baseball

THIS is worth re-posting!

We could work for free and it wouldn't help. I recall Larry Kellner and Jacques LaPointe screwing the CAL pilots and their whole self-created "liquidity shortfall financial crisis" that created the Stockholm Syndrome within the CAL MEC as presented by Jackson Martin, Tom Stivala, Rick Muir, Dave Zullo and a few others.

We just fly the jets and that's it. Our services and the value of those services are what they are. As pilots we plan. We have redundant systems, and we have alternates in case our flight can't be completed as planned. Pilots are not a glass "piggy bank" that says "break glass in case of emergency, rob us-shaft us, don't return the money."

A message for all pilots is this: Diversify your skill-set. unless you are within 5 years of retirement have a plan B and have something else you can do to pay the bills. have a 6 month emergency fund, etc.

My 2 cents is this: stock buy backs benefit management's stock options and the institutional investors they court.. There is a small group of folks that feel it's a strategic move to help prevent a hostile take-over. But, there aren't too many Gordon Gecko's around any more. The real thing we should be telling management is this: Save up for a rainy day. and have access to cash via a substantial line of credit. It could be a pandemic, a public health crisis, or a national security event, or a global security threat. Those are all possibilities, and all require an executable plan.

Stock buy-backs don't figure into any of those plans. We can reasonably predict some sort of major crisis every 20 to 30 years. managements need to have plans ready and actionable when the balloon goes up. This profession hasn't been made whole since 9-11 and the airline pilots who staff it must sacrifice allot to get here and to stay here. Without pilots to staff the airline and to keep it staffed, you don't have an airline. Best to plan for the future. History has a way of repeating itself, even if the circumstances are not identical, the ramifications after the fact most certainly follow a predictable pattern.

baseball

You mean history repeats itself? Wow what a concept!

It wasn't too long ago that the SCABS were all told they were the modern day equivalent of Jesus by management and that God had sent them to free the airline from the union pilots who were dragging the airline down with those weighty labor contracts during deregulation.

Lets not prostittue ourselves, even in times of trouble. Let's have our dignity and our contract too. Oh yeah one more thing. Scope protections need to be tougher; a whole lot tougher. Let's core 4 that concept for a while.

My Core 4: enforce and strengthen the contract, hold management accountable, strengthen our unions influence on government and the regulatory process, protect the profession by strengthening scope.