This board has officially gone Full Retard. The only thing I see is one guy making an outrageous statement and a handful of others falling for it.....really guys.....you don't have anything better to do. I visit this board because, on occasion (10 percent of the time) I might find something useful or amusing. Now 99.9 percent it's guys like orange belly. Of course I know that by typing this I have wasted 2 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Now I have to go, my kids are waking up.
+1
Now, a few fun FACTS, which I know are never popular on FlightInfo, but here they are:
1. We can't go on strike unless released by the NMB or a Federal Judge. We have no plans to ask for such a thing. We're not preparing for a strike. Or any OTHER illegal job action. Those of you who have never lived under a management group whose actions NECESSITATED a SPSC probably don't understand its full role. It's a committee, just like any other committee. ONE of its functions is preparing for a LEGAL strike. Many of the OTHER functions including organizing picketing, launching public awareness campaigns such as news releases, interviews, billboards, and other items which may impact stock price and/or ticket sales.
2. This kind of contract reinterpretation and outright violation won't go on for a year. On Date of Corporate Closing, Gary Kelly has been quoted publicly as saying "All decisions from Orlando STOP. Everything will go through Dallas. Period." I tend to believe that once GK and his management team have operational control, that the violations will stop and we can actually ENJOY the few real Quality of Life items that we obtained in the Scheduling Section until we are no longer under AirTran's CBA (guaranteed 125-150% premium pay for ALL trip pick ups inside 48 hours, actual USE of Call-First/Call-Last, actual implementation of the bucket systems, etc).
After talking with some union officials, it appears that the intent of activating the SPSC this time around is to put pressure on the company by threatening a negative publicity campaign, maybe starting off with a nice big article in the Dallas Morning News and going from there if things don't get back on track.
The other things the Association is doing to try to force compliance includes withdrawing the relief from building lines with 20 hours of rest minimum on West Coast trips that arrive after 2200 LOCAL time for February (we had given them TEMPORARY relief from this in January). Because of the way the flights are built to the West Coast, we basically just forced the company to build 30-35 hour layovers in all the West Coast pairings out of MCO and ATL for the entire month since the marketing schedule can't be changed. That's going to cost the company over $1 Million dollars. Just for February. For something that costs them about $50,000 that they are denying us.
There is no intent of a strike. Simply using the tools we have to legally attempt to bring management into compliance with our CBA since all attempts at settling this peacefully through discussions have failed. In other words, union officials tried to work peacefully with management for something that was VERY clear in its intent and, in the end, they simply said "No, grieve it."
We now return you to rumor and innuendo...
