Our wonderful union doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that the equipment doesn’t pay dues.
It’s absolutely insane this guy is out there as the president of NATCA arguing against asking for a raise. Especially after he ran his campaign on “Day 1 Pay Raise” and “We are not going to extend the contract”. It’s beyond frustrating to me it’s borderline criminal. We’re getting completely screwed and not represented at all as ATC who show up 6 days a week, plug in, and move the planes. There’s nobody advocating for people like us at all, and it’s sad.
Speaking of criminal, the equipment doesn't pay dues, but I'll bet the companies that make it pay kickbacks. Not that I have any proof of it...
Team NDJH actually started their campaign a year and a half in advance cheer leading for the contract and an extension if Trump were elected. They only changed their tune to opening it up when the majority of voters voted for candidates who said they would open the contract no matter what. When they won the runoff they just did what they said they would do all along. Their campaign emails and now the official emails from the pres read like freshman term papers with lots of meaningless words and no substance. Unfortunately, they ran the better campaign than Santa because they didn't have an actual union to run and could go visit all those facilities on official time. Santa could have and should have run a better campaign than he did, but I believe this was all set up by his predecessors. Santa is far more qualified to run this union even if he was a little socially awkward, he was obviously very smart. Daniels may be able to hob-knob with politicians and CEOs but his testimony to Congress was a joke. It was Rich's idea to get the extra OJTI pay during his term which was bound by contract. It was Santa who first floated abacus as a way of getting facility upgrades, he just wasn't very good at communicating it to the membership.
In 2031 I am eligible to retire. In 2036 I'll be eligible for Vision 100. If I go till 2036 then half of my whole career will have been under a contract signed in 2016 (assuming we don't get another extension). Since the first extension was signed in 2021 nearly every major transportation union (airlines, dock workers, delivery drivers, etc) has signed contracts with huge salary increases. Meanwhile we get our 1.6% guaranteed annually until ::checks watch:: 2029. It is complete crap. This is not 1981. Aviation is responsible for a significantly larger portion of GDP now, and we have the airlines and the pilots unions on our side, something that PATCO never had. Negotiating with 47 would not have been as bad as the leadership is trying to make it out to be, and even if it were, we are now protected by law from something like the white book imposed work rules that were in affect from 2006-08. The leadership was worried about having to go back to work. This extension was about preserving the existence of NATCA not protecting or benefiting its members except for the privileged few.
There is a discussion about airline PACs in another thread, I believe it is the Air India thread. I used to contribute $100 every pay period to our PAC. I have contributed at least $25 per pay ever since the first time I was asked. I dropped my contribution to $1 per pay when they extended the contract. I know someone who went from maxing the PAC to $.01. What good is having a PAC if we aren't going to lean on these politicians when we need them?
I still pay my dues and always will. JFK had 9 members quit over the extension, PIT had like 11 or 12. I really can't blame any one of them now. I think it is short-sighted, but I understand it.
/end rant
www.flyingmag.com
I kinda knew their schedule was a grind, but I'm being educated here about just how bad it is. I can't think of a group of people who need (and deserve) rest/blow off steam time, more than them.
