New Mesa Thread
09-06-2015, 03:21 AM
#1031
Line Holder
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Position: E-175 Captain
Posts: 83
I am a family man with a mortgage. I will gladly vote for their best interest, which is paying the bills. I am not part of the crowd that would rather see their own employer go out of business to prove a point. I quite like my job, and it is the best job I have ever had.
Seriously, if you truly wanted to prove your point, and do it the most logical way, you would quit. You enable the company to get away with their compensation package by accepting to continue to work here. I am ok with it, you sound like you are not. So why don't you exercise your "worst case scenario" plan and stop enabling the company?
Seriously, if you truly wanted to prove your point, and do it the most logical way, you would quit. You enable the company to get away with their compensation package by accepting to continue to work here. I am ok with it, you sound like you are not. So why don't you exercise your "worst case scenario" plan and stop enabling the company?
Voting no will not burn Mesa down to the ground...Keep in mind, you're not the only one with a mortgage, or a family... But people like you are the reason Mesa has been so successful at keeping wages down. You are a bottom feeder pilot and have little respect toward your peers. You could leave Mesa, and take an upgrade elsewhere and reach your pay in as little as 5 years. Pretty sad. If we can't afford a better contract, leave what's in the pot, and do your future pilots a favor. Let them negotiate with hopefully better leverage in the future. This TA is clearly targeted for people like you and not your fellow first officers. If 5 year guys get downgraded they are stuck with **** pay compared to the rest of the industry.
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09-06-2015, 04:12 AM
#1032
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2013
Posts: 1,666
Will we have any more leverage any time within the next 5 years? The answer appears to be no, right now.
09-06-2015, 04:56 AM
#1033
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,198
Like I said before, if you believe voting NO will result in a better contract coming our way in a short period of time, by all means, vote no. I personally don't believe that to be the case, otherwise I would be a firm No.
Flaps you make an excellent point, some one in the crew room made that exact point yesterday.
As far as balancing hours, if you watch reserve availability in Flica, you'll notice they try to do that now, already. New scheduling rules means more people will get lines. I am ok if a super senior person can't work over 90 hours a month because open time went to a reserve so he could get a line.
Will the company go public? No one knows, but a point was made to me at the road show that Mesa doesn't have enough cash on hand to go public.. But again, if our board members are all Hedge Fund managers, they could easily make it happen.
They don't fully go by CMF/CML for an obvious reason. If a senior guy with 2 days left on reserve that is CMF, and a junior guy with 6 days of reserve left that is CML, the junior guy is going to get the 4 day trip that opened up. They are not going to break up trips unless they have to. This is how it works now. You need to see the full picture if you want to know how things work.
So many of you would just look at things through a small port hole and react emotionally rather than trying to see the entire picture and become educated on how things really work.
"Emotional Stupidity" is what I call it, and it is exactly what Envoy's pilot group experienced.
It is only rumors right now, but one I heard was that JO is selling all of his private stock in the company as if he was making an exit. This would only fuel speculation that we are going to go public, and if so, yes, they could do much better.
Again, if I knew more, I'd be a firm no.
Flaps you make an excellent point, some one in the crew room made that exact point yesterday.
As far as balancing hours, if you watch reserve availability in Flica, you'll notice they try to do that now, already. New scheduling rules means more people will get lines. I am ok if a super senior person can't work over 90 hours a month because open time went to a reserve so he could get a line.
Will the company go public? No one knows, but a point was made to me at the road show that Mesa doesn't have enough cash on hand to go public.. But again, if our board members are all Hedge Fund managers, they could easily make it happen.
They don't fully go by CMF/CML for an obvious reason. If a senior guy with 2 days left on reserve that is CMF, and a junior guy with 6 days of reserve left that is CML, the junior guy is going to get the 4 day trip that opened up. They are not going to break up trips unless they have to. This is how it works now. You need to see the full picture if you want to know how things work.
So many of you would just look at things through a small port hole and react emotionally rather than trying to see the entire picture and become educated on how things really work.
"Emotional Stupidity" is what I call it, and it is exactly what Envoy's pilot group experienced.
It is only rumors right now, but one I heard was that JO is selling all of his private stock in the company as if he was making an exit. This would only fuel speculation that we are going to go public, and if so, yes, they could do much better.
Again, if I knew more, I'd be a firm no.
09-06-2015, 05:01 AM
#1034
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,198
What would it take for you to vote yes? I know some say it's a bad idea with negotiations to telegraph what you would agree to, but I'll do it anyway. I think all of these would be non-negotiable for me. They are still mostly below industry average. The union and the company will say they can't afford it and will ask where I would take concessions to get this stuff. Well, the Mesa pilots have taken concessions for the last decade plus. We are taking concessions in comparison to other regionals. I am not asking for a $10k-$20k bonus several other regionals pay. Nor am I asking for wages or even healthcare benefits equal to my other regional peers. Any agreement would have the following:
Pay - still below industry standard, but palatable to me (and I would think the rest of the pilot group):
CA 900/175 pay at current 79 seat rate at date of signing, not blended
CA 700/170 pay: current TA blended rates as published in TA
FO rates 25/30/35/40
Rewrite of TA soft pay language with more clarity so as not to get exploited by JO. Specifically, soft pay would be "at the highest pay rate for the aircraft on which a pilot is qualified in domicile." Or even "at a pay rate blended in an equal proportion to the number of different sized aircraft on which a pilot is qualified in domicile." If there were 10 200s and 10 900s in my domicile and I flew both, I'd be ok getting blended 900/200 soft pay which would equal my normal flying pay in theory. It's that simple. If that is truly the intent of the company as the MEC says it is, then why won't they put it in writing, where it counts? If I am qualified on a 200 and it's in my domicile, the way the language is written, I am getting 200 pay for soft time. We would lose that in arbitration like we lost the base pay recently.
DH = 100% pay.*We are on duty, period.
Per Diem = 1.75 per hour. Still below most other regionals.
KCM paid for.
Min day guarantee, probably of 4 hours. The next worst behind us in the industry I think is PSA at 3.5. Everyone else I think has 4 or more with additional trip/duty rigs. We have nothing. 4 hours a day would be a good start, but not asking too much. It just makes those wasted days with 1 or 2 short legs more palatable being away from home but not making very much money. Wouldn't cost the company much and would force the schedules to be more efficient. Could even be a cost neutral item if it got the schedulers and AA to be more efficient. Even with 117 rules and short flights, we can still have efficient schedules.
True block or better with full cancelation pay. A cancelation currently negates leg by leg overages elsewhere in the month. One cancel in the month puts you at line guarantee, and you don't get paid for your extra work. Again, wouldn't cost the company much.
Reserve:
Keep CMF/CML but keep the ability to pick up trips while on reserve. Keep most of the rest of the reserve language. Keep long call, but do something to address the lack of transparency with respect to buffers and all reserve language being contingent upon buffers. If the company is serious about wanting to use long call, make the language stronger to support it.
FLICA: add just a little bit of language for FLiCA to make it more efficient.
And here is another thing not getting enough attention, that IMO should.
Profit sharing. The company and the union's whole argument why we got such a garbage 5 year TA is that there is no money now since the company will be cashflow negative for the next couple years. Well, if in 3 years the company is profitable, then by their own logic they can afford to pay us more. The reality is though that with a 5 year contract, it will be 7-10 years before we get a new contract. So that is 4-7 years the company will theoretically be profitable that we are making negligibly more than we are now. Profit sharing would enable the company to not pay us when they are cashflow negative or neutral, and not pay us very much when there are razor thin profit margins. We would only get paid an appreciable amount if the company was making healthy profits. So why don't we try to capture some of that future money now instead of in 7-10 years? God knows we won't get retro pay.
Pay - still below industry standard, but palatable to me (and I would think the rest of the pilot group):
CA 900/175 pay at current 79 seat rate at date of signing, not blended
CA 700/170 pay: current TA blended rates as published in TA
FO rates 25/30/35/40
Rewrite of TA soft pay language with more clarity so as not to get exploited by JO. Specifically, soft pay would be "at the highest pay rate for the aircraft on which a pilot is qualified in domicile." Or even "at a pay rate blended in an equal proportion to the number of different sized aircraft on which a pilot is qualified in domicile." If there were 10 200s and 10 900s in my domicile and I flew both, I'd be ok getting blended 900/200 soft pay which would equal my normal flying pay in theory. It's that simple. If that is truly the intent of the company as the MEC says it is, then why won't they put it in writing, where it counts? If I am qualified on a 200 and it's in my domicile, the way the language is written, I am getting 200 pay for soft time. We would lose that in arbitration like we lost the base pay recently.
DH = 100% pay.*We are on duty, period.
Per Diem = 1.75 per hour. Still below most other regionals.
KCM paid for.
Min day guarantee, probably of 4 hours. The next worst behind us in the industry I think is PSA at 3.5. Everyone else I think has 4 or more with additional trip/duty rigs. We have nothing. 4 hours a day would be a good start, but not asking too much. It just makes those wasted days with 1 or 2 short legs more palatable being away from home but not making very much money. Wouldn't cost the company much and would force the schedules to be more efficient. Could even be a cost neutral item if it got the schedulers and AA to be more efficient. Even with 117 rules and short flights, we can still have efficient schedules.
True block or better with full cancelation pay. A cancelation currently negates leg by leg overages elsewhere in the month. One cancel in the month puts you at line guarantee, and you don't get paid for your extra work. Again, wouldn't cost the company much.
Reserve:
Keep CMF/CML but keep the ability to pick up trips while on reserve. Keep most of the rest of the reserve language. Keep long call, but do something to address the lack of transparency with respect to buffers and all reserve language being contingent upon buffers. If the company is serious about wanting to use long call, make the language stronger to support it.
FLICA: add just a little bit of language for FLiCA to make it more efficient.
And here is another thing not getting enough attention, that IMO should.
Profit sharing. The company and the union's whole argument why we got such a garbage 5 year TA is that there is no money now since the company will be cashflow negative for the next couple years. Well, if in 3 years the company is profitable, then by their own logic they can afford to pay us more. The reality is though that with a 5 year contract, it will be 7-10 years before we get a new contract. So that is 4-7 years the company will theoretically be profitable that we are making negligibly more than we are now. Profit sharing would enable the company to not pay us when they are cashflow negative or neutral, and not pay us very much when there are razor thin profit margins. We would only get paid an appreciable amount if the company was making healthy profits. So why don't we try to capture some of that future money now instead of in 7-10 years? God knows we won't get retro pay.
09-06-2015, 05:52 AM
#1035
Covfefe
Joined APC: Jun 2015
Posts: 3,001
BeatNavy, you need to go to a roadshow and make these exact points, so you can get your exact answers as to why. Most all of your points were brought up and discussed at the one I went to. Such as the company flatly refuses to negotiate ever on anything that controls number of staffing; Flica, and reserve buffers. Not going to happen, ever. Never, ever, ever, ever. You all could quit and Mesa shuts the doors, then maybe just short of that.
09-06-2015, 06:59 AM
#1036
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2013
Posts: 1,666
You flatly refuse and the company wins by saving nearly $15m over the next 5 years. JO steamrolls you more by your flatly refusing. Now if you're refusing because you believe we could get more by negotiating over the next 5 years, then vote no. Don't flatly refuse because somehow you think you're sticking it to the man, because he won't feel any pain over it.
09-06-2015, 07:15 AM
#1037
Covfefe
Joined APC: Jun 2015
Posts: 3,001
You flatly refuse and the company wins by saving nearly $15m over the next 5 years. JO steamrolls you more by your flatly refusing. Now if you're refusing because you believe we could get more by negotiating over the next 5 years, then vote no. Don't flatly refuse because somehow you think you're sticking it to the man, because he won't feel any pain over it.
09-06-2015, 07:27 AM
#1038
Line Holder
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Position: E-175 Captain
Posts: 83
You flatly refuse and the company wins by saving nearly $15m over the next 5 years. JO steamrolls you more by your flatly refusing. Now if you're refusing because you believe we could get more by negotiating over the next 5 years, then vote no. Don't flatly refuse because somehow you think you're sticking it to the man, because he won't feel any pain over it.
Most of the cost in the TA is due to the elimination of base pay correct? What incentive do FOs have to vote this TA in?
Some things in the reserve language are better. However, there is nothing that locks the company into doing anything a particular way. If they choose to avoid LCR then they can. If they don't want reserves to pick up open time they can change buffers. So what exactly is worth voting on aside from the captains getting base pay eliminated?
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09-06-2015, 07:42 AM
#1039
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2013
Posts: 1,666
Guess you didn't read my prior long post. I listed several cost neutral or low cost items we left on the table as well as some items the company needs to figure out a way to pay for to attract and retain people over the next 5 years. Don't worry, I won't miss the few hundred bucks this contract would put in my pocket in the short term. I chose to work here under this contract so I'm not getting steamrolled. Agreeing to extend this contract for 5 years making absolutely no gains that the union advertised as trying to get a year and a half ago is getting steamrolled.
I agree with you on tightening certain language provisions and would like to ask some questions about that on the conference calls.
IIRC, the union only got a chance to look at the books towards the end of last year (correct me if I am wrong), so no doubt their expectations got tempered as a result of that.
09-06-2015, 07:43 AM
#1040
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,198
Guess you didn't read my prior long post. I listed several cost neutral or low cost items we left on the table as well as some items the company needs to figure out a way to pay for to attract and retain people over the next 5 years. Don't worry, I won't miss the few hundred bucks this contract would put in my pocket in the short term. I chose to work here under this contract so I'm not getting steamrolled. Agreeing to extend this contract for 5 years making absolutely no gains that the union advertised as trying to get a year and a half ago is getting steamrolled.
2nd year:
240 * 76 * 12 * 5 = another additional 1.1 million over 5 years
3rd year:
240 * 76 * 2 * 12 * 5 = 2.2 million
4th year:
240 * 76 * 6 * 12 * 5 = 6.6 million
Total is 13.2 million dollars spent on F.O.'s, leaving 1.8 Million for everyone else, and these calculations only assume line guarantee for your 25/30/35/40 plan. Bravo!!
Yes, lets dump this money on retaining new people while our new hire classes are always full and we have a massive abundance of F.O.'s, and screw the rest of the pilot group.
A much wiser approach in my opinion would be to do smaller changes to increase everyones QOL. Move minimum days off from 11 to 13, allow those who want to work more, be able to work more, and those who would rather be home, be home more. No wonder Spirit has no issues hiring people.
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