career expectations and longevity. It is up to the arbitrator to way each one, but they are instructed to consider these along with status and category. As I have posted before, my classmate was set to be number one on the list for a long time. We both have around 1650 CAL pilots that were hired after us. If you take out our time on furlough as well as their time on furlough, you would still have 1625 CAL pilots that have less longevity and arguably lesser career expectations based on the disparity in the number of wide bodies. What is fair?

I believe this to be very accurate. As we can see as the TA deadline looms, lashing out and name calling is becoming more frequent. I feel that the ISL will cause more of this. Hopefully we all try and realize that we cannot do anything but wait and see.

Every pilot has their own ideas as to how seniority integration should pan out. Both sides have Union committees that are prepared to negotiate an ISL. at the end of the day an arbitration board will decide.

Here is my pledge:

Being that I have absolutely no influence(except though my own union), control, or vote in regards to isl, I vow to never speak of it again on this board. Further, whatever the outcome, I will accept it and move on with life and work to foster a solid relationship with my fellow aviators.