MaxFwdSpeed

I am all for better pay, benefits, and QAL, who isn't? And, I do see jetBlue as a career destination. You are not raining on my parade but you guys have certainly hijacked this thread and changed the tone of the discussion for the worse.

Diesel1030

Its not for the worse..its realistic. Guys here that I fly with are great. The culture is fine..with that said its important to get the message out about sub-std retirement and benefits. There is no hiring going on anyhow right now, so might as well use the time to share facts.

txbusdriver

My intention was never to hijack this thread. Call it what you will but when I see inaccurate statements being made I find it necessary to chime in. I didn't start the benefits debate but I am happy to finish it.

lake alice

Those of us working towards something better don't look at the tone changing for the worse. We see it as the tone changing for the truth.

Here is the reality. In the last union election we had 1193 pilots vote no hence the effort failed. Out of those 1193 a cautious estimate of of 75% did not understand the issues. While the union supporters could factually prove the gaps in pay, insurance, retirement, disability, merger protection and many more issues JetBlue simply stated we were wrong. Though we had a team of legal experts from multiple departments provide graph and chart after graph and chart JetBlue simply refuted the information without providing any factual data of its own. Despite all this the 1193 still voted no.

Regardless of this last 2.2% raise our retirement is still woefully underfunded and STILL NOT GUARANTEED. In other words its based on a yearly approval from the board of directors and not deposited on a monthly basis. It is incredibly difficult to support the 1193 when the facts are presented but they chose to ignore them. Meanwhile our benefits continue to suffer. Our retirement continues to suffer. Our futures continue to remain unprotected.
Mind you this is all happening as Jetblue records record profits. And keep this last little nugget in mind. JetBlue pilots are only asking for industry standard, average of you will. We are simply asking to be treated fairly.

We are the most productive pilots in the industry yet we have one of the worst insurances in the entire airline industry. It's not all about money. Salary isn't everything. Insurance, STD,LTD,LOL are huge issues.

MaxFwdSpeed

Maybe the 1193 no voters were not misinformed. Maybe they just want nothing to do with ALPA and the AFL-CIO.

Flyby1206

A lot of people were turned off by the ALPA/TWA lawsuit results, and afraid of being charged an assessment to cover the damages. ALPA didnt put out any official statements to the pilot group, which made things worse.

But it comes down to the fact that we are operating in a Collective Bargaining environment, without having a CBA. That is a dangerous game to play. There will be a time when Jetblue isnt the darling of the industry and management is faced with serious issues. A CBA will ensure that things we take for granted (like seniority, bidding for schedules, pay) will be enforced by a legally binding agreement.

I admit, I am not a huge ALPA fan, but I am a huge CBA fan. It provides a little insurance and stability for us as a pilot group(and our families) in a very unstable industry. If that costs 2% of my paycheck, then I will gladly pay it.

txbusdriver

Well put, the only thing I can add is the only thing worse than having ALPA as your union is not having ALPA as your union.

lake alice

The president of ALPA did say JetBlue pilots would not be charged an assement. He stated clearly though the bylaws allow for it, as they do for many out dated items, it was not past practice to do so considering ALPA had ample insurance policies to cover any award YET to be determined.

JetBlue did put out an email stating JetBlue pilots would be charged an assement after the award was scheduled to be greater than $500 million. After the system chief pilot was contacted about his FALSE and misleading email he agreed to not send out more innuendo based emails however he REFUSED to publicly set the record straight.

Based on this this is leading information 1193 chose to step over a dollar to pick up a dime and subsequently screwed us all.

Cruise

What's a PVC? Is that like a student council or something?

lake alice

Exactly like student council except with adults who should know better.