Carl Spackler

It did not kill the benefits they gained during the strike. And that was not the point anyway. The point was that union leaders and unified memberships can do extraordinary things...if they want to. ALPA hasn't acted like a union for a VERY long time.

What an unbelievably silly statement. Revenue is the most important part of ANY business. Management teams can use totally legal accounting schemes to show costs such that they're not turning a profit. We've seen that for decades. It's harder for companies to hide revenue. AMR has no case for their intransigence. They're only able to be this stubborn due to the NMB acting as their union busting agent.

Carl

Carl Spackler

Again, you are correct sir.

Carl

PCL_128

You shouldn't do "extraordinary things" just for the sake of doing them. They should be a means to reach a goal. In the context of the TWU strike, their illegal actions didn't result in any meaningful improvements. In the end, a union leader was put in jail, the union was hit with a huge fine, the workers themselves had money garnished from their wages to pay off Taylor Law fines, and they really got nothing for it. Their leadership tried to save face by claiming that the strike prevented concessions to their pension, but in reality, state law didn't even require the TWU to bargain over pension issues, so the pension was never in danger in the first place. The whole thing was a waste. It shouldn't be used by anyone as an example for effective union work.

Ahh, so you believe management is "hiding money." Where exactly is this billions of dollars being hidden, exactly? And if it is, why are the shareholders not stringing up the BOD for depriving them of share price improvements that would certainly follow an announcement of these profits that you claim are being hidden?

Ridiculous. There is no hidden money, Carl. Profits can be manipulated slightly in the short term by using accounting tricks such as structuring ammortizations in creative ways, and managements sometimes do that to avoid profit sharing payments at a certain time, but it's only temporary, because the profits show up soon enough. They don't get hidden, they just get delayed. You could also argue that management is reducing profits by buying back stock or making large capital expenditures for growth or improvements, but none of that is true in the case of AMR.

Look, I would love it if it was possible for the APA to get full restoration, but it just isn't in the cards at this point. AMR just doesn't have the money. Improvements are certainly expected, but they won't get pre-concessionary rates on date of signing.

capncrunch

This I agree with. Basically put all pilots into a guild.

DAL 88 Driver

Well they weren't asking for full restoration to their pre-concessionary rates. If I remember correctly, they were asking to restore the rates to 1992 buying power (for those of you in Rio Linda/Herndon, that's 18 years ago), which would result in an increase in CASM to AA of less than 1/2 cent.

If we aren't willing to set anything at least that good as our objective, then we might as well just throw in the towel and write off this profession. With what I'm hearing from ALPA, I'm getting real close to being ready to throw the towel in on them before it's too late. C2012 is too important. I don't want someone representing me who has already given up.

Carl Spackler

If you're not going to even read what I write, then you should probably just go away. If you actually cared to read what I write, you would see that I never said management hides money. That's your attempt to change the subject from your patently ignorant statement that "revenue is largely irrelevant." What I did say is that it is very easy for corporations to use perfectly legal accounting rules to show a loss even in the face of strong revenue. What is much harder to do is hide revenue. Revenue is THE key metric for any business. That's why your statement that "revenue is largely irrelevant" is so ignorant. Spoken by a person who knows nothing about running a business.

Again, if you thought before you posted, you would know that you are the only one talking about hidden money.

You know nothing of AMR or APA's current condition. You have no idea what is, or is not in the cards for APA or AMR. If we are even to believe you are who you infer, you're just a pilot who thinks he's plugged in now that you have a job at ALPA national. Take a business class or two while you're there not working.

Carl

Carl Spackler

That sums it up in a nutshell.

Carl

PCL_128

Check back with me when the APA actually gets a contract, Carl. We'll see who's right.

newKnow

Still no answer to my question from a few pages back?

Restated in a different fashion: If you are not willing to ask for what you want, what are you willing to ask for? Why?

In my book, if you accept the premise of the question, you have a problem if you can't answer it BUT you still most likely have a problem even if you can answer it.

I'm still waiting for any real answer. What's your plan?


Happy Thanksgiving.

Pineapple Guy

Fair enough - but see below.

I can only speak for DAL. I was hired in the late 80's and the early 90s contract had modest raises. By today's standard, that's a boom. Then the 1996 contract had a 2% paycut, followed with a 4-year, no raise, contract. That a bust by my definition. Then the 2001 contract had about a 30% raise. That's a boom by my definition. Then our pre-bankruptcy and bankruptcy contracts had a combined 42% paycut, and a pension termination. That's a bust by my definition. And I'll call the JCBA a wash.

So, in my 20 years, five contracts have been boom-bust-boom-bust-wash. Pretty much just what slow was claiming to be true. I can't speak for how those twenty years played out at NWA.

DAL88, where are you? Carl states that modest increases, which were in reality modest decreases when adjusted for inflation, are something to be proud of. Eerily similar to LM claiming that we are now back to pre-bankruptcy pay rates, don't you think? Hmmm. Could it be??? Is Carl really a pseudonym for our very own LM? Things that make you go Hmmm.