conquestdz

One man's bravery is another's stupidity much as one man's "capitulating to the fear of a downturn" is another's "making the most rational decision based on the best information available". This TA has the potential to be really big for us even though there are a couple holes in it. It seems to me that passing this is the logical move. If the economy does crash, we will be sitting pretty for a couple years with nice raises and QOL. If it doesn't, then the pilot shortage will become more acute, we will snap up with our peers as they scramble to compete, and we will continue to have the necessary leverage to fill those TA holes because no airline can afford to be behind in the job market if they want to grow or even stay the same size.

flyprdu

Again, snap up doesn't fix QOL shortcomings.

ExperimentalAB

Forget the pay rates. The holes we’ve likely left in contractual language are going to be with us for many, many years. It’s tragic to not get it right, right now.

Lewbronski

One factor you may not be considering is the political environment now versus what it may look like when your new contract, assuming it gets ratified, becomes amendable.

Right now, you have what is arguably the most pro-labor union presidential administration in history seated. You also have a Democratic majority on the NMB. The first factor probably played a large role in why railroad management capitulated to the railroad unions a couple of weeks ago as opposed to relying on Congress to intervene. The second factor is likely what allowed the unions to get released in an election year after only a few months in mediation. It allowed them to present a credible threat that they might go on strike.

When your contract becomes amendable in 2024 (right?), negotiations will likely stretch into 2025, at which time there may be a GOP president in office. Whoever that is is unlikely to have as positive of an orientation toward the idea of labor exerting power as the present administration. And the term of one of the Democratic NMB members expires in July 2025. If you end up in mediation and it extends beyond that date, it may be much more difficult for labor to get released from mediation. That means that you would pose much less threat to the company.

Getting this TA now may have had as much or more to do with the very favorable political environment as anything else. It may be no coincidence that since you guys have been in mediation for nearly a year, you just conducted an overwhelming strike authorization vote in May, and your company just witnessed what happened with the railroads, that you got this TA right now.

conquestdz

Which holes are you referring to? The carve out for the red eye turns stinks, but it's a relatively small portion of our bid packages and not worth torpedoing the whole deal over. What else do you see as missing?

Rangerover

wocl override, weak retro, reserve days off, DC, sick time accrual to name a few.

also, with inflation, $306 is not a raise

Back2future

Only JetBlue has wocl override.
reserve days off is better than some plus the reserve work rules are better than most.
DC is at par or better, with a snap up clause.
Sick time is par or better
So you're saying you think we can go back and double or even triple retro and keep all the other improvements in the time it would have taken for the new pay rates and work rules to generate
​​​​​whatever increase your new retro fantasy has?

conquestdz

WOCL override is absolutely a weak point, and we do a bunch of it, I give you that one. Reserve QOL is going to be really good, probably to the point that it goes senior. DC is right in the average, Delta gets more sick accrual, but they lose it every year. I just don't see the bad parts as bad enough to take the risk of missing our window. I think we lock it in now and come back for more when this one is up for renewal.

KnockKnock

This line of thinking is exactly how we fell so far behind the industry. Time, value of money. Lock this in now and get 'em next time. We'll lose too much money due to the time it takes to continue negotiating. Etc. Etc. This thinking is why we, at AS, in 2022, had to spend all our negotiating time and capital on Scope and Work rules. Things almost every other major airline has had for years if not decades. The NC focued on the same 4 pillars from the JCBA negotiations. Did "mostly" fine there but left the rest of the contract untouched. We won't see this negotiating environment again. This is a once in a career moment. There is no getting them next time, my friend.

Rangerover

We went from a pile of crap contract to an average TA. You’d think based on this thread it’s the greatest proposal ever released. If you dig into the issues it does not raise the industry bar in my opinion.