Seriously sgmick? I would like to just say f'off, but here's some reasonable words....
I think this whole thing boils down to a couple key issues.
1) The East pilots have endured significant career stagnation and hardship and they want their paybacks no matter what.
2) The East group feels falsly superior to the West, which makes it that much harder to stomach the fact that a 3 yr guy and an 18 yr guy being next to eachother is what a neutral party considered "fair".
Here's an average West guy's take...
RE 1) It is understandable how an 18 yr pilot feels "senior" even though their relative position doesn't back that up. We get that. BUT, that isn't a trump card to punish the West. That's the basic attitude we've seen from you guys and it makes it almost impossible to empathize with that situation after how we've been treated in this mess.
RE 2) The false superiority is a real deal...kind of like racial tension where there are hidden feelings and agendas below the surface. It's almost like we sat in the front of the bus if you know what I mean....everyone knows deep down it's fair to integrate based on relative seniority positions, but a $hitstorm ensues when all that hidden stuff is forced to the surface....that's exactly what happened with the Nicolau ruling.
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Here are a couple more observations, which are root causes of current problems.
The West see ourselves as having been reasonable throughout the process. Never demanding or overreaching for anything beyond a fair shake. We feel we have abided by the rules, crossed the T's, dotted the I's....yet, being the little ol' AWA group, it seems that doesn't matter because the process has been politicized and apparently our lobby isn't as strong as the larger East group regardless of how well we adhere to a clearly defined process.
The reality for a junior AWA pilot hired in '04 is that we are going on 3 yrs now of reserve with no end in sight. We are now far behind our reasonable pre-merger career expectations.
The reality for the senior furloughee before the merger is he has been recalled and enjoys a quality of life (line holder, CA upgrade soon, etc) that's arguably better than his counterpart out West. They are now far ahead of their reasonable pre-merger expectations.
So you have two groups who feel rightous. One who has played by the rules and expects fair results. The other feigns to be rightous and cry's foul while touting the great victory the West was dealt. Behind the scenes, though, they work dilligently to corral everything "good" from this merger for themselves and have been the true beneficiaries of the merger to date.
It's really quite disgusting because the West has gone out of our way to be reasonable and do the right thing only to have $hit smeared in our face.
We would have been advocates for you and were fighting alongside you for better contract right up until Nicolau ruled. We would have pushed for higher payscales for FO's with unusually long longevities and would have fought for better workrules, pay, etc for everyone accross the board. Together we could have accomplished something.
Now we're destined for more of the same as the road forward has been effectively destroyed by the East.
SO - higher E190 rates...I doubt it. Could have been, but not now. It's a low priority as we now have to deal with priorities that never should have become reality.
It's gotten to the point where the East has lobbied successfully to keep our callsigns temporarily separate after the certificates are merged claiming it's a "safety" issue. These are their priorities now....not a better contract.
