mulcher

I see we found those that vote yes for industry lagging contracts here. You can’t make this up. Arguing to take less. Brilliant!

Brickfire

I would argue it’s quite simple. Take annual pilot labor costs, divide by number of pilots and multiply by average career length.

WHACKMASTER

& full retro! DO NOT REWARD THEM FOR DRAGGING THIS OUT SO LONG!!!!

Lewbronski

What is "Delta's cost/hr of flight time"? How is using Delta's actual earliest available upgrade time cherry-picked? Is using SWA's actual earliest available upgrade time also cherry-picked? What is the middle of the bell-curve at each airline?

And most importantly, why does SWAPA need to use any of the above metrics? Does the RLA require it? Do you know what the RLA does require and how that has been interpreted over the years by the courts who interpret the RLA?

SWAPA itself, in the OAL comparison chart it just published, is touting Delta's early widebody upgrades, stating on the chart for Delta under the column for "Widebody Upgrade": "NYC/ATL B-757/B-767 (Less than 1 year)." Should SWAPA instead say something more like, "Realistically, 7 years to a desirable base" for Delta's widebody upgrade on the chart?

You say would prefer to use "average upgrade time progression from NH to geezer." Should SWAPA have used that metric in their chart instead of what they actually used? And if that's the number you want to use, what is it for Delta? And what is it for SWA?

And more importantly, why do we need to use that number? I assume your answer would be something like, "Because it's more reasonable."

Well, a perfectly reasonable argument can also be made that in the pilot hiring market, candidates are evaluating the upgrade times available at the various competing airlines. If one or more airlines right now feature an earliest upgrade time much earlier than SWA and that might make a significant positive impact on their career earnings, then that's the number that needs to be taken into account. If the company challenged us in court as acting in bad faith for using that argument, could they win?

What does the RLA require when making a reasonable argument? Would making an argument based on earliest upgrade time available be considered bad faith bargaining? If so, please cite the case law that supports what you're contending.

Yes, I would vote no because we have the leverage available to us if we knew how to use it to get everything we are demanding and to also achieve industry-leading career compensation.

I agree with you on this. But that's because this pilot group does not understand the leverage they have available to them right now via the RLA. This pilot group thinks "the RLA is slanted against labor." It's not.

Again, every single pilot I've flown with for the last several months have believed the basic untruth that the President can permanently stop us from striking. That is a failure on the part of SWAPA to educate the pilot group. It's also a failure of each pilot personally to take responsibility for the advancement of their careers and their profession.

One of the Florida reps was on the forum explaining that the President can stop us from striking just a few months ago. That's obvious evidence that SWAPA does not really talk about nor educate the RLA, even internally. Or, they do, and they're miseducating themselves.

Call your rep on the phone and ask them to explain to you the reasonability clause of the RLA, and how "good faith bargaining" gets injected into that discussion. Ask them to explain to you the relevant case law surrounding why we are limiting our demands to NB-only. Nine out of ten of them (or more) won't be able to do it. Heck, call JR and ask him to explain it to you.

Of course he would because we would have just made his job more difficult, not because it's illegal or violates federal labor law policy (though he might lie and threaten and claim that it does). Remember this quote from a case involving the IAM?

His job is to get a deal done, regardless of how fair or not it is to one side or both sides. He just wants to go home and be able to check the "SWAPA dispute" box off on the list of disputes he's handling. One caveat to that, though, is that courts have found it be bad faith bargaining to withdraw an official offer after it has been made. So, if there was already a TA on the table and SWAPA or the company then withdrew their agreement to it, then it could be argued that is bad faith bargaining.

Again, see above. WB career compensation (or better) isn't on the radar because SWAPA hasn't put it on the radar. Our pilot group almost always does what SWAPA recommends or tells them to do.

The pilot group has been conditioned to believe that it's somehow illegal or violates some other dictum "they" have made (whoever "they" are) that NB airline pilots must limit their demands to NB-only. If you do the research, though, it turns out that belief has absolutely zero merit. For example, from a TWA FA case:

Or, from a case involving Trans-International Airlines:

Given that SWAPA is not demanding greater than NB career compensation (as far as we all know), my guess is that SWAPA hasn't really done the research on this issue either, OR they have done it, and they feel like the koolies in the pilot group would have such a brain meltdown at the idea of demanding industry-leading career compensation that SWAPA, politically, is unwilling to risk it.

Lewbronski

We ALREADY, with Delta's current TA, fly more block hours and log more takeoffs and landings, than Delta to earn less career compensation than Delta. That's also known as incurring significantly more personal and physical liability than DL pilots or pilots at OAL's for less total compensation.

And now, what I essentially hear you saying is, "That's okay. And it's even okay if I have to fly even more and incur even more liability to keep up with Delta's and the OAL's career compensation."

And that's to make nothing of the issue that for the typical person here to fly 152 TFP per month, they'd have to clear out their entire line and then be able to pick up 14 or 15 days per month, every month for 30 years, at premium pay. And assuming that every single one of our approximately 10,000 pilots was even interested in doing that, it's not easy (at all) to do, month in and month out.

jetset

Where are you getting this information that the entire SWA pilot group thinks this? Is that a SWAPA quote?

4V14T0R

You're right, a lot of moving parts. SWA has less moving parts, and less training expenses to go with it, so they can afford more, if now isn't the time to negotiate and demand more there will never be a better time.

ak68W

https://ravencareers.com/resources/a...pilot-shortage

Lewbronski

Do you disagree? Is that even controversial?

flyguy81

They proved they can pay every single employee 1.5/2x for 2 months so I know they can afford it. If they offer a pile of money and say do with it how you want, I’m saying I’d prefer the things like disability fixed over rates…not at the expense of rates because there’s no reason we should be offering any concession or agreeing to anything less than industry standard in this environment.