Grumpyaviator

To me the only real pros to being at SWA are the Regular Plan and pre boarding for Jumpseaters.

I don’t find the “schedule flexibility “ to be that flexible, unless it means being able to fly way too much.

And non-reving with family is a demeaning experience of being scattered in middle seats around the airplane, but hey, it gets you to Lubbock after a good tongue lashing by the ops agent and FA because “we’re running late and you’re making it worse”.

Add to this all the other cons that have been posted.

WHACKMASTER

Obviously the STD/LTD, LOL travesty at SWA is going to get fixed this contract cycle. I’m confident there’s enough outrage over how bad it is.

Lewbronski

Well, as a coheart very recently told me, “You’re not a prisoner. You’re not being forced to stay here against your will.” IOW, they dropped another variation of the classic, and still ingenuous, “If you don’t like it here, leave!” argument on me. That’s the attitude of our forefathers who built the great American organized labor movement!!

The koolaid is alive and well. Standby for another 84%-approved industry-lagging turd incoming.

avi8er

Ever heard the self-filling prophecy?

Profane Kahuna

damn dude….. get a life.

your doom and gloom is pathetic.

We are a few weeks away from a historic Strike Authorization Vote where we need as much unity and strength as possible and you are ****ing in everyone’s wheaties.

If the company’s offer sucks vote against it like last time and get a better deal.

But why spend so much time bashing the union and the membership? That is what Ford Harrison gets paid to do.


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Lewbronski

Ever heard of the idea that to know which way to go, you've got to know where you are? Or, that if you don't deal with reality, reality is going to deal with you?

I think you and I have been through this before. You and I disagree on how to approach obtaining the very best industry-leading (not just narrow-body-leading) contract for our pilot group. That's fine. You don't have to agree with me.

I personally don't think that the ad hominem attacks ("get a life," "your doom and gloom is pathetic") are productive. It's pretty evident that you think those methods of persuasion ARE effective. Maybe they've worked for you in the past. More power to you.

From my perspective, we have a pilot group that is woefully uneducated on the primary law that forms the battlefield upon which we face off against the company in our attempt to attain the best compensation, the best retirement, the best work rules, the best benefits, etc. The extent to which our pilot group understands the rules of the game forms an important input into whether or not we will have the will to see the process through to the point where we achieve maximum leverage.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard members of our pilot group say something like, "The RLA is slanted against us." I've said this many times before: the RLA is slanted against the less informed, the less patient, and the less educated side. That side has almost always been labor. If we're going to achieve significant gains, that needs to change.

Not a single person I've flown with in the last several months has had even an elementary understanding of the RLA. Not a single flying partner knew, for example, that the President can't stop us from striking. The deleterious impact of just that one widespread belief within our pilot group is enormous because it makes a pilot who believes that think that there is really no point in earnestly pursuing the massive leverage that is available under the RLA because, according to their erroneous understanding, the President will just cut us off at the knees. A recent flying partner had no idea that the mediator can and does lie to one or both sides in their efforts to spur negotiations along. They just assumed that the mediator was under oath or something while overseeing the mediation process.

The only entity within our pilot group with a megaphone big enough to get through to enough of our pilots is SWAPA. And, so far, I have not seen a serious attempt from SWAPA at educating this pilot group on the ins and outs of the RLA. The RLA is not rocket science. But understanding it requires more than a review of the flow chart.

I have been clear that approving the strike authorization vote is an absolutely necessary step in advancing the chains in the RLA process. We need to approve it with the highest margin possible. But it's a relatively small step. A SAV does, according to Independent Federation of Flight Attendants v. TWA, 682 F. Supp. 1003, "strengthen the hand of [our] negotiators." That's not insignificant.

But there still remains the fact that, as of today, we're only 161 days into mediation when the average time in mediation of cases before the NMB over the last five years is, depending on how you count them and using only the partial data that is publicly available, between 562 and 978 days. While it's not impossible to be released before that range of days in mediation (the railroads did it in 136 days last year), it's very far from the norm. This pilot group needs to understand that dynamic and that, after the SAV, there may still be a long period that needs to elapse before our leverage peaks.

Absent an education from SWAPA on how the above works (I've quoted the relevant court cases many times before), our pilot group is likely to succumb to fatigue with the "nearly interminable" RLA process, as we have done in the past.

I personally think what appears to me to be a blind rallying around SWAPA and an unwillingness to call out SWAPA to do better is a major disservice to this pilot group. IMO, that's the kind of thing that FH loves to see in pilots.

But you know what? In the end, I could be wrong. OTOH, so could you. I'm going to continue to do my level best with the tiny little voice I have to try to do the best I can for our pilot group. I assume you'll do the same. Hopefully, we can both make some kind of positive difference.

RJSAviator76

I hope you've taken the time to teach them, point it all out and then ask him to spread it. You fight ignorance with information and education.

Lewbronski

Of course. I know you've seen my evidence-based posts on here in the past quoting the court cases about the ability of the mediator to lie, the length of the mediation process, the inability of the President to extend a PEB or establish a second one, and other RLA-associated topics.

Cyio

I appreciate your posts Lew and I will say that I think it's working. I have yet to fly with a CA that wasn't ready for the SAV vote and all of them have been wanting a better contract that fixes many of the issues we all talk about here. Please dont stop, we need more people like you.

hoover

I've yet to fly with anyone who knows the RLA process or believes what I tell them , but they are all voting yes on the SAV. So that's at least something