United reaching out to ALPA FFD Carriers

GypsyPilot said:
So what happened?
Click to expand...
I am advised that some of our representation made adverse comments about Pinnacle/Endeavor pilots accepting a concessionary contract. Considering that negotiating in bankruptcy is nothing like what SAPA will ever do (there will be no negotiation should it come to that, rest assured), the comments were not well-received.

Vote accordingly.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
I'm talking even pre-ISL and pre-mergers. Management offered a pay raise for 1st and 2nd year FOs but the union turned it down. They thought they had leverage. Management offered the "final and best offer" and that was turned down, I believe end of 2006 to early 2007. Pinnacle pilots continued in 1999 wages. Based on how the union handled things and what mangement offered, you and I would have made more with what management was trying to force us versus what the union got you 2007-2010.
Click to expand...

We've beaten this to death over the years, and I'm honestly surprised you're still dragging the "I didn't get a raise" baggage around 7 years later. At the time, YES, we had leverage. Then scant months later, the industry came to a screeching halt. When we turned down those pay raises for one small group of pilots that would have fixed management's recruiting issues in order to attempt to get EVERYONE a raise, we were losing 30+ CAs a month and couldn't even fill upgrade classes. No one knew the music was going to stop that abruptly. Glad your hindsight, like everyone reading this, is 20/20. Maybe you could jump in a time machine and inform the negotiating committee, who were operating with no hard knowledge of the actual future, your input.

The more successful the airline is, the more likely the employee groups will obtain good pay, regardless of union status.
Click to expand...

Nope. jetBlue is your example. Record profits, yet we had to fight just to get what management had already agreed to as far as pay. Even then they a) changed the metrics on how are pay was determined and b) still came in under "industry average." Way under once you factor in health care and other benefits. Hence the reason we are no longer non-union. Skywest had their health care leveled at one point when the company was still doing well. No one really cared since a majority of the pilots there aren't looking to make a career of it. Add in the fact that a lot of the FOs were in their early to late twenties and didn't think they really needed coverage, and it's a great savings for Skywest management. It's not like there was a contract to violate, there.
 
kellwolf said:
We've beaten this to death over the years, and I'm honestly surprised you're still dragging the "I didn't get a raise" baggage around 7 years later. At the time, YES, we had leverage. Then scant months later, the industry came to a screeching halt. When we turned down those pay raises for one small group of pilots that would have fixed management's recruiting issues in order to attempt to get EVERYONE a raise, we were losing 30+ CAs a month and couldn't even fill upgrade classes. No one knew the music was going to stop that abruptly. Glad your hindsight, like everyone reading this, is 20/20. Maybe you could jump in a time machine and inform the negotiating committee, who were operating with no hard knowledge of the actual future, your input.
Click to expand...
^
|
Fair enough. And I'd hand it to you if it *wasn't* for the fact that those with greed then tried to tie the bonus distribution to W2 wages when they knew darn well their own decisions had oppressed FO wages. Ok, I get it, we didn't see the collapse coming and the industry downturn, but *now* that it did happen that way, the bonus distribution method could easily have been made something else. I can tell you for fact that my #1 reason for voting no to TA1 was because of my dissatisfaction of the bonus distribution method. Since we had no say in it, the only way to stand against it was to vote no to the TA.

Nope. jetBlue is your example. Record profits, yet we had to fight just to get what management had already agreed to as far as pay. Even then they a) changed the metrics on how are pay was determined and b) still came in under "industry average." Way under once you factor in health care and other benefits. Hence the reason we are no longer non-union. Skywest had their health care leveled at one point when the company was still doing well. No one really cared since a majority of the pilots there aren't looking to make a career of it. Add in the fact that a lot of the FOs were in their early to late twenties and didn't think they really needed coverage, and it's a great savings for Skywest management. It's not like there was a contract to violate, there.
Click to expand...

I don't know much about your medical bennies except that out of pocket costs went up along with the deductibles but where in the private sector is that not happening? I'm glad you guys got ALPA and hopefully it means we follow soon (despite my opposition to ALPA, I think it's a necessary evil especially in a M&A scenario). But I must say, after AA/DL/UA A320 pilots, data points show you guys are the highest next in line even without ALPA this year. In any case, good for you guys and I support your good fight. jetBlue is a great airline and I hold it in high regards.
 
BobDDuck said:
Some day you'll figure out that as pilots we get paid in pay checks, not pay rates.
Click to expand...

Yes. And my counterparts at JetBlue make far more than I do. Unless you're trying to imply that jetBlue is actually missing sending out pay checks to its pilots. If that's the case, then yikes, and hopefully that gets fixed soon.
 
BobDDuck said:
Some day you'll figure out that as pilots we get paid in pay checks, not pay rates.
Click to expand...

Is it possible to have access to all ALPA contracts when considering a carrier for employment? There isn't much in the way of "work rules" listed on APC, even for Delta Air Lines. So when making my comparisons I take worst case scenarios... Max longevity FO pay on smallest aircraft times MMG.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Yes. And my counterparts at JetBlue make far more than I do. Unless you're trying to imply that jetBlue is actually missing sending out pay checks to its pilots. If that's the case, then yikes, and hopefully that gets fixed soon.
Click to expand...
Work rules/soft pay > pay rates I think is what he's trying to say

Delta has great soft pay, AA does not, even if the pay rates were the same a Delta guy would out-earn an AA guy by far.
 
wheelsup said:
Work rules/soft pay > pay rates I think is what he's trying to say

Delta has great soft pay, AA does not, even if the pay rates were the same a Delta guy would out-earn an AA guy by far.
Click to expand...
I don't want a higher hourly rate. I want some (bleep) work rules and soft time.

EDIT: And a trip rig.
 
Maurus said:
The day a proper trip rig is introduced to a regional is the day I have a heart attack.

XJT has a stupid sort of trip rig that really doesn't help.

Duty rigs would be awesome to help those 3-4 hour sits in ORD stop. I really do enjoy sitting airport reserve as a line holder. :cry:
Click to expand...

AWAC has a 2:1 duty rig and a 4:1 trip rig. I think the trip rig used to be 3.5:1 but in the 2003 concessions it was increased to 4:1.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Yes. And my counterparts at JetBlue make far more than I do. Unless you're trying to imply that jetBlue is actually missing sending out pay checks to its pilots. If that's the case, then yikes, and hopefully that gets fixed soon.
Click to expand...

I was implying that your comment about JetBlue having the highest 32X payrates behind the legacies, despite not having a union at the time doesn't really say much. I really don't care what a pay rate is. I care about what my W2 says at the end of the year and how hard I have to work to get it to say that. As a bunch of people eluded to, soft time is king, and JetBlue doesn't have much in the way of that. A guy (at say Spirit) could work far fewer hours and be on the road way less and still bring home the same amount that somebody at JetBlue would be, except they wouldn't have to work nearly as hard to do it.

Again, nobody really should care about what a pay rate is. They should care about what their paycheck says.
 
Sure, we get paid more than VA. But guess what, we still don't make the "industry average" pay that was promised us. The formula was actually so simple a 10th grader and an Excel spreadsheet could figure it out. We had a group of carriers that were defined by both the pilots and management as a "peer group." Take the 5 year A320 CA pay and average it. Every other pay rate on property was supposed to branch from that in percentages. Instead, management changed the rules. We got a 2% raise in a year it should have been 18%. They chose to cut off the time period before merger contracts and new CBAs were signed. No problem, we'll get it next year. Nope. They changed the peer set without consultation, adding in airlines that drug the average down. In addition, the spread the raise out over several years instated of all at once. The second I can deal with, the first is shady as hell. Worst part? It's still not average, and it wouldn't have been re-computed until 2016 despite the fact that other carriers had contractual raises built in that would have upped the average again year over year. This kinda of dance is why many (myself included) opted to vote "yes." Management would still insist we were getting average even though we pilots can still do high school math.

The premiums and desirables sisbt just increase. I made the same "it's happening everywhere" argument until I actually saw the old coverage. Pilots saw a HUGE increase is co-pays, deductibles and premiums while they coverage was slashed. No input. No options. Where other carriers (including Pinnacle) has multiple plans to choose, we had an option between an expensive plan that covered less or a more expensive plan that covered the same as the other plan. Essentially, they're the same plan, but one has higher premiums. There was another plan that was even more expensive, but they finally dropped that one since no one signed up for it.

I have no problem with increasing healthcare costs. That's a reality of the world we live in. However, we were told it was because of taxes due to Obamacare (it wasn't, as reading the actual law you would see) and that it was comparable to plans at other airlines, which a quick Google search or phone calls to friends at those airlines would quickly clear up. It was the sheer amount of the increase coupled with the fact that the company turned a record profit (don't get me started on the weird profit sharing rules, too) and then we got shafted on the pay raise promise as well.

Looking back on it, I almost wonder if management WANTED a union on property since pretty much every move they made in the past 3 years pushed us that way.

I'm not unhappy here. I guess at this point I just want a legally enforceable document that they have to abide by rather than broken promise after broken promise. I don't even want Delta pay rates. If you promise industry average, just pay is what you promised.
 
BobDDuck said:
I was implying that your comment about JetBlue having the highest 32X payrates behind the legacies, despite not having a union at the time doesn't really say much. I really don't care what a pay rate is. I care about what my W2 says at the end of the year and how hard I have to work to get it to say that. As a bunch of people eluded to, soft time is king, and JetBlue doesn't have much in the way of that. A guy (at say Spirit) could work far fewer hours and be on the road way less and still bring home the same amount that somebody at JetBlue would be, except they wouldn't have to work nearly as hard to do it.

Again, nobody really should care about what a pay rate is. They should care about what their paycheck says.
Click to expand...

No answer from above... how does one actually make an informed decision on "pay package" if these contracts can't be looked through on-line?
 
wheelsup said:
AWAC has a 2:1 duty rig and a 4:1 trip rig. I think the trip rig used to be 3.5:1 but in the 2003 concessions it was increased to 4:1.
Click to expand...
I unfortunately don't expect that to stay in place with the way the regionals have been going lately.
 
Maurus said:
I unfortunately don't expect that to stay in place with the way the regionals have been going lately.
Click to expand...

I think the guys getting hired now and in the next 2-3 years at the regionals will spend at most a couple years there and enjoy 40 year careers at the legacy of their choice. I'm actually really envious of their position.

That being said I think the companies that own their feeders want to flush the career commuter CA's out and will pull a Comair on them if they don't cooperate (ie PSA, cutting longevity pay if you don't move up to mainline).
 
cencal83406 said:
No answer from above... how does one actually make an informed decision on "pay package" if these contracts can't be looked through on-line?
Click to expand...

Your MEC or NC should put out that information during negotiations. Your guys seem to be top notch, and since they're new they'll probably be getting the help of the best people at national, so I'm sure you'll be inundated with information to do the comparisons as negotiations progress.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top