AirWillie

uh........ when did you plan on reevaluating your self worth and the 15k per year, before or after you got the class date at great lakes??? Oh ok ok after the class date..... very convenient. You guys are laughable, if you did your homework and knew from the beginning how bad it was going to be yet you went anyways, then why are you complaining about it now? That's what I mean about entitlement and that you should have tried Burger King instead, where you can have it your way.

paxhauler85

You lurk on many a thread dishing out trash talk, yet you are a piece of garbage yourself. You work at GoJet.

I don't get it.

No worries; I'm confident you'll get yours someday.

Copperhed51

First of all, I felt I was worth more than I was making when I was at TSA. I didn't want to have to go to Lakes but it was my last option after the furlough. Secondly, no matter how much you research and look into Lakes, there is no possible way to know how bad it is there until you've experienced it. Even the guys who were at Lakes before, left for greener pastures, and are back due to furlough say things at Lakes are as bad as they've ever seen them. Also, because Lakes was generally a first job for most people up until recently, I think a lot of the B.S. there went unrecognized because the pilots there simply hadn't seen any other way of doing things and the fast movement meant that it could be tolerated and quickly forgotten.

You are always promoting this "accept what you have or go to burger king" attitude and it's crap. I'm not going to quietly do my job and accept these horrendous work rules and pay. I'm sure management is happy to hear that you only feel worth whatever they are willing to pay you. Maybe you should work on your own feelings of self-worth and self-confidence. Even though I disagree with where you work, I imagine you do your job well and if that's the case, you are worth more than what they pay you. It's unfortunate that you don't realize that.

That said, I think you're out of bounds here commenting in this thread as it doesn't have anything to do with you and you have no perspective on things at Lakes.

Stew75

Well said. I would not blame copper for leaving if he could. I would have tried, but I got lucky and got the upgrade. There are lots of guys here trying to go anywhere, and believe it or not we have CA's leaving right now. There is rumor of a class in February.

I agree things are terrible here, and I have something to compare it to as I always tell other pilots differences between Lakes and TSA. For example,(remember the infamous "bloodletting memo") after that memo they are now fumigating our "crew room" eerrrr "ops" due to infestation in one of the mildew couches and we can't go in for a month.

However, in the end no matter how bad it is I always enjoy when Uncle Hulie one ups us (reference TSA recalls).

Trogdor

First, you commute to FMN by choice. You could hold DEN, but you'd rather not be on reserve, so stop whining about a decision that you made.

Second, for someone who I thought was paying attention to what is going on in the union, I am surprised by your implication that the union officers blinked in the first round of talks. The company was threatening a baseless lawsuit which the International saw as a stall tactic to delay negotiations. Our legal team advised us that rather than fight the company in court and waste 12-18 months, use dropping the mediator as leverage. We did exactly that to get an agreement signed that forces the company to meet with us on a monthly basis, among other things. So in the end, we accomplished what we set out to do, which is force the company to show up and negotiate.

Lastly, and this is not for flynd94, I like how all you other guys have in your profile, "furloughed e-145, now Be-1900" or something to that effect. As if you need to tell the world that you're better than a lowly Beech pilot because you flew for six months in the right seat of a Barbie Jet. Get over yourself.

Cardinal

Blinked?? The company asked for a few meetings without the mediator present, in exchange we got a signed doument committing them to a fixed, established schedule, something we've never been able to attain before. These are 'negotiations,' everything is give and take.

Just for the record, at this time last year we were represented by the IBT and had one, count 'em 1 overburdened union officer representing the entire airline with maybe half of pilots actually current on their dues. Today there are actually union meetings to go to, 100% membership, a fully staffed local, FMN pilots can split pairings in DEN, you're not stuck in a DER purgatory, you have higher jumpseat priority on F9 for that commute, your dues are lower, and negotiations are ongoing. I think we're off to a hell of a start.

John Pennekamp

Hey Cardinal and fellow Lakers, off topic, how about helping the guy with all the EMB-120 questions?

flynd94

Sorry, about the blinked comment but, that is how quite a few pilots that have talked to me feel about it. I think one of the major problems we have to tackle as a union in communication (not just the FB page or monthly meow). We need to work on capturing the email addy's and, start sending out blastmails.

I am extremely frustrated right now with Lakes mgmt. Between having to explain myselft to CYS for asking for a GPU start in JLN and, having to hear the MCI station manager get on my case for asking for the mechanic to do the oil check. Or that my schedule can be changed at anytime by CYS and, I have no recourse

Yes, I did choose to go to FMN, I enjoyed the CA flying plus, it keeps me away from CYS. The further away I am, the better. Plus, by going there I will fly and, be able to move on faster.

My post's were mainly for AirWillie (GoJetter).

AirWillie

I'm not talking about lakes I'm talking about you. Preaching on here about the difficulties at Lakes with the union and pilots all with less than a year experience and flying a Barby jet at a bottom feeder for a couple of months on ready reserve. Two different sectors of the industry EAS and regional airline, and now you have it all figured out. Didn't someone tell you that you'd have to live in Podunk, USA while you were at lakes flying old airplanes with possibly lower than minimum wage pay with no life? Now you're shocked? No one forced you to go to Great Lakes,

But you misunderstand me in all this, there's no one out there that would fly for less than what the other guy is getting paid, but sometimes we have to deal with what cards we're given. Not all of us are born in the right seat of the best regional(if there is one) or major. It's just amazing the mentality that just because we work at lower tier regionals we are management pilots. You work at one these regionals, are you?

The fact of the matter is that management does not care about me and I don't care about management. I do want to change things as well where things need to be changed but I'm not complaining, and looking around the industry where E190s are going almost coast to cost on 37 bucks an hour, regionals paying to secure flying and buying up deals with cash strapped majors etc. There are way bigger issues with the industry.

Copperhed51

You win AirWillie because I'm feeling too lazy to give a real response.