Sunvox

It's not about line pilots; it's about the MECs. CAL's MEC resisted the call for release, leaked information to management during the negotiations, threatened to delay negotiations indefinitely unless their internal union demands were met, and generally focused on fighting over SLI issues which ultimately will be decided by a third party. Getting the TA passed will neuter the deleterious effects of having to fight internally as well as externally and will allow the union to present one voice to the company not two.

Sunvox

Actually already voted "No", but I can't stand it when people argue facts that simply aren't true. Nearly every comment I read from "No" votes are short, uninformed and slanderous with no real thought. Call me an "idealist", but I just want to hear some educated, level headed, and patient discussion. Back when you were in school you would never have raised your hand and said "Teacher geometry is stupid 'cuz I ain't never gonna use it" but somehow the internet makes everyone a genius willing to put everyone else down even if they haven't actually read the TA or even if they don't really understand the legal language, or even if they have no idea what the current contracts are. I went to a Road Show and when the ALPA rep started talking about Scope, he asked "who knows what our current Scope says" virtually no one raised their hand, but that was the issue nearly everyone raised their hand to say it was the most important one to the group.

uaav8r

It's not too late Joe..........to come back from the dark side

Night Hawk 6

Just like "shrinking to profitability" is not a good business plan for the company, "surrendering to fight another day" has not worked well for the profession. Led by ALPA, pilots have been fed the line that "we will get them the next time" or "this is all we can get now" implying that somewhere down the road pilots will be able to regain what they give up today to have some peace. Well how well has this philosophy served the professional pilot since deregulation in 1978? If you take the salary of a Delta 727 captain in 1978 and adjust it to provide that same purchasing power today it will make you cry. The highest paid pilots today, wide body pilots, are at least 20 percent behind this narrow body Delta captain working 75 hours per month and the gap between those flying comparable aircraft today exceeds 50 percent, and that does not take into account the increased number of hours flown by pilots today. What is the justification for taking anything that is in any way concessionary? It is insanity to continue doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different results. Sad.

uaav8r

Great history lesson and actually a lot of truth in it. But....Seeing as you don't have any skin in this game (are you CAL/UAL?) and all of the potential career decimating outcomes don't affect you one bit it would seem to me that your just pontificating here.

EWR73FO

Isn't that cutting off your nose to spite your face?

gettinbumped

I agree with your assessment of "living to fight another day", and have at times gone back and shaken my head over the 1978 pay scales. What I strongly disagree with is your assessment that this deal is "concessionary". I'm assuming you don't believe what ALPA is telling you, because if you did, you would agree that it's richer than DAL starting in 2014, which coincides with the Scope changes allowing 76 seats (which I understand was a decision by the NMB when they bought the company's argument that they needed two years to "catch up" to DAL's costs because they were 2 years behind in the merger process. The NMB gave them 1). You don't need to believe ALPA... JP Morgan did an analysis stating that the contract was worth $400 million more than the present costs for next year... the year BEFORE we pass DAL. And that doesn't include $400 million in retro. I'm sorry, but that is not a concessionary deal. It's simple math. There may be some concessions contained in it for both pilot groups, but that is simple negotiations, ESPECIALLY when you are dealing with 4 party negotiations. Show me any contract in HISTORY that hasn't had some "gives" in it. That's just the reality of business. If you are holding out for a TA that has NO gives on EITHER side, well.... good luck with that.

EWRflyr

My point exactly! We've been hearing forever how "next time" we will stand up to management. L-CAL pilots have a history of voting in terrible contracts. From all I hear now, I haven't met one L-CAL pilot voting "YES" on this thing. Now it will most likely be the L-UAL pilots pulling a "CAL" and voting this thing in. Things will never change.

LAX Pilot

The problem is that no one has provided a solution. Just complaining. Voting NO isn't a solution.

gettinbumped

There are some of us that think this is a good TA considering there were 4 parties with wildly differing goals at the table.

This post should be a message to the L-UAL guys. Sounds like almost ALL the L-CAL guys/gals are voting "No". The longer this thing goes on, the more L-CAL pilots there will be, and the less L-UAL pilots there will be. There is a very narrow window of controlling our own destiny here. I've seen enough of how Jay Pierce handles the L-UAL pilot's concerns to know whats in our own best interest.