SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
This is false. Contrary to the popular belief of people who have never negotiated a CBA, management is very much concerned about where the money goes. While they have in mind a total yearly dollar figure that they're willing to spend, they also want to dictate where that money gets spent for various reasons.
Again, false. Compensation is a mandatory subject of bargaining, so signing bonuses are prohibited by default unless the contract specifically allows for them. Managements have gotten away with these bonuses either by paying them the moment before the pilot becomes an official employee ("here's your sign-on bonus, now here's your employee ID"), or because the union has simply allowed them without protest. If challenged, non-contractual sign on bonuses would be thrown out, and would actually be considered a major dispute rather than a minor dispute.
This is a misleading statement. You make it sound as though management wanted to level the payscale slope, but in reality they only wanted to give raises to one year on the longevity scale: the first year. The second, third, fourth, etc. year FOs would get nothing. A guy who just came off probation yesterday and suffered through $20/hr would get nothing while the guy hired today would get $25/hr. This is obviously completely unacceptable, and the unions were right to challenge it and stop it. You can't allow management to solve their short-term problems without addressing your long-term problems. Leveling the slope of the pay scale is a legitimate position (although I disagree), but allowing management to pick and choose who gets a raise and who doesn't is absolutely unacceptable.
Again, this is completely wrong. A steep longevity slope is what management wants, also, so they aren't going to let you distribute the money anyway you want. To simplify things to make the point clearer, let's assume a 2 step longevity scale:
Year 1: $50/hr
Year 2: $150/hr
You might say "average them out and pay both year 1 and year 2 $100/hr. It's the same money." But it's not the same money. There are 500 pilots at year 2 longevity and 1000 pilots at year 1 longevity, let's say. So you've averaged the rates to level the slope, but you've increased management's costs by 20%. And if they're expecting lots of hiring during the term of the CBA, they'll be even more averse to this philosophy, because the steep slope reduces their costs even more during times of bringing on new people.
Even new contract signing bonuses get management negotiating for how they want them distributed. If you listen to the crew lounge lawyers, they'll tell you that management doesn't care, because it's just a big lump sum of money. Wrong. Management views the signing bonus as a way to buy votes, so how it's distributed is very important to them. Contract doesn't have enough in it to buy senior votes? Increase the slope of the distribution of the signing bonus. Reserve work rules weren't addressed well enough to buy junior votes? Allocate the signing bonus mostly to the longevity years who are currently sitting on reserve in both seats.
Everything in the CBA is negotiated intently by management, even if the actual sum paid out doesn't change. When you actually sit at the bargaining table, things look a lot different than they do while pontificating in a cockpit or the crew lounge. Things that you think management doesn't care about, they care about a great deal.
