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Mesa Mgt pulls out of PBS

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Your mec can't point at management, they endorsed this horrible new contract of yours. IF anything they should point the finger at the pilot group and say "you guys are that stupid, did you even read the TA". When a contract says if something doesn't work in this new TA will get rid of all the stuff you gained in this new contract, and revert back to the old one. You probably should vote no. But no one expected anything less from the MAG pilot group
 
pdub20s said:
Just to play devils advocate here.. Less than 10 days ago the Mesa pilot group was screaming bloody murder at ALPA for not holding a PBS Vote. The pilot group needs to be real with itself and undestand the anger is coming from being kicked in the balls and not being allowed to kick back. This anger has nothing to do with Block or better and etc etc. When this pilot group was screaming to get rid of PBS, they were fully aware of the ramifications it came with. Its about PRIDE, and our MEC made us look like fools.
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Would that be "Messah PRIDE!!"
 
samballs said:
Your mec can't point at management, they endorsed this horrible new contract of yours. IF anything they should point the finger at the pilot group and say "you guys are that stupid, did you even read the TA". When a contract says if something doesn't work in this new TA will get rid of all the stuff you gained in this new contract, and revert back to the old one. You probably should vote no. But no one expected anything less from the MAG pilot group
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I feel like doing that. I would get called by pro standards and have to write an apology though.

I also felt like saying that before the contract was voted on because of that reason. I was called stupid just yesterday for voting no. What do we have to show now? 11 days off for reserves and the same contract we had post Freedom A.

 
Wind_Danzer said:
I don't believe I have ever posted until now and it's sad an excuse like the above would bring me out of the woodwork.

I was that one person for quite a while at Mesa, so much so that pilots were coming to me and I was the FA President in PHX. Some of you here may know me.

I turned PHX around for the FA's so much that when the rest of my counterparts were trying to shove a POS FA LOA down my throat I took it (and them) by the balls and forced a membership ratification.

PHX itself was a resounding no but because the other self serving leadership didn't tell the whole story, us no's also lost in the largest voter turn out for FA's EVER at Mesa. Now the FA's are going to be in a very similar position, pretty much a concessionary contract when the company isn't even in BK (yet...).

If one person has the balls to stand up for what is right, take those balls and implant them into the group, you will see people follow. You do it by being visible, by being a tenacious fighter for their rights and never backing down until the company can prove to you you are wrong (which 95% of the time they cannot).

A-V-8 I too was on every one of those calls to listen in and I was disgusted at the attitude I heard from some of your leadership. Blowing off questions and saying stuff like "that won't happen". It's very similar to what most of the FA leadership is like there.

I am tired of seeing a majority of both pilot and FA leadership with their heads in the sand or thinking only about themselves. Fortunately my replacement is holding his own quite well but the rest are still touch and go.

The only way to fix it is for both groups to have decent people willing to step into the leadership roles. Until that happens, you will have people leading you instead of you leading the leadership.
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Your post is a bunch of crap..Sounds like you are drinking too much kool-aid from JOs watercooler.Mesa has always treated the FAs worse than the pilot group.Your contract has always sucked as well.WOW... you "turned around PHX for the FAs" ..One base out of how many???..One base doesn't cover all the FAs at Mesa.:puke:
 
No, one base doesn't cover all of Mesa, but it is a start. Please tell me how I was drinking JO's kool-aide? If you knew me, you know that was the farthest from the truth. I actually was the only one that has ever gotten so deep into his head the mention of my name set him off.

Proof is in the pudding. Ask the PHX FA's about the last union president there and see what kind of responses you get from the majority of those you talk to. Don't hate because I am the one that knew what they were doing and had the BALLS to step up unlike you.
 
Wind_Danzer said:
No, one base doesn't cover all of Mesa, but it is a start. Please tell me how I was drinking JO's kool-aide? If you knew me, you know that was the farthest from the truth. I actually was the only one that has ever gotten so deep into his head the mention of my name set him off.

Proof is in the pudding. Ask the PHX FA's about the last union president there and see what kind of responses you get from the majority of those you talk to. Don't hate because I am the one that knew what they were doing and had the BALLS to step up unlike you.
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Once again, one person did not change your contract did they?..I am not hating , I am just trying to make you understand one person that is not in a leadership role in the union can't fking change things..get it!!..BTW there are a lot of things that set JO off besides the mention of one persons name and that is not an advantage either.
 
I posted this on the now shut down Mesahub.

The date of the last modification is 11/23/2008. This was my take on the contract. Let me say again I wrote this before voting ended. I am not a visionary I just have thoughts.

I was wrong about at least one thing. The reserves keep 11 days off. Also the holdback grievance has been settled. I received just over $1,000. Thanks ALPA.

Ok folks here we are again. The freedom of speech via the internet and I am going to exercise my right to ramble on and on about nothing other than the contract. I thought about not posting this because the consensus here is to Vote no. I probably won’t convince anyone here to vote no because almost everyone here is already voting no. But I decided to finish this up in the jump seat ride home today. First of all let me thank all of the Union reps and negotiators for their efforts. At times being a rep is a thankless job. Like over the last eight years or so. It has been less time than that since I made the decision to become a pilot in the first place. I think this contract represents a valid effort by our negotiators to make our working conditions more favorable and fair for us here at Mesa Airlines. Kudos to all of you and I can’t thank you all enough from the bottom of my heart. I really don’t understand why you guys do it sometimes but I for one appreciate that you do. I know that there are a lot of others that are often too silent in our appreciation for all of you and the countless hours that you spend working for all of us for free on your days off. Crap wages from the company on your days on and no wages on your days off working for us.

Moving on to this contract. The membership told the MEC loud and clear that the number one priority for the new contract was improving our schedules and the efficiency that we are used. Given that as the number one priority I personally think that this Tentative agreement is a disaster. There is nothing in this contract that will force that objective onto the company. Of course this is my opinion so let me explain it. PBS is not a way to write more efficient schedules. It is a more efficient way to award schedules. If you don’t improve the amount of flying in the pairings then PBS will just be awarding crappy schedules. I for one made a call to listen to the negotiating committee and the Contract Administrator discusses the contract. I don’t know if the call is online or even if it will ever be online but I asked a very important question. It was related to PBS and exactly what “With significant ALPA input” meant. The answer: ALPA input means nothing. You can line the bird cage because ALPA will not get to input any of the parameters that will govern how our schedules and pairings will be built. The company will input all of them with suggestions from ALPA. We can suggest that the company do certain things right now. Hold your breath. So the union never really answered my question about rules, input, and long term (after February 2010) rules. We can only make suggestions for PBS and not demands. So we can pull out of PBS right? Well let’s take a look. You give a reserve pilot 11 days off. You give out block or better. You give a line guarantee. Now how are you going to tell the pilot group that we have to give up that stuff because the company won’t play fair with the parameters in the PBS? Gonna be a tough sell. Especially in January 2010. If we turn on PBS and like it and the company puts very favorable language into PBS initially and everyone likes it consider this. We try to get a LOA governing PBS parameters and ALPA input but the company won’t budge. You try to pull out of PBS but the membership says we like PBS. You say but it will suck in February without this LOA just trust us we need to pull out. Good luck with that. You will never get out. Furthermore this until February will simply become permanent leverage for the company. J.O. pulls the plug on PBS and line guarantee goes away along with block or better and reserves will lose 28 days off per year. The company doesn’t have to pull out of PBS for a reason related to PBS. They can pull out for other reasons like saving money. Take this as an example. An arbitrator awards us a huge settlement for the Harris award. The company says the only way that we can pay this is to pull out of PBS. OR we could just settle it for half. O.K. buddy its show time. What are you going to do? Settle? J.O. can do that over and over again until January of 2010. The union also said that in the conference call that we have more oversight than Southwest and Delta. Oversight is completely different from control. Also Delta and Southwest have trip rigs and duty rigs. Additionally when Herb Keller left Southwest the pilots paid $100,000 to take out a full page ad in USA Today thanking him for his service to the company. Does anyone here want to make a motion for that treatment for J.O. when he leaves Mesa? Use our union dollars to thank him for what he has done for us and the stock holders. If you do intend to do that with my 2% please let me know now so I can start the recall. My point is that those companies are run by people who want to treat their employees well. They regard their people as assets and not expenses. J.O. sat next to me in the new hire luncheon and said “My responsibility is to the stock holders not the employees. If I were the CEO of US Airways I would go the pilots and say here it is guys. Take it or leave it. If you leave it I will liquidate the company.” That is the way he thinks. He is threatening and not shy about it. It would be different for him to say that in privacy to the board members and be cordial in a new hire luncheon to the new employees but not J.O. He is cold and callus to our faces from the start. Please stop saying anything about Southwest and Delta unless it is in enforceable writing in the TA.
 
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I have only just begun on PBS though. As a separate paragraph completely. If you think that Line Guarantee and Block or better will DIFINATELY result in a raise for YOU think again. If you are not the most senior in your domicile PBS may result in a PAY CUT for you. Now that I have your attention or more likely have lost it completely due to the length of this post here is why. They took a line that was worth a given amount of pay and days off and flying. They crunched the numbers for that line and presented that as an example for everyone to see that PBS will result in a raise for everyone. But not so fast. If you just scratch the surface it is a very flawed argument. Let’s make an easy example here. If that line holder had 80 hours of credit in that line and 85 hours of flying that could easily translate into 85 hours of credit and 90 hours of flying in a month because of the 3 extra days. Let’s use a month because that is what PBS is based on. That pilot could hold 15 days off and receive 4 commutable trips that have a credit of 20, 20, 27, 23 hours of flying. For a total block of 90 and a total credit of 85. Now introduce block or better. The most senior people in the domicile are going to get the trips like the 3rd one that I mentioned. If you are not senior you don’t stand a chance of getting a trip like that one. So now the pilot gets 4 four day trips of 20, 22, 17, and 17 for a total block of 76. If he earns another 2 hours of pay due to block or better he is only at 78 hours for the same amount of work. Additionally commutability odds of these trips are reduced because the senior pilots are going to get awarded all of this as well. So are your days off worth anything to you? In the union argument they assume that a pilot with that seniority will still be able to hold a comparable line under the PBS. I say that the Block or Better and line guarantee argument is only valid for the most senor handful of pilots in the domicile and the rest is a big fat “We don’t know yet.” The union argument is less and less valid the more junior you are in domicile. Anyone who is expecting a definite raise on these two parameters is very short sited if they are not among the most senior pilots in their respective domicile. Any union rep who argues the same is also short sited. We don’t know that for everyone yet. Just for a handful of very senior pilots but not all of us.

We have been negotiating for about a year. Add that to 24 months and we have about 3 years. How does J.O. get his wet dream? He gets an extension of this contract for 3 years with concessions with nothing in return such as a settlement for the Harris Award or holdback situation. With this contract if he pulls out of PBS the day after it gets voted in isn’t that what he has achieved. The cheapest contract in the in the industry extended and we have to check in now. All for free! We have pilots who know what they want negotiating with successful business men who know how to get what they want. Two swings of the bat. Well swing it buddy! J.O. and the gang just whizzed a fast ball by you and if this thing passes we will be arguing with the ump over the call. We haven’t swung at a pitch yet!

Some have mentioned the finical situation for this company as a good reason to vote yes. While you can have any reason to vote yes on this contract you want I would beg you not to vote out of fear. You should never negotiate out of fear and you should never fear to negotiate. If you are voting out of fear this contract is more expensive than the one that we have right now. Vote to keep the companies cost down right now by voting no! All in all you have to admit that at the beginning of a Democratic Administration with Bill Richardson the Sectary of Commerce that the financial situation is very convenient for the company and the folks that run it. If we vote this thing in we will start to negotiate 2 years into the Obama administration. Can we really finish during his first term? If we don’t and he doesn’t get reelected then we will have the same contract that we have right now for a very long time. Does anyone here really want to risk not finishing up this thing while we have a Democrat in office? I say lets finish this thing this time around. We caught scope last time and prepared to fix this contract this time around. How many times are we going to put a Band-Aid on this contract and wait for next time? If the financial situation improves during mediation we will have more leverage than now. I say fight it out till the end. Don’t settle for crap. SkyWest has trip rigs and duty rigs and they are in the same code shares that we are in. If they can afford it then we can to. If we can’t then its managements fault.

Black Helicopters: 1 of eight reps voted not to release this contract to the membership for a vote. One of eight reps was not released to go around and talk about the contract. If he can’t show up to say why he thinks that this thing is a bad idea then are we really getting neutral information from the Union? What about these conference calls. Why can’t all of them be placed online for anyone to listen anytime they want to? Wouldn’t that make a fair and balanced source of information for those who were not able to listen to the calls live? Some people have had it out with the reps in those calls. They just got cut off. Doesn’t the rest of the membership deserve to hear their opinions or just opinions from the people from our MEC who want this contract to pass?

If any contract contains language that doesn’t increase the pay annually for the life of the contract then I will vote no. Same pay but the cost of living going up won’t fly with me ever at all. 3% annually or bust.
Language is the same language as the current contract because it is the same contract. Enough said!

In a letter from the union they stated that they learned from the polling of the membership that we wanted 1. Better schedules. 2. Clarity of language as the top priorities for the new contract. This contract does absolutely nothing to improve the schedules it simply changes the way that the company awards us crappy ones. Other companies fix this problem with trip rigs and duty rigs. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel we need to get trip rigs and duty rigs. If J.O. won’t give them up then let’s quit negotiating and request mediation. The language in this contract is vaguer than the last one. Union: The line guarantee is not tied to PBS. Us: That is not in the language. Union: We will amend the final version to correct that. Us: Can we see that before voting closes? Union: No. In the top two priorities given by the membership to the MEC the union struck out on both. They have negotiated something completely different than what we told them to. Whose agenda are they processing because it isn’t the memberships agenda as admitted in the facts stated above.

I am voting NO for a full basket of reasons. This contract is a complete disaster. If you vote yes don’t plan on bitching about this crap at all in the crew room. It will be your fault!

Hey if you disagree with me don’t just Smite me and run. Say why! If my opinions are not valid then shut me up! I am not looking for catchy one liners like “You are wrong.” Or “Call your rep.” I am looking for well written responses. If you don’t post and just smite me and run then fine. The only opinion in this thread will be mine.

Thank you for your time!


Now that you have read this far congrats. The Knight count went off like a Geiger counter.
 
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If ALPA would set pay and QOL minimums for every ALPA carrier and set an amendable date to a date the last ALPA carriers contact is due, it would be an even playing field and pay would not be a variable untouchable by any carrier. In the provision it would state "....non compliance by said regional would result in all ALPA pilots to stike who fly as mainline or feeders for that carrier." In essence shutting down the carrier. End result is that pilot pay and QOL would not be used as a tool to cut costs.

Just an idea, but I think that ALPA national is not for such solidarity. They just fight battles that are self serving for their major carriers
 
Wind_Danzer said:
PBS, Block or Better and Line Guarantee is back.

Wonder who's first born they sold to get it back.
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A good bet would be the union backed off on the grievance for block or better above the monthly guarantee for the reserve pilots. From what I understand that was one of the main sticking points.

That's just a guess.
 

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