I voted no on the last contract purely based upon my throwing up over the mec's handling of the Retro pay turned "signing bonus"
Remember the bumpers stickers that said Retro pay to the last day?
That did NOT turn out so well for the junior guys & gals.
If you were a new hire over the five year negotiations, retro pay owed you $3500 for your first year alone (19 to 24 / hr.), let alone ~$4/hr for the years after your first.
If you were a senior 70 seat captain, retro pay yielded you NOTHING. This was because the senior 70 seat rates were already industry leading and did not go up with the new contract. I.E. The senior 70 seat guys were already earning their new contract pay for the 5 year period of negotiation.
The 1-3 year guys got what, $300 - $1k?
The Senior 70 seat guys got $20-23K.
Oh, and you can't forget the guys from the same class who happened to upgrade 1 month earlier than their buddies. The newly minted captain got $9k while their FO who was owed the exact same amount got $4k.
Your MEC at work. Argue you need retro pay... Get a high percentage of said retro pay. Realize that you don't want to give the money to the people who were actually hurt by the contract negotiations' duration. Write a formula based upon seniority and seat (neither of which have ANYTHING to do with retro pay) and then scam all the junior guys out of their money.
MEC=Sucks for the junior guy.