Beep
Well-Known Member
The days drag on and the years fly by.Isn't it funny how just yesterday we were looking at all the stuff we were trying to do in aviation, and now the OG's are on the downstroke of the career? When did we get old?!
Next Up in the RLA Conga Line
- Thread starter Flyinthrew
- Start date
ClearedForOption
Psychiatric Help 5¢
HAL TA Passed... 65% in favor.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Was really hoping it would a bit more but oh well.
Despite a pretty comprehensive education plan, there was a ton of misinformation (some intentional unfortunately) and misunderstanding going on... including about how a lot of the old language worked. This was also the first contract I've done where a large percentage of pilots on the list had never been through a down or slow time. NB captain at a legacy after 2 years on property and 5 years since graduating college doesn't make for the best perspective I guess.
ClearedForOption
Psychiatric Help 5¢
Intraorganizational bargaining can be a real pain in the ass.
Politics. Agendas. More politics. Intraorginizational politics. No one is willing to take stands or endorse anything. Misinformation. Lies. Webboards. Politics. More politics.
"Always say no to the first deal!" - It's not the first deal.
"I couldn't in good conscience NOT send this out to the pilot group even if it doesn't meet my personal expectations."
Etc. Etc. Et. Al.
You always hear the most weasel-worded things during TA times.
If I was ever going to write academically I would probable want to study this susbset of barganing in the 'new-media' world we live in. It's kinda fascinating and if the anecdotal data that I've seen over the last few cycles is prevalent across the whole of professional union pilots it works out almost identically to the conversations happening in national politics.
Watching Hamilton should be mandatory during training to be a Union Rep.
Anyhoo, congrats on a good job well done.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Fortunately we've only got 4 reps and the MEC isn't at large. All of them were Rockstars throughout this.
And thanks.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Wow, that actually sounds like a near mgt victory. They want 50% + 1
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Sigh... no they don't.
alaskadrifter
Landing gear operator
Normally I’d agree, but in this hiring environment even the majors have to stay competitive.
What would you estimate mgmts target for a passing vote is?
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
I see your point. That in this environment, they want it to pass.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
The one that keeps the pilot group, as a whole, happy.
roundout
VNAV monitor
When your management advances beyond the mid 2000s regional airline playbook.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
I don’t know if I would say “happy.” More like “satisfied.”
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Believe it or not, "happiness" is an actual metric used to determine (in a small part) the multiplier for executive bonuses.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
I don’t know if I would say “satisfied”. More like “not agitated.”
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
I think it was @Rocketman99 who used to say about colgan “sullen, but not mutinous”
roundout
VNAV monitor
Our executives probably owe money
ClearedForOption
Psychiatric Help 5¢
Serious question, probably needs a serious answer for all of the lurkers and such.
So, IMHO, this is really a intraorginizational bargaining problem. What is that? Simply put, expectations of membership in line with the end result of bargaining between the NC and management. Think of it as the vote on a TA to become a CBA as a final step of bargaining, but the bargaining is between the membership and the MEC/NC.
The question for an individual pilot is pretty simple, does the TA "meet or exceed" your expectations. The choice is binary... yes or no. The problem is, that like with everything else, pilots suddenly become 'experts' in labor negotiations theory and practice leading up to and upon release of a TA to membership.
Then, politics takes over. Posturing goes to an all time high. Etc. etc. - pilots who wouldn't volunteer for thankless jobs suddenly step forward and tell everyone how they would have done better. The armchair aviators suddenly start, through perfect 20/20 hindsight, quarterbacking every bullet point and bargaining item of the TA. This affects the final vote result.
So, what is a good result? What's the target? Who is looking at it?
Well, one theory is that management doesn't care. This is true. The union vote doesn't matter. They bargained the agreement, when the union does their thing, then they will sign it. Done.
There is that 50%+1 theory. What's up with that? Think, intraorginational bargaining and strategically how that would play into future bargaining. Does that vote result of a TA show that the agreement is "meeting or exceeding the expectations of membership?" Well, it's a majority. Yippee. Democracy rules! But 49% of the pilot group is like, "WTF?!?! My Tesla Payment a month in dues" bought me this!!!" (How dues are being used is a whole different discussion, but the quote is meant to be illustrative of the attitude.) Is the result something that management can use to undermine unity? (This goes towards the final question I ask, what is the relationship between management and the union...)
Within the union, it's up to the movers and the shakers to figure out what was a good result. I have my opinion, which is worth what opinions are usually worth. The important thing to remember is that there are pilots who will vote yes to anything. There are pilots who will vote no to EVERYTHING. (i.e. "Never say yes to the first offer!!!") There are pilots who are very engaged, pilots who are apathetic, pilots who are very self-interested... (i.e. they see a contractual loophole being closed that they crush it on and become very vocal about everything -but that- because they don't want their 'sweet deal' to disappear.)
Personally, outside of the voting I am a firm believer in polling. I think we need more of it. Also, educational communications. But all of that costs money and time - and politically there seems to be some pretty interesting takes out there about how much information the average line pilot should be getting, and what that information should contain. A TA vote itself is a pretty big survey. (Plus or minus a certain amount anyway for political reasons.)
In the end, management will use the data, like they use all data... in the room where it happens. For instance, if management knew that pilots wanted pay above all, they would put a higher 'price tag' on the 'pay item' at the table as it related to the total value of the agreement. The pay increase will 'cost' pilots more when they are conducting the distributive bargaining (allocating the totality of ther resources) for that bargaining item. By management NOT knowing the priorities, you can use more of a integrative (problem solving) structure for all of these bargaining items.
The endorsement by membership of an agreement is data. What that endorsement is is also data.
This is really very over simplistic.
Pilots will infer that if the end result of the vote is 50%+1 that we 'left money on the table.' (You may have, you may have not... probably not because of 'time value of money and so forth') They will also infer that if we got 100% in favor that we somehow 'beat' management, but... "They will be gunning for us the next time around - or that they will just gut the CBA in bankruptcy"or something like that.
It's not as simple as that either, there are a very many moving parts in how the data is inferred.
So, all that to say that they aren't looking at the vote except as a data point for future bargaining. They are looking at the vote as a particular metric that they can use to maximize the value out of their labor force..
Finally, Management's relationship with the union is what maters. Is it an adversarial one or a business partnership. Depending on the answer, the data they glean from that particular metric will be used for 'good' or 'evil.'
I believe at my shop it's "engagement" - which is a much more insidious metric.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Fantastic post.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
This is an excellent write up. The only thing I'd add is that voting numbers may not really be reflective of how people actually felt about the deal. A deal that has a really high rate of satisfaction may pass with a lower margin than expected because a group of people feel comfortable to vote no (AND I VOTED NO!) just so they can say they did and appear as the hard ass later on, because they know it is going to pass anyways. Likewise (although not as common), you may get people that are very unhappy with a deal voting yes because of they are worried about the future economy or something like that.
The other thing of note is that pilots, as a group, are not super intelligent. They (in general) don't have a good grasp of contractual language, and when changes are made, it's pretty common, even with a top notch education campaign, for them to misunderstand what changed/was lost or gained. A few weeks ago I had a guy literally screaming at me about how we gave up something. What he didn't understand is that we never actually had it. The company did him a favor once, and he just assumed it was contractual (which it wasn't... I got screwed over the same thing around the same time). The change we made actually limited the company's ability to do the thing, but he wasn't having any of it. In the end, he called me a liar and said I was just defending the crappy deal I'd help negotiate. He was a no vote on that one issue. Everything else he was super happy with. So there's a no vote (which here works out to about .1%) over something that didn't exist.
