ALPA Dues Refund

BEEF SUPREME said:
I’d prefer if pilots weren’t in the room at all. Pilots are idiots. In nearly every case of interacting with them for over 20 years. Pro negotiators using the same survey data would do a way better job. For example: on our last contract our negotiation committee simply didn’t realize the company wouldn’t use best industry scheduling practices. So there’s no limit or any kind of protection for circadian flips when on reserve.

Pretty sure a professional negotiator would have simply “game theoried” the company wouldn’t use best just do the worst thing imaginable + 15%.
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Swing and a miss. Try harder.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
I’d prefer if pilots weren’t in the room at all. Pilots are idiots. In nearly every case of interacting with them for over 20 years. Pro negotiators using the same survey data would do a way better job. For example: on our last contract our negotiation committee simply didn’t realize the company wouldn’t use best industry scheduling practices. So there’s no limit or any kind of protection for circadian flips when on reserve.

Pretty sure a professional negotiator would have simply “game theoried” the company wouldn’t use best just do the worst thing imaginable + 15%.
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Yet you seem to know everything. Check the mirror dude.
 
BobDDuck said:
You are assuming a professional negotiator would have clue what circadian flips are. The wouldn't. Or if they knew what those were, they wouldn't understand the importance of separate hotel vans from the cabin crew, or why being able to put all your reserve days in a row is important, or how forcing large amount of vacation out of limited peak months increases vacation in desirable shoulder months.

I've worked with several Scope attorneys, which in the ALPA world are about as close to a professional negotiator as you can get, and while they are great at making sure the language is tight and everything says what the actual intent is, for the most part they are oblivious to the inner workings of how an specific airline operates, even on the scope side. Just like I laugh when people (who aren't Soviet Sub Commanders) say "let's just copy Delta's contract word for word", not having somebody involved who actually lives the day to day (and even more importantly does regular contract defense work between bargaining cycles, is really, really dumb.

ALPA's "chief negotiator" who just retired last year, was a staff attorney with almost 50 years of experience bargaining contracts in the airline and the recording artist industries. He'd be the first to tell you that his job was to guide the process and then get the hell out of the way and allow the pilot negotiators to sort out the details.

Sure your last NC missed protecting against circadian swaps on reserve (and probably a boatload of other things too, just like every NC does), but it's a process, and if you don't have the patience to wait one bargaining cycle to fix those things, and yet are willing to pocket all the things they did fix or improve for you last time around, you're in the wrong career.
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Yeah and now circadian flips “can’t be fixed this time” red eye pay override is “a non starter with the company.

It’s not just one cycle. It’s a complete failure to engage with management in regards to what is safe. It’s a naive even negligent attitude that turns a blind eye to our management and doesn’t consider their history of how they operate.

I often wonder how hard former AS pilots had to negotiate to get a block of five days in a row with our old reserve system. Then the AS pilots on the last contract decided to be clever and just give it up. No regard for how important the 5 days off in a row issue was. Or why it was coded into our old reserve system to begin with. So in addition to not even realizing who they are negotiating with, what kind of monsters they are when it comes to running reserves ragged. The negotiators are giving up rules that were hard fought for by their peers in the past.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
Yeah and now circadian flips “can’t be fixed this time” red eye pay override is “a non starter with the company.

It’s not just one cycle. It’s a complete failure to engage with management in regards to what is safe. It’s a naive even negligent attitude that turns a blind eye to our management and doesn’t consider their history of how they operate.
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So why aren't there more fatigue calls?
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
Yeah and now circadian flips “can’t be fixed this time” red eye pay override is “a non starter with the company.

It’s not just one cycle. It’s a complete failure to engage with management in regards to what is safe. It’s a naive even negligent attitude that turns a blind eye to our management and doesn’t consider their history of how they operate.

I often wonder how hard former AS pilots had to negotiate to get a block of five days in a row with our old reserve system. Then the AS pilots on the last contract decided to be clever and just give it up. No regard for how important the 5 days off in a row issue was. Or why it was coded into our old reserve system to begin with. So in addition to not even realizing who they are negotiating with, what kind of monsters they are when it comes to running reserves ragged. The negotiators are giving up rules that were hard fought for by their peers in the past.
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The old reserve language was absolute hot garbage. It wasn't 5 days off in a row, it was 5 "24-hour periods". I remember reading that for the first time and thinking WTF were these guys thinking. As usual you love to cherry-pick single pieces of language (and usually can't even get that right) that you have deemed horrible. If you are flying assignments that are unsafe that is on you.
 
There is a tremendous amount of nuance in every CBA. Like the workings of a watch with complications, everything affects everything else, and a tiny change can result in a big change.

All a professional negotiator will do is come in and direct basic strategy. They don’t get in the weeds, and besides, it would take them years to learn the super fine details that can add or subtract thousands per year for individual pilots. That’s where the real differences live….in the weeds.

Actor/athlete contracts are a typically couple pages at most, and cover only the broadest strokes. Maybe if you’re all star, top of profession, and the it might be 10.
 
word302 said:
The old reserve language was absolute hot garbage. It wasn't 5 days off in a row, it was 5 "24-hour periods". I remember reading that for the first time and thinking WTF were these guys thinking. As usual you love to cherry-pick single pieces of language (and usually can't even get that right) that you have deemed horrible. If you are flying assignments that are unsafe that is on you.
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5, 24 hour periods free from reserve with the occasional weekend due to the days off spacing sounds like a dream. Compared to unending bids of unstacked every weekend Friday - Monday garbage. You're lucky you'll never get to experience it since upgrade is more than a decade off.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
5, 24 hour periods free from reserve with the occasional weekend due to the days off spacing sounds like a dream. Compared to unending bids of unstacked every weekend Friday - Monday garbage. You're lucky you'll never get to experience it since upgrade is more than a decade off.
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Man now it’s only a decade? You said it was never. My future’s looking up.🤣
 
word302 said:
Man now it’s only a decade? You said it was never. My future’s looking up.🤣
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Read it again. More than a decade. Congrats tho. SEA went to a 2007 hire as the most junior upgrade. A 10 year FO at Alaska could leave for Delta and upgrade on the 220 faster than at their current airline.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
5, 24 hour periods free from reserve with the occasional weekend due to the days off spacing sounds like a dream. Compared to unending bids of unstacked every weekend Friday - Monday garbage. You're lucky you'll never get to experience it since upgrade is more than a decade off.
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I was unstacked every weekend. I was able to move my days around and now only have one Sunday and one separate Saturday of reserve. Rest are off.

You’re in SEA. There’s a reason why there’s several hundred FOs senior to you who said no thanks to a large pay increase, the left seat, and being Captain.
 
Skåning said:
Me too. Reserve is amazing, no way I’d wanna be a junior line holder. I hope this lasts another 10+ years, weekends off, tons of extra credit, barely any flying. #blessed
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Junior line holder blows. Grateful to be here, but working a 3 or 4 day every weekend has been my award every time.

If I didn’t live 90 miles away I’d bid reserve, no brainer.
 
Skåning said:
Me too. Reserve is amazing, no way I’d wanna be a junior line holder. I hope this lasts another 10+ years, weekends off, tons of extra credit, barely any flying. #blessed
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Once I get to 6 conversions they just add red eyes on long call. I used to get about 84-86 hrs on LCC. Now it’s 76-78 tops.
 
JDean3204 said:
Junior line holder blows. Grateful to be here, but working a 3 or 4 day every weekend has been my award every time.
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Have you tried being more senior? shows self to exit

I bid RES last month as a commuter because I couldn’t be arsed to see how to build a regular line with the days-off constraints I needed, then turned around and ‘fragged’ my availability with vacation. I sat short call at Mom’s twice (1 hour extra pay, each) and flew a 3 day (which had a front-end deadhead, so it was a 2-day) and a spill into this month, which paid like a premium rotation.

But it doesn’t always work out like that—if I were less senior in category I wouldn’t have been able to make all that happen as well as I did.

90 miles of driving almost (almost!) sounds worse than commuting by air.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Are you flying less than before? Same? More?
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More red eyes typically mean less efficiency for management. I’m still +\- 5 from guarantee or more every month. It’s the same amount of flying as usual but it’s worse quality. Less DH though compared to the spring.

If I had not called out fatigued last month I would have been at 83 hrs of block. IIRC.

I’m basically too tired to remember at this point. I just know it’s a lot. Spent the day today day sleeping for a red eye that is now running over an hour late. At least I caught it before I left home. So I don’t have to wait around in the terminal.
 
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