gloopy

Give any legacy management JB start up rates for a couple years and current rates, work rules, retirement and bennies after that, while resetting everyone's longevity to zero starting tomorrow, voting the unions all out, getting rid of all scope and giving the company aomost complete discretion over work rules and I bet you could get a bonded, insured, iron clad and bankruptcy proof guarantee that there would be no cuts or furloughs for 12 years. Any legacy BOD would be sued instantly if they didn't sign up for a gift like that.

DCAJRMAN

Dear APA, SWAPA, IPA, and especially ALPA aviators,

The pro-union pilots of JetBlue apologize for not unionizing. Please understand we don’t expect you to accept our apology. JetBlue pilots have no one to blame but JetBlue pilots for collectively selecting No Representation in an official NMB vote. (How a professional pilot group could opt out of representation is beyond us but, by God, that is indeed what we did.)

Should your airline ever acquire or merge with ours, we expect you to treat us like the unrepresented pilots we’ve chosen to be. Please know we will take no offense to any adverse outcome. If we are ever stapled to your seniority list we will take it as a gift that you didn’t reduce us to preferential interviews, because you could do that too since a merger could easily transpire without triggering McCaskill-Bond. Unfortunately, less than 50% of JetBlue pilots who care enough to vote care enough to understand the details of McCaskill-Bond. Regardless, whether you do it to protect your own seniority or even if you just do it for sport, we will accept an adverse SLI with an “Aw shucks” followed by a kick of the ground proceeded by shutting up, sitting down, and doing what we’re told. In short, we would be blithering dunderheads to complain about getting wet when we’re standing outside naked in a torrential downpour without an umbrella.

More notably, we apologize for our substandard contracts and how they may affect your enviable CBA negotiations. We have the lowest percentage Flight Ops budget and the lowest PCASM in the majors. Obviously, and even though we feel that we work hard, none of our minimalistic financial metrics are due to anything exceptional about us. Your airline likely profits better than ours even. We JB pilots simply have a perverse proclivity to adhere to a “yes sir, may I please have another kick in the head” labor model.

We would address our sadly enduring work rules, our oxymoronic Pilot Values Committee, our alleged Direct Relationship, and other things, but since all that could change tomorrow with an email from Management, it would only waste your time.

In closing, we’re severely disappointed that we still have just a job and haven’t progressed towards a career. Our inability to communicate to our fellow pilots is unquestionably inexcusable. Thank you to ALPA National for supporting our campaign as best as possible. Regrettably, we do not deserve a union at this time but we do deserve everything we are confronted with in the future, and we unequivocally understand that.

Unlimited luck, good health, and prosperity to you and your union brothers & sisters,

The Pro-Union Pilots of JetBlue Airways

Liv2soar

Most of the pilots who voted No are pro Union, just Anti-Alpa.

By the way, how's ALPA working out for the AirTran pilots? I haven't seen too many of the "ONE LUV" lanyards since the announcement of SWAPA basically stapling the ALPA pilots.

NWA320pilot

Spoke with a friend of mine who is a JB pilot and was for ALPA....... His take is it's bad timing because ALPA comes with "too much baggage". the reasons given were lots of JB pilots feel like they screwed over by ALPA at previous carriers, the TWA lawsuit against ALPA, and even Delta pilots push for an "in house" union. Interesting enough he really doesn't like/want ALPA but he feels it is the lesser of the evils of being unionized or not in the current economic conditions.

tsquare

You can't really blame that on alpa... it seems the swapa pilots are the ones that are doing that. All alpa can do at this point is react... or not. This is gonna get interesting.

Just as an aside, and maybe at the risk of starting a little foodfight, I wonder how many of those 649 will leave SWA when they figure out that they are gonna be throwing gear for a long long time, when legacy airlines are hiring again. (Just for a little background too.. the bottom guys at DAL are 767ER first officers) And for 1 seat who will no doubtedly throw out the money issue.. come back in 2 years with THAT argument..

Have fun!

Old UCAL CA

ALPA's continuing attempt to be all things to all pilots in an ultra-competitive industry is not without flaws. There are arguments that ALPA simply can't do what it is trying to do by representing everybody...especially when one considers "scope" issues in a competitive industry.

In this case though, the real question is, is it better than nothing.......?

iadfo

The appropriate headline for the article should be "64 percent of Jet Blue pilots want union representation, although ALPA failed to gain the majority vote" Darn anti labor WSJ!!

Clear Right

This is very true, too much bad timing for ALPA. The TWA ruling, the SWA/AirTran (Essentially a Staple Job for F/O's under ALPA negotiations), and The DALPA push all added up to bad press for ALPA. And yes, lot's of Previous ALPA pilots at JetBlue, who are very unhappy with ALPA. I think the reality is, an In-House JBPA vote, may have turned out much different.

However, the bottom line is, regardless of what the "hard-liners" stance on any of the issues is, it is just not that bad at JetBlue, it is a good company to work for and management for the most part is doing a good job. Yes, they can improve on all the hard-liner issues, but the reality is they have made very good progress for a young company in terms of pay and benefits. Industry Average or better (with Premium Pay) on the A320, and Industry Leading E-190 pay. Of course retirement, scope, and merger protection are an issue, but they can be addressed without ALPA. Again, In-House JBPA may have been a different outcome.

alfaromeo

The real issue is that the Jet Blue pilots need to continually push their management to provide the merger protections they need. The CEO wrote a letter to pilots announcing new merger protections, but I would read that with a grain of salt. The Jet Blue pilots should decide on the process they will use to form a seniority list integration committee including:

• How to select the merger representatives
• How to select a merger attorney
• How will we provide direction as a group to the merger representatives
• What process will we use to ratify their work

The Jet Blue pilots have spoken and we should respect their wishes. I wish they had joined ALPA, but they have to decide their own fate. That said, the Jet Blue pilots need to understand that they have a bullseye on their foreheads for future consolidation in the industry. We have seen that there are pilot groups that will exploit the weakness of another pilot groups contractual protections or lack thereof. The time to protect yourselves is now.

FedElta

JB Brothers,

Really long story short.........in the late 80's FDX purchased FTL with similar sized pilot groups. FDX non-union, FTL Alpa.

FTL handed us (FDX) our heads on a platter during the arbitrated SLI. FDX had a guaranteed staple paragraph in our club rules with management. An FTL pilot became the #1 seniority holder, and I'll leave the rest to your imagination. The "staple paragraph" addressing any acquired company was unilaterally removed by FDX management.

At that point , I decided that I would do everything possible to be an Alpa pilot in the event of another acquisition, or merger........save the slings and arrows, I'm no Alpa zealot or apologist....just a historian from my small corner of Planet Pilot.

Good luck, and kind regards,
BG