RJSAviator76

OK, now you’re just being obtuse. The end game is when you reach your predetermined “pillars” which, if I’m not mistaken, you failed to reach, but settled anyway.

OOfff

why stop at the pillars, though? If we could get more by saying no, why wouldn’t we just negotiate higher? The obvious answer is that leverage is not unlimited, despite your rhetoric

bay982

Delta’s ship has sailed, no point in rehashing.

The good news is: ‘the zone of reasonable’ is now greatly expanded for us, UA, and AA.

And really, the zone of reasonable is greatest for us at SWA considering our EXCEPTIONAL debt to equity ratio (SWA 1:1, UA 11:1, DL 18:1, AA don’t ask) and recent record revenue.

No one can argue that Delta average earning (across the fleet), plus at least 5%, is not reasonable in every single contract area.

I expect SWAPA to bring nothing less to the membership.

palooza

c’mon man. He has a valid point. You’re arguing for all the reasons I hate yes voters for our TA. No doubt it would have been a longer road but how long is now your debate? I absolutely disagree with you thinking “this is the last and final offer” or “above the zone of reasonableness” should win.

we caved plain and simple. There are plenty of valid arguments to justify the yes vote that maybe include TVM, setting the bar, soft pay gains outweigh pawltry payrates/retro/retirement gains…yada yada yada.

using this argument of fear of the process is the mess up man. We aren’t weak until we show weakness by accepting this deal.

it is what it is. My feeling is negotiation fatigue got the better percent of the yes vote than guys like you who try to tell everyone we believed what a mediator said.

edit: I voted no. But I definitely have a big part of me happy it’s just over…succumbed almost to negotiation fatigue

Whoopsmybad

Caved? Have you talked to your reps about recent polling?

Anyway, hope y’all get a good contract.

palooza

Yep. Caved. Walking from that deal with money in hand and a mediator comment got us here. It was a well played final offer is all I’m saying. Came with the mediator saying things that weren’t actually true. Then a tuck-tail MEC approves the deal less than 12 hours from hearing it.

wreaks of freaking about pressure from NMB, coupled with alpa politics with JA moving to National.

it was a knee-jerk. Just glad company made the number that got us a deal. Smart

Lewbronski

The "zone of reasonableness" under the RLA is vast. Did you not read in my last post about the TIA FA's who were demanding a 294% increase in their payroll expense to the company (a demand, btw, that exceeded 200% of TIA's total company-wide profits the year before)? Their demands were not determined to be outside the "zone of reasonableness" when their employer tried to find them in violation of the RLA in court. Did you not read about the REA Express case where the union was found to not be in violation of the RLA when the company took them to court claiming that their demands would bankrupt the company?

At the end of the day, as the Supreme Court explained, "the labor laws allow economic strength ultimately to control the establishment of contract terms, regardless of which side may have better reasons for its position."

So, who has more economic strength right now? Pilots or management?

We cannot be stripped of our right to strike under the RLA. Yes, the RLA is a long and drawn out process. But, in the end, we have a right to strike. That's not my opinion. That's what the Supreme Court said: "'When the machinery of industrial peace fails, the policy in all national labor legislation is to let loose the full economic power of each [party]. On the side of labor, it is the cherished right to strike.' Whether the source of this right be found in a particular provision of the Railway Labor Act or in the scheme as a whole, it is integral to the Act."

So, what is the company going to do if we don't succumb to negotiating fatigue and we end up getting released from mediation? Are they going to hire and start training scabs? Where are they going to find enough scabs in today's pilot hiring market to operate enough of an operation to break a strike? Why would any pilot scab right now for SWA when virtually anyone with a pulse can find an airline job today?

There have been three mainline passenger airline pilot strikes in the last 26 years: they lasted four days, 14 days, and 24 minutes. If the company were foolish enough to allow a strike to occur, how long would a strike here last when the company would be losing $60M to $70M per day? Who is going to be willing to be labeled a scab for the rest of their lives in exchange for the privilege of having a SWA job for a few minutes up to maybe a few weeks?

Is the company going to bet on Congress intervening? Of the 19 post-PEB congressional interventions so far in RLA history, all involved railroads. Not one of them involved an airline. Is that simply a coincidence? It's far from a foregone conclusion that Congress is going to intervene in a SWA airline pilot dispute.

And even if Congress does, in the end, intervene, what will that intervention look like? Will it favor pilots or management? Will Congress be in the mood to be kind to management after they gave them billions of dollars in pandemic aid, and our management then proceeded to melt down this past holiday despite all the billions of aid that they evidently spent mostly on nothing of consequence, and after our CEO couldn't even be bothered to show up at the Congressional hearings that were called as a result of the SWA melt down?

If history is any guide, there's massive uncertainty around the idea that Congress will intervene at all. Then, there's additional uncertainty over what an intervention will look like if Congress does intervene. A congressional intervention is hardly something management can rest secure in.

So, who has more economic power right now? The company is effectively neutered in their ability to counter us with what has proven to be one of the most historically effective strike-breaking tools: scabs. Scabs have all but been eliminated as a factor in this cycle's negotiations and mediation. A very uncertain possibility of congressional intervention is what remains for management. How much economic power does that give the company? I'd say very little.

That leaves negotiating fatigue wrapped around an almost total ignorance of the dynamics of the law (the RLA) that governs the negotiating process. THAT is the company's most powerful weapon. That is what caused both Delta and Alaska to settle for far less than they could have achieved.

So, this battle between SWAPA pilots and SWA management boils down almost entirely to a contest between the lack of comfort pilots feel as a result of negotiations fatigue and ignorance of the RLA versus the existential threat to the company posed by pilots wielding the credible threat of a legal strike.

Logically, which one of those two should win? Which one will actually win?

at6d

Just got my strike booklet in the mail. That’s what happens if we don’t get a contract.

OOfff

you hate yes voters? Yikes


all of the reasons you listed that are valid reasons to vote yes are exactly why people did so…or at least me. But maybe you have me confused with someone else

MudhammedCJ

Last time the second Delta TA came out before our vote concluded on our second TA. We were behind them from the beginning. They just voted later than we did. In general, it would be best if pilots that don't pay enough attention to what they are voting for would simply abstain from voting.