Negotiated profit sharing 2011
01-02-2012, 11:53 AM
#95
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2008
Position: 737 CAPT
Posts: 1,903
So you use facts without context as a counter argument? Well done! I'm sure you know that cash balance is meaningless without knowing the debt structure. I don't know how the debt was structured at the respective companies, but that info can't be hard to find (if anyone really gives half a sh!T). It's about the flow of cash into and out of the company...not the bank balance at any point in time.
Originally Posted by BusJock
CAL wants UAL to go away and just take our cash as they were down to nothing in their accounts before the merger and UAL WAS rolling in dough.
However, after further research, a few more facts:
CAL Q1 2010 Operating Cash Flow = $431 million & $351M free-cash flow
UAL Q1 2010 Operating Cash Flow = $482 million & $389M free-cash flow
CAL Q1 2010 Long-Term debt and leases = $5.27 billion
UAL Q1 2010 Long-Term debt and leases = $8.23 billion
These are simplified numbers based on what I could find in the reports. True I do not have a finance degree either so I made sure to pick out the apples-to-apples comparisons that were presented in the reports. I also will admit that I don't know how all the debt is structured either. But, there is some context for you regarding my statement.
01-02-2012, 12:17 PM
#96
Keep Calm Chive ON
Joined APC: Feb 2008
Position: Boeing's Plastic Jet Button Pusher - 787
Posts: 2,086
The C-57/LAX "Round-Up".
ALPA: The Pilots Union
12-31-2011
"L"-United Pilots of Los Angeles:
By now you've probably seen or heard about the company entering into a deal with the CAL MEC to give the CAL pilots profit sharing for 2011. This has generated a significant amount of email and message traffic to your local officers, so Bill asked me to take a moment to provide you with some information since John and I were at the last Special MEC Meeting while Bill recuperates from his shoulder surgery.
As I said in an earlier update, the current situation is not complicated but some folks have tried very hard to make it that way and that is unfortunate. The simple fact of the matter regarding profit sharing is that the CAL pilots did not have it because they had earlier given it away as a concession. Conversely, the United pilots had it because we received it in exchange for concessions given. In other words, our profit sharing has been bought and paid for with concessions that we continue to suffer under, month by month, year by year. The CAL pilot profit sharing was a concession that was meant for them to continue to go without, month by month, year by year, until they got a new contract and rectified that situation. Please remember that part: A NEW CONTRACT. That is where all focus should be and where all aims should lead.
With that in mind, back up just over a year and in exchange for agreeing to play nice with the company regarding the merger, the United MEC and the Continental MEC entered into a Transition and Process Agreement in the name of ALL of the pilots in which we all got a few items of value to us, some specifically aimed at one pilot group or the other, and some of which lasted for only one year and/or could be canceled by the company after 18 months. The only explanation for that is a lack of leverage – we certainly would have made them permanent if we could have.
Now those items all had very real value. The CAL profit sharing is probably somewhere north of $40 million and what price shall we put on the domicile protections etc.? Now that the intervening 1 ½ years are up, the CAL and UAL pilots obviously still want those things but we also, more importantly, want a new JCBA. With that in mind, the UAL MEC Leadership hatched a plan that they then discussed with CAL Master Chairman Jay Pierce in which we might use the fact that the company dearly wanted to find a way to include the CAL pilots in that company's profit sharing plan as part of a leverage and enticement package to not only extend the T&PA in its' entirety, but also to entice and incentivize UAL management to swiftly conclude a JCBA. This is exactly where our focus SHOULD be!
This plan has now very likely fallen apart. The pilots of United Airlines have been left with absolutely NOTHING, and we are not one bit closer to a attaining a JCBA because the CAL Master Chairman, Capt. Jay Pierce, decided to cut your leadership off at the pass and strike a single party deal with United-Continental management in order to pick up forty million pieces of silver.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know how the hell we are ever going to conclude a JCBA with a hostile management team schooled in union busting and playing one team against another if we have "leadership" at the very top that is this shortsighted, so completely tone deaf to solidarity, and apparently unable or unwilling to focus on the LONG TERM goals that will bring hundreds of millions of dollars of extended value to you and your family. I've said for years that we need to stop walking past and stumbling over leverage, yet your ALPA leadership continues to fail you and the career that is laying in a smoking heap at your feet is living proof of what I say.
Now I tell you and I stand by it that the company really DID intend to find a way to give the CAL pilots their profit sharing because not only do they want to try to pacify that group (as I said before, it won’t work - the CAL line pilots are too smart for that) but more importantly they love the photo op that they get when some compliant, pro-management "pilot" stands in front of a camera holding a bag of cash for the yearly camera op and CEO glad handing session. Never mind that the cash in that bag is about equal to what Jeff and his cohorts spend on one lively evening out on the town wining and dining government officials and local business page writers. No sir, its fodder for their continuing lie (if you say it enough times...) that this is one of the best places in America to work. Rest assured this is not conjecture and I’m not making this up. The company clearly telegraphed their feelings regarding the issue on Friday in their UAL propaganda organ: “We prefer that all co-workers participate in profit sharing so we can all share the benefits of our success,” said Human Resources and Labor Relations EVP Mike Bonds.
Imagine how pleased they were to discover that they would not have to negotiate with all three parties to the T&PA in order to make this happen, but instead they would GAIN something in exchange by cutting a deal with ONE party to that agreement. Again, no conjecture needed! Their relief was made clear in their update on Friday: “I would like to thank the chair of the CO ALPA MEC, Capt. Jay Pierce, for his leadership and constructive engagement on this issue,” noted Labor Relations SVP Doug McKeen.
Well isn't that nice.
Now let me be perfectly honest and open here regarding these negotiations. As with most everything that the long-term (lifer it seems...) ALPA volunteers at your MEC table touch, this whole thing got more complicated than it needed to be when the more shortsighted among us started counting the pieces of silver in a bag being dangled in front of Jay Pierce and salivating over the thought of the fish (singular) that it would buy instead of remaining singularly focused on the long term goal of how we might teach a man to fish by turning a company want into a long term gain for ALL of the pilots of United with a JCBA. You may have seen some reference to this in the other council publications and resolutions that were passed at a recent MEC meeting. At the end of the day it was just noise because whatever foolishness some at the MEC wished to pursue would not matter when part of the negotiation process entails items falling off the table. THAT is exactly what should have been allowed to happen. The three-party process should have been allowed to run a full course. No doubt Jay Pierce and his supporters will point to these items or something Chairman Morse did or said and say that the negotiations were doomed from the start. Do not be fooled by BS or smoke and misdirection folks. The only thing that matters is a JCBA and with regards to the T&PA the whole thing should have been extended – both the CAL profit sharing AND the parts that shored up the UAL agreement and protected ALL new UAL pilots. As well, we should have either found a way to make that happen or pasted the company with that failure and taken it loudly to the press. Beat them over the head with it endlessly and at every turn. THAT'S valuable if you're thinking long term! Do you think Wall St. notices these things? Certainly they do and they have.
So I'll say again that whatever complications anyone may have introduced into the process would have eventually fallen out of the discussion if, but only if, the discussions had been allowed to continue by 100% leadership solidarity and a standing together, shoulder to shoulder, of your ALPA leaders from both airlines. Instead, CAL MEC Chairman Jay Pierce, aided by those who support him, have scuttled that opportunity by abandoning the tri-party negotiations and leaving the entire pilot group holding an empty bag with regards to ALL portions of the Transition and Process Agreement. And let me be clear on that – all of our pilots at BOTH airlines are weaker for this.
We cannot have this. We cannot continue like this. I have made my thoughts on this failure of leadership very clear to incoming MEC Chairman Jay Heppner, and though he is arriving midstream on this, I have asked that he look at every legal avenue available to us that might compel management to re-enter a tri-party negotiation regarding all tenets of the Transition and Process Agreement. I am but one voice, however, I'm sure that Bill and John and others will echo my request.
My comments here will likely not go over well with some at the CAL MEC table, but as I said I have a career, just like yours, that is laying in ruins at my feet and I'm sick and tired of the FAILURES of ALPA leadership costing me and my family month after month, year after year, hundreds of thousands of dollars of real wealth. Wealth that I will NEVER see and will NEVER bless my family due to continued ineptness and bad decision making from those who we have entrusted to shepherd our careers. I know you feel the same because you are in the same boat and that is why I am saying what needs to be said regarding this latest debacle, unpleasant as it may be to some: THIS MUST STOP.
Folks, please remember that most of your ire should remain aimed squarely at a corporate management that continues to dine on steak and caviar with their multi-million dollar bonuses while we lose our houses, our retirement dreams, and your kids lose their life starting and educational dreams. Nor should ANY ire be directed to the CAL line pilots. They are not to blame in any of this. They are suffering with a poor working agreement just as we are. No, your disgust should be mostly directed at management and at the pilots among us who continue to play into their hands through poor headwork, poor leadership, and masquerading as union pilots while plotting their future management job options.
As I told an MEC member recently, I'm not at all worried about the MEC (either one) bringing us a poor contract to vote on because the rest of us will certainly be the backbone that any representative of ALPA is lacking if that should happen. They're not getting anything past the pilot groups. No, what continues to bother me is the thought of you getting a new contract even a day later than you could have had one if better leadership had been at work on your behalf.
Rest assured that Bill and John and I are working cohesively and very hard on your behalf, and feedback seems to indicate that Council 57 continues to be very much of a like mind regarding our contract, ALPA, and what's going on these days. It's a great feeling to know that we have such an outstanding council squarely behind us. YOU, ladies and gentlemen, are simply awesome and you amaze the three of us! We are blessed to know and work with you.
Please have a great New Year!
Oly
M.T. "Oly" Olson
Vice Chairman, Council 57 Los Angeles
12-31-2011
"L"-United Pilots of Los Angeles:
By now you've probably seen or heard about the company entering into a deal with the CAL MEC to give the CAL pilots profit sharing for 2011. This has generated a significant amount of email and message traffic to your local officers, so Bill asked me to take a moment to provide you with some information since John and I were at the last Special MEC Meeting while Bill recuperates from his shoulder surgery.
As I said in an earlier update, the current situation is not complicated but some folks have tried very hard to make it that way and that is unfortunate. The simple fact of the matter regarding profit sharing is that the CAL pilots did not have it because they had earlier given it away as a concession. Conversely, the United pilots had it because we received it in exchange for concessions given. In other words, our profit sharing has been bought and paid for with concessions that we continue to suffer under, month by month, year by year. The CAL pilot profit sharing was a concession that was meant for them to continue to go without, month by month, year by year, until they got a new contract and rectified that situation. Please remember that part: A NEW CONTRACT. That is where all focus should be and where all aims should lead.
With that in mind, back up just over a year and in exchange for agreeing to play nice with the company regarding the merger, the United MEC and the Continental MEC entered into a Transition and Process Agreement in the name of ALL of the pilots in which we all got a few items of value to us, some specifically aimed at one pilot group or the other, and some of which lasted for only one year and/or could be canceled by the company after 18 months. The only explanation for that is a lack of leverage – we certainly would have made them permanent if we could have.
Now those items all had very real value. The CAL profit sharing is probably somewhere north of $40 million and what price shall we put on the domicile protections etc.? Now that the intervening 1 ½ years are up, the CAL and UAL pilots obviously still want those things but we also, more importantly, want a new JCBA. With that in mind, the UAL MEC Leadership hatched a plan that they then discussed with CAL Master Chairman Jay Pierce in which we might use the fact that the company dearly wanted to find a way to include the CAL pilots in that company's profit sharing plan as part of a leverage and enticement package to not only extend the T&PA in its' entirety, but also to entice and incentivize UAL management to swiftly conclude a JCBA. This is exactly where our focus SHOULD be!
This plan has now very likely fallen apart. The pilots of United Airlines have been left with absolutely NOTHING, and we are not one bit closer to a attaining a JCBA because the CAL Master Chairman, Capt. Jay Pierce, decided to cut your leadership off at the pass and strike a single party deal with United-Continental management in order to pick up forty million pieces of silver.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know how the hell we are ever going to conclude a JCBA with a hostile management team schooled in union busting and playing one team against another if we have "leadership" at the very top that is this shortsighted, so completely tone deaf to solidarity, and apparently unable or unwilling to focus on the LONG TERM goals that will bring hundreds of millions of dollars of extended value to you and your family. I've said for years that we need to stop walking past and stumbling over leverage, yet your ALPA leadership continues to fail you and the career that is laying in a smoking heap at your feet is living proof of what I say.
Now I tell you and I stand by it that the company really DID intend to find a way to give the CAL pilots their profit sharing because not only do they want to try to pacify that group (as I said before, it won’t work - the CAL line pilots are too smart for that) but more importantly they love the photo op that they get when some compliant, pro-management "pilot" stands in front of a camera holding a bag of cash for the yearly camera op and CEO glad handing session. Never mind that the cash in that bag is about equal to what Jeff and his cohorts spend on one lively evening out on the town wining and dining government officials and local business page writers. No sir, its fodder for their continuing lie (if you say it enough times...) that this is one of the best places in America to work. Rest assured this is not conjecture and I’m not making this up. The company clearly telegraphed their feelings regarding the issue on Friday in their UAL propaganda organ: “We prefer that all co-workers participate in profit sharing so we can all share the benefits of our success,” said Human Resources and Labor Relations EVP Mike Bonds.
Imagine how pleased they were to discover that they would not have to negotiate with all three parties to the T&PA in order to make this happen, but instead they would GAIN something in exchange by cutting a deal with ONE party to that agreement. Again, no conjecture needed! Their relief was made clear in their update on Friday: “I would like to thank the chair of the CO ALPA MEC, Capt. Jay Pierce, for his leadership and constructive engagement on this issue,” noted Labor Relations SVP Doug McKeen.
Well isn't that nice.
Now let me be perfectly honest and open here regarding these negotiations. As with most everything that the long-term (lifer it seems...) ALPA volunteers at your MEC table touch, this whole thing got more complicated than it needed to be when the more shortsighted among us started counting the pieces of silver in a bag being dangled in front of Jay Pierce and salivating over the thought of the fish (singular) that it would buy instead of remaining singularly focused on the long term goal of how we might teach a man to fish by turning a company want into a long term gain for ALL of the pilots of United with a JCBA. You may have seen some reference to this in the other council publications and resolutions that were passed at a recent MEC meeting. At the end of the day it was just noise because whatever foolishness some at the MEC wished to pursue would not matter when part of the negotiation process entails items falling off the table. THAT is exactly what should have been allowed to happen. The three-party process should have been allowed to run a full course. No doubt Jay Pierce and his supporters will point to these items or something Chairman Morse did or said and say that the negotiations were doomed from the start. Do not be fooled by BS or smoke and misdirection folks. The only thing that matters is a JCBA and with regards to the T&PA the whole thing should have been extended – both the CAL profit sharing AND the parts that shored up the UAL agreement and protected ALL new UAL pilots. As well, we should have either found a way to make that happen or pasted the company with that failure and taken it loudly to the press. Beat them over the head with it endlessly and at every turn. THAT'S valuable if you're thinking long term! Do you think Wall St. notices these things? Certainly they do and they have.
So I'll say again that whatever complications anyone may have introduced into the process would have eventually fallen out of the discussion if, but only if, the discussions had been allowed to continue by 100% leadership solidarity and a standing together, shoulder to shoulder, of your ALPA leaders from both airlines. Instead, CAL MEC Chairman Jay Pierce, aided by those who support him, have scuttled that opportunity by abandoning the tri-party negotiations and leaving the entire pilot group holding an empty bag with regards to ALL portions of the Transition and Process Agreement. And let me be clear on that – all of our pilots at BOTH airlines are weaker for this.
We cannot have this. We cannot continue like this. I have made my thoughts on this failure of leadership very clear to incoming MEC Chairman Jay Heppner, and though he is arriving midstream on this, I have asked that he look at every legal avenue available to us that might compel management to re-enter a tri-party negotiation regarding all tenets of the Transition and Process Agreement. I am but one voice, however, I'm sure that Bill and John and others will echo my request.
My comments here will likely not go over well with some at the CAL MEC table, but as I said I have a career, just like yours, that is laying in ruins at my feet and I'm sick and tired of the FAILURES of ALPA leadership costing me and my family month after month, year after year, hundreds of thousands of dollars of real wealth. Wealth that I will NEVER see and will NEVER bless my family due to continued ineptness and bad decision making from those who we have entrusted to shepherd our careers. I know you feel the same because you are in the same boat and that is why I am saying what needs to be said regarding this latest debacle, unpleasant as it may be to some: THIS MUST STOP.
Folks, please remember that most of your ire should remain aimed squarely at a corporate management that continues to dine on steak and caviar with their multi-million dollar bonuses while we lose our houses, our retirement dreams, and your kids lose their life starting and educational dreams. Nor should ANY ire be directed to the CAL line pilots. They are not to blame in any of this. They are suffering with a poor working agreement just as we are. No, your disgust should be mostly directed at management and at the pilots among us who continue to play into their hands through poor headwork, poor leadership, and masquerading as union pilots while plotting their future management job options.
As I told an MEC member recently, I'm not at all worried about the MEC (either one) bringing us a poor contract to vote on because the rest of us will certainly be the backbone that any representative of ALPA is lacking if that should happen. They're not getting anything past the pilot groups. No, what continues to bother me is the thought of you getting a new contract even a day later than you could have had one if better leadership had been at work on your behalf.
Rest assured that Bill and John and I are working cohesively and very hard on your behalf, and feedback seems to indicate that Council 57 continues to be very much of a like mind regarding our contract, ALPA, and what's going on these days. It's a great feeling to know that we have such an outstanding council squarely behind us. YOU, ladies and gentlemen, are simply awesome and you amaze the three of us! We are blessed to know and work with you.
Please have a great New Year!
Oly
M.T. "Oly" Olson
Vice Chairman, Council 57 Los Angeles
01-02-2012, 01:16 PM
#97
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2008
Position: B-777 left
Posts: 1,415
Like I said socal it is now every man or women for themselves which is how it has been where you are at for a long time. I don't know one ual pilot that is not really ****ed off about all this. Most had hoped it would not happen to have some of the cal folks grow a set and be ****ed off, not to hold off any money from you guys.
But hey no more will do whatever is good for the individual at this point in time. Enjoy the profit sharing.
Geez everytime I read some big letter from alpa they just sound so full of crap. I know how I feel about management all though he thinks he needs to tell us how to feel, but I know exactly how I feel about alpa and cal alpa in particular. Won't evene waste any time discussing alpa national and as our recently departed mec chair mention, those that help our heads under water.
Hey this should be great fun for a while.
But hey no more will do whatever is good for the individual at this point in time. Enjoy the profit sharing.
Geez everytime I read some big letter from alpa they just sound so full of crap. I know how I feel about management all though he thinks he needs to tell us how to feel, but I know exactly how I feel about alpa and cal alpa in particular. Won't evene waste any time discussing alpa national and as our recently departed mec chair mention, those that help our heads under water.
Hey this should be great fun for a while.
01-02-2012, 01:20 PM
#98
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2006
Posts: 621
ALPA: The Pilots Union
12-31-2011
"L"-United Pilots of Los Angeles: The simple fact of the matter regarding profit sharing is that the CAL pilots did not have it because they had earlier given it away as a concession. Conversely, the United pilots had it because we received it in exchange for concessions given. In other words, our profit sharing has been bought and paid for with concessions that we continue to suffer under, month by month, year by year. The CAL pilot profit sharing was a concession that was meant for them to continue to go without, month by month, year by year, until they got a new contract and rectified that situation.
12-31-2011
"L"-United Pilots of Los Angeles: The simple fact of the matter regarding profit sharing is that the CAL pilots did not have it because they had earlier given it away as a concession. Conversely, the United pilots had it because we received it in exchange for concessions given. In other words, our profit sharing has been bought and paid for with concessions that we continue to suffer under, month by month, year by year. The CAL pilot profit sharing was a concession that was meant for them to continue to go without, month by month, year by year, until they got a new contract and rectified that situation.
01-02-2012, 01:33 PM
#99
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2008
Position: B-777 left
Posts: 1,415
So its completely wrong and you should have it all along with no back room dealing?
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