AWA MEC Chairman Roadtrip report
DAY 3 - CLT CREW ROOM
March 5, 2008
810 am - Arrival
Day started slowly - probably spoke with 60-70 pilots during the day.
A couple were hostile, most were respectful and very courteous to me. As in PHX, pilots had a lot of questions - albeit from a different point of view. A number of issues came up.
Questions About Parity - Why was the west not supporting parity? Or why cannot we not get parity or something to that effect.
My answer –
1. We should have done parity in the TA. 20/20 hindsight is great but like DAL/NWA we are learning now that we probably had more leverage than we thought, but could not exercise it to get parity in Sept 2005.
2. West position and company position is that we will discuss parity as the very first issue in joint contract negotiations
3. East position is that they want seniority solutions prior to engaging in any JNC talks.
That is it in a nutshell.
Many other questions like - “Why are all these committees not working? What does the west not understand about our seniority not being for sale?†This is a very sensitive issue of course, as again the East wants seniority solutions and the West wants economic solutions. I was talking about some of the issues we had spoken of between the two MECs and the large gap that existed right now between the two pilot groups and MECs. Ideas like a 20 year F/O pay scale that perhaps pays 90% of Captain pay at 20 yrs for instance helps compensate all F/Os on the East and West who have not been able to upgrade due to stagnation more from age 65 than anything else.
I also spoke frankly that our MEC felt strongly that any movement that the West MEC could make on Nicolau would not go far enough for the east and neither side would ratify any deal. The two sides were fundamentally far apart on seniority issues and maybe we needed to start talking about grabbing things we had in common, like pay rates or other items. Much discussion centered around the economic window closing.
Some questions about PBS…. discussed the line build range of 77 to 92 hours and line averages and how PBS works in general and what our experiences had been with it. My comments were as follows –
- huge teething pains for a while
- only works as good as the pairings are built
- pilots like the control they get over their schedule by bidding for pairings
- company saves a lot of money with PBS but likes to pretend they don’t
- generally our pilots like it now except problems happen over the holidays
Reserve issues also came up. Mainly the differences between our contract and LOA 93. I explained our reserve bucket system to a few pilots and also discussed the general setup - 77 hour reserve, 12 or 13 days off, reserve shifts and long call vs short call. All in all it was a good day - I was very careful to tell pilots I was not there campaigning or to convince them in any way of their vote either way (nor could I likely do that anyways frankly).
***ALERT*** at approx 4 PM, the CLT Chief Pilot took me aside and showed me an email from our new labor corporate attorney (formerly fedex) banning me from ALL crew rooms because of complaints from USAPA to management.
WOW.
I guess USAPA (who also already wants full time flight pay loss - btw why did Lee Seham not think of that for us AWAPA “VOLUNTEERS†when were running our independent drive) has some REAL pull with management!
It’s too bad management blinked at USAPA’s shrill and chicken-#### complaints. I told management that USAPA’s complaints were BS and the litmus test was that I would be out there even if no election was going on.
I guess USAPA is afraid I might actually answer some questions. I can’t believe that they would try and ban someone like me who has dedicated almost every year of his career as a union advocate for line pilots (most of it NOT on FPL by the way) from talking with pilots.
Oh well - the lawyers are raising cain, but mgmt is holding their ground. I guess that means USAPA and Management are in cahoots? Hmmm.
The sad part is that I think all the union reps should be out there talking with and answering questions from their pilots. They have a lot of questions and concerns right now, 99% of which has nothing to do with this election, but it looks like this management is determined to keep them in the dark because they are afraid of appeals after the election.
And that is a real shame.
I’ll be heading home to PHX tomorrow.
http://jmcilvenna.wordpress.com/
for getting rid of them. If you really feel that way, I guess you will cast the first USAPA ballot then?
