US Pilots Labor Discussion

[Black Swan]

US pilots cross IAM picket line in 92, cleaned planes during the 30 day cooling off period and strike and made a sweetheart deal with the company if they crossed the picket line all would be paid, regardless if the trip was flown or not, the company grounded all f28s, f100s, dc-9s, md-80s and 737-200s.

There is no solidarity and honor amongst the East Pilots. Jack London was correct.

Show us the list of pilots that cleaned. Which labor group put you in their representative area and spun you off to contract cleaners? That is your beef. If you could be replaced by F/A 's in a fast sweep through the aircraft, you should have taken on the pushbacks or some other job description in conjunction. It was too easy to pick you off and you set yourselves up.

 

[nycbusdriver]

So you are trying to tell us that us airways has only become a crappy company in the last 5 years but was not a crappy company for the last 20.

It has been mostly crappy for the last 20 years or so. The Crystal City good ol' boy network placed an incompetent at the helm in the wake of the two mergers of the late 1980s (in the process showing Gordon Bethune the door!) After nearly a decade of non-management, the board finally got a team in who actually had the expertise to run an airline. They changed the name slightly, painted the airplanes and, for a short time, actually had the employees pulling WITH them in the same direction.

Incredulously, when the airline was running like a Swiss watch for a year or two, management decided to take a different tack and declared war on the employees. Morale went into the dump, and the airline service went with it. (This was ALL pre 9-11.) We have yet to recover. The Wolf era was followed by someone whose forte was greed, but dressed up in the clothes of an airline manager. Siegel was a total incompetent.

When it was announced that Parker would take the helm, I was hopeful. That didn't last long. Marginally better than Siegel, he's really just more of the same.

So, yes. It has been a crappy company for the last 20 years, with a very short interlude of greatness.

 

[Black Swan]

US pilots cross IAM picket line in 92, cleaned planes during the 30 day cooling off period and strike and made a sweetheart deal with the company if they crossed the picket line all would be paid, regardless if the trip was flown or not, the company grounded all f28s, f100s, dc-9s, md-80s and 737-200s.

There is no solidarity and honor amongst the East Pilots. Jack London was correct.

OK, if they grounded all those jets, maybe it was because nobody would fly them. Get it?

 

[700UW]

You dont get it, they grounded them due to no mechanics to maintain them. Get it?

 

[luvthe9]

US pilots cross IAM picket line in 92, cleaned planes during the 30 day cooling off period and strike and made a sweetheart deal with the company if they crossed the picket line all would be paid, regardless if the trip was flown or not, the company grounded all f28s, f100s, dc-9s, md-80s and 737-200s.

There is no solidarity and honor amongst the East Pilots. Jack London was correct.

All this cleaning in house started because Colodny wanted to have labor peace. Piedmont had rampers do pushes and contract cleaning. Now 700UW wants the entire airline to subsidize a bunch of guys who were hired, did a crap job, and then complained when it took the airline down paying them top wages and benefits when they could get contract cleaners cheap, or F/A's like the competition at SWA. It isn't rocket science. The airline just got sensible and went back to the way Piedmont did it all along, which was damn smart.

 

[700UW]

Gee guess you dont know everything do you?

Piedmont had Utility at GSO, LGA, INT, DCA and a few other stations.

And at US in the CBA it was IAM protected work.

 

[luvthe9]

You dont get it, they grounded them due to no mechanics to maintain them. Get it?

Yes, he gets it, we all get it. Now a lot of those mechanics are citizens of El Salvador or residents of Alabama where they took their jobs that they signed away for their members themselves. Is this the pilots fault too? These things go to Central America all the time for heavy checks. Who let that happen? Did you vote your own job away, or was it the guy next to you doing the same job?

 

[luvthe9]

Gee guess you dont know everything do you?

Piedmont had Utility at GSO, LGA, INT, DCA and a few other stations.

And at US in the CBA it was IAM protected work.

And mechanics at those same, and a lot more. Where did they go 700? Their own members voted them off the island, not the pilots. Show me where a pilot voted for your cleaners and mechanics to go away? By the way, it was a stupid move to take all those mechanics away.

 

[700UW]

Only west planes go to El Salvador, and US maintains the the 737s, 757s, A320 family in-house and the west planes will cease going to El Salvador soon. And it took an abrogation in bankruptcy court to allow outsourcing on the East, only thing outsourced is 767 and A330 on the east.

Dont let the facts get in your way.

And come January, the M&R will be going into section 6 negotiations for the SECOND post merger contract, getting more improvements, something you dont know anything about, now do you?

 

[luvthe9]

US pilots cross IAM picket line in 92, cleaned planes during the 30 day cooling off period and strike and made a sweetheart deal with the company if they crossed the picket line all would be paid, regardless if the trip was flown or not, the company grounded all f28s, f100s, dc-9s, md-80s and 737-200s.

There is no solidarity and honor amongst the East Pilots. Jack London was correct.

Here we go about a handful of pilots that picked up a newspaper probably to read. The fact of the matter is the IAM and cleaners voted their own jobs away. Look in the mirror. Tell us how those jobs moved to central america and bama when it was never on a contract a pilot voted on. At least we don't have central americans flying the jets in our fleet. You sent your own good jobs offshore for some unknown reason.

 

[luvthe9]

Only west planes go to El Salvador, and US maintains the the 737s, 757s, A320 family in-house and the west planes will cease going to El Salvador soon. And it took an abrogation in bankruptcy court to allow outsourcing on the East, only thing outsourced is 767 and A330 on the east.

Dont let the facts get in your way.

And come January, the M&R will be going into section 6 negotiations for the SECOND post merger contract, getting more improvements, something you dont know anything about, now do you?

This is total BS. Maybe it is changing now, but East planes were going out of country, and to Alabama all the time. The other stuff, M&R, I am glad it is coming back. I never had any issues with our mechanics. They are a great group of guys and do great work. Tell us if the cleaning is coming back?

 

[700UW]

Go look in the hangar in PIT they overhaul the A320 family in-house, once in a while a drop in 757, CLT does the 737s and 757s.

Dont let the facts get in your way.

And it took a contract abrogation to permit outsourcing.

So I guess the Mechanics in Base MTC in CLT and PIT are overhauling imaginary planes?

East airbus did go to ST MAE during BK II and shortly after. Then it was brought in-house.

 

[Bear96]

ALPA being replaced by USAPA. Kind of like firing a contractor you had hired because in the middle of the job, you found out he was stealing and falsifying bills. You then hire a new one. Is the new contractor beholden to the earlier agreement? No. Not unless he signs the same contract.

:blink:

Oh dear. It's even worse than I thought.

If you think that analogy is at all apt, you are hopelessly lost in the weeds.

 

[Reed Richards]

I realize nothing is concrete yet, but the general consensus seems to be a Payroll tax holiday of 2% (about a 30% reduction for each payer) will be in effect for the next year.

Will this also cut the matching contribution the Company has to make? If it does, multiplied by a reduced contribution for every employee on the property, it would be a pretty good chunk of change staying in the Company's pocket. Even just figuring 30K employees at a 1K savings each is 30M.

RR

 

[MUTATIS MUTANDIS]

:blink:

Oh dear. It's even worse than I thought.

If you think that analogy is at all apt, you are hopelessly lost in the weeds.

We all know what happened: from August 15, 2007, until the decertification of ALPA on April 18, 2008, there were no further negotiations toward a single CBA. Even US Airways President Scott Kirby recognized that ALPA's Nicolau-generated impasse had stalled bargaining since "May of 2007," and he specifically commented to investors in April 2008 that the change from ALPA to USAPA was "a good thing" because it meant the Company was finally "able to get back to talking to [its] pilots and having formal negotiations with them." The fact is that contract negotiations only resumed with USAPA. It is only with USAPA that the 8-month negotiating freeze was finally overcome. It was only with USAPA that a federally-appointed mediator now supervises negotiations. It is only with USAPA that a single ratification pool now prevents the eternal gridlock that was experienced under ALPA