What's the Point of a Union at (Regional/Major/Etc.)

SpiceWeasel

SpiceWeasel

Tre Kronor
This is an all-encompassing post, so here it goes... and flame away, it's cool.

I am curious as to why we need unions for things OTHER than the grievance process / pilot representing.

Why? Because I have been given the impression by folks in union positions that the money to make the contracts better does not exist. Whatever is in your contract right now is the maximum pot of gold you can draw from. It never gets bigger, it can only get smaller, and if you want gains, you don't increase the pot, you negotiate them away from other sections. This seems to hold true at regionals and majors.

For example, Endeavor was bankrupted partially by our extravagant JCBA. @Seggy has stated there is not really money to pay what we are asking, so it stands to reason that our demands in the JCBA were untenable.

Delta Air Lines Contract 2012... it's great? Well, according to the company, it's cost neutral. So, again, a union didn't really do much but move the divisions in the pie to different sections of the contract, the pot was not increased.

Why is this? @ATN_Pilot , you have said that labor is not a huge cost factor at companies. You may have specifically meant pilots, but if you pull up Delta's 10K, it looks as if 23% of their expenses for 2013 were labor. The increase year over year was 700 million. But clearly, since Delta's contract was cost neutral, it didn't go toward the pilots per se.

So - what's the point of a union, other than "protections"? I get those, but it seems like negotiations is a fruitless exercise, since, with, or without unions, the pot of money to pay the people stays the same.

If I am wrong (and please, I hope I am): is it at all possible to GROW this pot of available money so that a contract negotiation doesn't center around "what are you willing to give up", but rather "where are you willing to improve the numbers"?

@BobDDuck ?
@amorris311 ?
 
cencal83406 said:
This is an all-encompassing post, so here it goes... and flame away, it's cool.

I am curious as to why we need unions for things OTHER than the grievance process / pilot representing.

Why? Because I have been given the impression by folks in union positions that the money to make the contracts better does not exist. Whatever is in your contract right now is the maximum pot of gold you can draw from. It never gets bigger, it can only get smaller, and if you want gains, you don't increase the pot, you negotiate them away from other sections. This seems to hold true at regionals and majors.

For example, Endeavor was bankrupted partially by our extravagant JCBA. @Seggy has stated there is not really money to pay what we are asking, so it stands to reason that our demands in the JCBA were untenable.

Delta Air Lines Contract 2012... it's great? Well, according to the company, it's cost neutral. So, again, a union didn't really do much but move the divisions in the pie to different sections of the contract, the pot was not increased.

Why is this? @ATN_Pilot , you have said that labor is not a huge cost factor at companies. You may have specifically meant pilots, but if you pull up Delta's 10K, it looks as if 23% of their expenses for 2013 were labor. The increase year over year was 700 million. But clearly, since Delta's contract was cost neutral, it didn't go toward the pilots per se.

So - what's the point of a union, other than "protections"? I get those, but it seems like negotiations is a fruitless exercise, since, with, or without unions, the pot of money to pay the people stays the same.

If I am wrong (and please, I hope I am): is it at all possible to GROW this pot of available money so that a contract negotiation doesn't center around "what are you willing to give up", but rather "where are you willing to improve the numbers"?

@BobDDuck ?
@amorris311 ?
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All valid questions and I completely understand where you are coming from. I'm headed to the airport right now to commute home so give me a couple of hours and I'll give a more detailed response.

I'll leave you with this, there is a difference between short haul carriers (regionals) and major/legacy carriers. You and I are short haul guys who only get to deal with a fixed pot of money that has to last a predetermined set of time. The major/legacy guys have a beer fluctuating pot and their contracts reflect that. I'll add more once I'm back in the vacation destination of Albany.
 
On contracts, the last five years had a small pot sure, but as profitability of the major partner increases that pot expands and contracts like a lung. The future isn't written yet. :)
 
Right now there is no room for a bigger piece of the pie, but rest assured that if there were no union it would be the managers and shareholders who would be in the position of not being able to get a bigger piece instead of the pilots
 
amorris311 said:
All valid questions and I completely understand where you are coming from. I'm headed to the airport right now to commute home so give me a couple of hours and I'll give a more detailed response.

I'll leave you with this, there is a difference between short haul carriers (regionals) and major/legacy carriers. You and I are short haul guys who only get to deal with a fixed pot of money that has to last a predetermined set of time. The major/legacy guys have a beer fluctuating pot and their contracts reflect that. I'll add more once I'm back in the vacation destination of Albany.
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I'd like to thank you for not taking to personal insults or the slamming your fist on the table approach in your reply. It's kindof nice to see.

I will say that I would rather work at a carrier that is represented vs one that is not.
 
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I'm fairly neutral on the question of unions. At the regional level, I have trouble seeing their worth in terms of protecting jobs and QOL/pay. Seems like their primary function is to serve the pilots at the majors which I completely understand.

Side note: I find it hilarious that an industry dominated by politically conservative folks seems to be so pro-union/organized labor.
 
Cal Goat said:
I'm fairly neutral on the question of unions. At the regional level, I have trouble seeing their worth in terms of protecting jobs and QOL/pay. Seems like their primary function is to serve the pilots at the majors which I completely understand.

Side note: I find it hilarious that an industry dominated by politically conservative folks seems to be so pro-union/organized labor.
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I have tried to explain to a couple of my hard-core conservative friends why unions are fundamentally necessary at airlines.

Rabid mastiffs foam at the mouth less than they did when I spouted such heresy....
 
killbilly said:
I have tried to explain to a couple of my hard-core conservative friends why unions are fundamentally necessary at airlines.

Rabid mastiffs foam at the mouth less than they did when I spouted such heresy....
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I know a couple of die hard conservative airline pilots- I'm talking framed picture of Reagan over the mantle (no, seriously) and show me Obama's birth certificate- who proudly wear their ALPA lanyards to work. The philosophical inconsistencies are truly impressive.
 
Bbbbbut see our industry is different! That's why!


Can't have your cake and eat it too...

That being said, any seniority based industry needs a union imo
 
On a most basic level Unions were formed in order to protect the workers from being abused - work rules, hours, pay, safety, etc.

At the point when those Unions stop protecting those most basic of ideas and principles they have, in effect, become a useless entity not serving their original purpose. So, my response is that a Union's most basic ideology and founding principle is to protect the workers which are a part of that group.

If those workers can organize themselves to protect themselves and their work environment then they have essentially created their own union.

I have seen more results/change from the public sector as a whole, as a result from the Colgan crash, than I have seen some Unions accomplish in a decade.

Perhaps Unions need to look at how the Colgan movement made change (good or bad depending on the side of the coin you're on) and take a note from that in order to better serve their pilot population.
 
I asked the "why unions in airlines" question here on this site about 6, maybe 7 years ago. And some of the answers I got were debatable, but the most important point someone made was this: (I think it was @wheelsup who made the point, but it's been a LONG time)

Given safety cultures, it is not possible to have a meritocracy among a pilot group and still maintain safety. Pilots need to be fungible, and the union helps establish the necessary framework for that.

That made sense to me.
 
cencal83406 said:
Why? Because I have been given the impression by folks in union positions that the money to make the contracts better does not exist. Whatever is in your contract right now is the maximum pot of gold you can draw from. It never gets bigger, it can only get smaller, and if you want gains, you don't increase the pot, you negotiate them away from other sections. This seems to hold true at regionals and majors.
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Just to clarify (maybe?) the issue I see you raising about unions pertains only to increasing the costs in a contract during a bargaining cycle? There are a ton of other things a union does beyond that (you mentioned grievance and discipline but there is safety, security, retirement/investment, merger and a whole bunch of other things).

But addressing what you raised, I'd agree that at the REGIONAL level there isn't a way to grow the pie, In fact, I think the best unions can do right now is fight against the pie shrinking. It wasn't like that 5 years ago but due to the change from Cost+ contracts to FFD contracts, if the pie was to grow any bigger it would be easier (and cheaper) for the mainline carrier to do the flying themselves and the regionals would go away all together. It's a crappy reality and unions are now stuck treading a very thin line in protecting as much of the pie that they can (to keep wages and benefits up) and not protecting too much of the pie and risking the company get shut down due to higher (relative to the rest of the industry and the break even point for the major partners) costs and putting all of their pilots out of work.

I think the key thing that many people are forgetting in all of this is that a major carrier making money has absolutely no bearing on what they are going to pay their FFD carriers. They are businesses and want to maximize profits. A FFD carrier isn't part of that company and as such (with the exception of WOs... maybe) has no expectation to increased revenue because their legacy partner has increased revenue.

At the legacy/major level that's an entirely different thing. If a company is making profits an employee group (represented by the union) has rights to some of those profits. As to why DALPA took a cost neutral contract... I have no idea. Many, guys on here who work for that property voted no because they felt it wasn't good enough. But apparently not enough voted no. It shouldn't work that way though. When a company makes more money the employee groups should get more in the form of increased wages and QOL. It certainly worked the other way in the form of concessions over the last 15 years. The JCBA that United and CAL worked out increased costs. The MOU at Airways and American increased costs. Spirit's contract from a few years ago (that took a strike to get) increased costs. That's how it normally works at a legacy/major level.
 
cencal83406 said:
This is an all-encompassing post, so here it goes... and flame away, it's cool.
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cencal83406 said:
am curious as to why we need unions for things OTHER than the grievance process / pilot representing.
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This is the sole foundation as to why we have a union. The other things that unions get involved with are sub forums of either of the two positions you state. For example you have pilots you do a lot of ALPA work in the scheduling department. While this is not a cut and dry grievance or representation job it helps alleviate any potential for mistakes to the contract. There are many other jobs such as P2P, FOQA, Safety, etc. These are all great jobs to have in the union to help represent your fellow pilots as well as help keep the contract alive and well.

cencal83406 said:
? Because I have been given the impression by folks in union positions that the money to make the contracts better does not exist. Whatever is in your contract right now is the maximum pot of gold you can draw from. It never gets bigger, it can only get smaller, and if you want gains, you don't increase the pot, you negotiate them away from other sections. This seems to hold true at regionals and majors.
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This is the tricky and somewhat unfortunate truth. As I said earlier it depends on what type of flying you do and who you work for. If you are a W/O FFD carrier you might be able to get some more money depending on whether or not the holding company is healthy. If you are a straight FFD carrier those ASA's that are signed are usually a one way street to a set income over the life of the contract. This makes it quite difficult to extract more money in each bargaining cycle. The problem I have seen comes from the frustration that the Company in which you do flying for is making record profits. All the while, the company you work for is claiming to be at the end of the money line. It is hard to separate the two especially in times like these. ALPA, or whatever bargaining agent, is not management and does not make the decisions for the company regarding ASA's. This is another issue I have seen over the years when it comes time to talk increases in our CBA. ALPA does a phenomenal job in my opinion of finding the most economical gains while at the same time making it palatable for management to agree to new terms. Just like anything else in life a contract is a living document and is always subject to change. That is why most contracts have LOA's or MOU's attached to them over the course of the life of the contract.

cencal83406 said:
example, Endeavor was bankrupted partially by our extravagant JCBA. @Seggy has stated there is not really money to pay what we are asking, so it stands to reason that our demands in the JCBA were untenable.
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The Pinnacle, Mesaba, Colgan JCBA was slight gains to the existing Mesaba contract. What people fail to realize is that the company and its managers agreed to the terms of the contract knowing full well what was going to happen if they could not meet certain parameters. Now you can blame ALPA for negotiating a contract that put money into pilots pockets and did so in good faith, or you can blame a management group that failed to perform at a level they compensated themselves for. I know you, @cencal83406, understand this since you lived it but others do not. There were many drivers to the downfall of Pinnacle and I find it disingenuous to blame ALPA for a single one of them. What happened after, while in bankruptcy is another story but the downfall was not ALPA's fault or the contract.

cencal83406 said:
Delta Air Lines Contract 2012... it's great? Well, according to the company, it's cost neutral. So, again, a union didn't really do much but move the divisions in the pie to different sections of the contract, the pot was not increased.
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I do not know enough about the Delta Air Lines negotiations to comment on them.

cencal83406 said:
is this? @ATN_Pilot , you have said that labor is not a huge cost factor at companies. You may have specifically meant pilots, but if you pull up Delta's 10K, it looks as if 23% of their expenses for 2013 were labor. The increase year over year was 700 million. But clearly, since Delta's contract was cost neutral, it didn't go toward the pilots per se.
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Do not get jaded by the big numbers. Everything is a percentage base point system. They throw big numbers in your face to make you feel small. If I told you that the properties I own had a monthly revenue stream of over 100k you would think I was a rich man. Unfortunately, most of that goes right back out the door to a myriad of bills and fees I have the privilege of paying. Same thing goes for big corporations. They want to show you that we spend a lot of money on labor and we just cannot make the ends meet because you cost too much. Having a contract is a beautiful way to budget your costs over the course of the year. It is a managers job to track and compile data that will show what the projected cost of labor will be over the term of the contract. Managers do a nice job of letting it be known that they spend a lot of money on their work force and use a number you could not count to for the rest of your waking life. It looks daunting when all you make is 30k a year.
cencal83406 said:
- what's the point of a union, other than "protections"? I get those, but it seems like negotiations is a fruitless exercise, since, with, or without unions, the pot of money to pay the people stays the same.
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Negotiations are typically an on going endeavor, no pun intended. As I said earlier contracts are living breathing documents that need/can be changed as the company or the pilot group evolves. Please do not think for a second that if ALPA was to dissolve tomorrow you will keep your pay and benefits. The contract you have goes much deeper than Section 3. I know that there were many hits taken during bankruptcy reorganization but just think for a minute what your healthcare costs would be if there was no contract. Just food for thought.

cencal83406 said:
I am wrong (and please, I hope I am): is it at all possible to GROW this pot of available money so that a contract negotiation doesn't center around "what are you willing to give up", but rather "where are you willing to improve the numbers"?
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I hope I answered most of your questions. If not I am sorry I will try to do better.
 
"Why? Because I have been given the impression by folks in union positions that the money to make the contracts better does not exist. Whatever is in your contract right now is the maximum pot of gold you can draw from. It never gets bigger, it can only get smaller, and if you want gains, you don't increase the pot, you negotiate them away from other sections. This seems to hold true at regionals and majors.
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This is true....to a point. Meaning, it is true right now, but may not be in the future. In bargaining now, we have to deal with the current situation as best we can. But in five years, or ten years, the situation could be radically different, just like the situation in regional bargaining is vastly different today than it was in 2002 when I started at Pinnacle. The union is there to maximize the gains, or minimize the losses, for whatever situation exists at that time. Right now, the focus at the regionals is on minimizing the losses, just as it was for the majors while the regionals were negotiating improvements.

Delta Air Lines Contract 2012... it's great? Well, according to the company, it's cost neutral. So, again, a union didn't really do much but move the divisions in the pie to different sections of the contract, the pot was not increased.
Click to expand...

Can you show me where Delta has said that the pilot contract is cost neutral?

Why is this? @ATN_Pilot , you have said that labor is not a huge cost factor at companies. You may have specifically meant pilots, but if you pull up Delta's 10K, it looks as if 23% of their expenses for 2013 were labor. The increase year over year was 700 million. But clearly, since Delta's contract was cost neutral, it didn't go toward the pilots per se.
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Well, for starters, the pilot contract was far from cost neutral. It was a significant increase in pilot payroll costs. But more to the point, labor is a huge expense for airlines, second only to fuel. I've said that repeatedly, and even got in a recent debate with @JOEFRIDAY2 about it on another thread. What you may be thinking of is my comments in previous threads that small pay raises will not significantly affect the margins of a highly profitable carrier, such as the legacies today. And that's true. A company with a 5% net margin on $20 billion in revenue is barely going to notice a COLA raise for the pilots. But when you talk about something like "full restoration," like the DPA nimrods talk about, that would be incredibly expensive to the company, and would certainly harm the company's profitability (or even eliminate it).
 
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