AirTran MEC Chair message.

[Lear70]

I wouldn't say they didn't "want" to get it in writing, they didn't think they'd be able to (they might even have asked, I didn't ask them if they had already asked or not), and didn't want to focus on something they didn't think was likely.

Like a lot of us, they believed what we were told. Problem is, plans change, especially in business, and if you didn't get it in writing, you're left holding the bag.

 

[EngineThunder]

Thanks Lear.

 

[redflyer65]

The Merger Committee didn't want to get it in writing about the 717s. Wow. Isn't it always advised to get it in writing? The Airtran folks should be livid about the money/seniority their inept MEC cost them during this acquisition. It wasn't even a fair fight with SWA mgt.

The first deal was going to be the best. It was said on here many, many times. The AAI MEC thought they knew better. It's tough when your on the wrong side of the table when it comes to SW management. They always play hardball for the best deal for them.

More than a few times I said that the AAI NC/MEC wasn't just negotiating with SWAPA, they were negotiating with SW itself as well as the thousands of shareholders. Many of which are SW employees.

 

[redflyer65]

I agree with the last statement. I get the royal stink eye on the ATL parking bus almost every time I am on it. However, there is usually someone on there who is the complete opposite. They have a great attitude despite the circumstances and they renew my faith that we will be OK.

We need more of that and less stink eye. Is that similiar to swamp ass?

 

[waveflyer]

And see, that's the problem. You were negotiating from a personal perspective of "it won't get any worse for me, and can only get better".

Many of us won't be that lucky. I will go from whatever weekends and holidays I want off, 18 days a month off, to back on reserve at a decent base (unless I choose a 5 hour commute to OAK or LAS which isn't going to happen).
.

One great thing about swa is that it's the first airline I've been a part of where life is pretty good for the junior. The parity between junior to senior schedules is much more equal- most other places it's all about the haves and have nots. Which seems to be the case at AT by the two schedule examples above. Most= awful vs great, swa= good vs better. Of course it is better being senior, but the bottom is good too. If you can't hold a base- well that's just life in the airlines and I won't argue again the merits of the SLI bc I got f^cked by the deal you b^tch about.

 

[waveflyer]

Opinions vary...


You're d*mn right I did. The first deal sucked. The second deal still sucks, it just sucks less for seniority than the first one, but sucks worse for pay. Even the Merger Committee and the rest of the NC during both road shows and voting said the same thing. "The deal sucks".

The problem was, and two members of the MC and I went rounds over this on more than one occasion, was that NO ONE was detailing the "threats" BEFORE the first vote. NO ONE was... at least not to us. .

Wrong. I WAS. And I can name a good half dozen on here more qualified than me who were saying the same thing. You were poking your finger at the 800lb gorilla and expecting no consequences. Playing serious and detrimental games.
Please think about that letter every time you think to play more games- SWA will do what's in the best interests of it people and it's business.

 

[waveflyer]

So, it's like a few good men? Where they tell you one thing in front of all the witnesses, then another behind closed doors??

That must have been a different conversation, possibly with just the Merger Committee present, because I have it in my notes, when it was, where we were, and who was in the room.

It was one of our final conversations just before we signed off on the deal at the end of the week. I pointed out to our group that we were pretty much hanging everything on one airplane... all the seniority, all the protections, everything, and what happened if the airplane went away early, so Jack posed the question to Russ, and that's the answer we got.

I asked if we could get it in writing, and the Merger Committee didn't want to ask, said we had already gotten our answer, said it would cost too much for them to go away, the leases weren't that long, it would be fine, etc, etc. Guess it didn't work out that way.

If that had not been our understanding, we wouldn't have built pretty much THE ENTIRE ROAD SHOW around the 717 protections, which is how we mainly sold the deal to the pilot group.

But if you, SWAPA, had another understanding of the fate of the 717, then you were given information we were not. It's just that simple.

 

[redflyer65]

Who ordered the Code Red?

 

[Lear70]

Wrong. I WAS. And I can name a good half dozen on here more qualified than me who were saying the same thing. You were poking your finger at the 800lb gorilla and expecting no consequences. Playing serious and detrimental games.

Please think about that letter every time you think to play more games- SWA will do what's in the best interests of it people and it's business.

First, it's not a game. It's real people. It's real money. It's real lives. And I have to live with the outcome just like everyone else.

Secondly, I don't think asking a company that signed a Process Agreement in good faith to abide by it as "playing serious and detrimental games". We didn't like SIA 1 and wanted to go to arbitration. Southwest signed an agreement in good faith that said we could if we didn't come to an agreement AND THAT THE LIST PRODUCED BY ARBITRATION WOULD BE IMPLEMENTED AND INTEGRATED (6.A). Then they changed their mind. They now have 1,742 pilots who won't ever forget that some people evidently make deals they have no intention of following through on. I wouldn't say it's US playing the "games".

Lastly, as you can see by other airline pilots' response when we tell them what happened like my narrative earlier, it's simply astonishing to people. To go from the spirit at the roundups we were having, the feel-good letters that were coming from Dallas, and the Process Agreement which laid everything out, to what happened after the MEC vote... Other people can't believe it, and we couldn't, either.

It simply flies in the face of everything people believe Southwest to be, at least from the outside looking in. So what was coming way back then may have been no surprise to Southwest pilots, who have seen behind the looking glass and know what Corporate is capable of, but it shocked the hell out of all of us, just like it shocks other uninvolved 3rd parties when you tell the story.

 

[Quimby]

Col. Nathan R. Jessep ordered it.

 

[Lear70]

So, it's like a few good men? Where they tell you one thing in front of all the witnesses, then another behind closed doors??

I don't know, that's the question.

I know what was told to our entire Merger and Negotiating Committee in Dallas that week regarding the future of the 717, as I've posted here before and Rob is challenging.

I haven't chatted with our Merger Committee members about it since the deal's announcement (one of them won't return my call because he lost a bet about it) but I do know THEY were surprised as well. How do I know?

One of them (MaxBlast727) was on our internal board claiming right up to the week before the deal was announced that they weren't going anywhere and another one of them now across the partition owes me a C note about the 717's going away. (When I started hearing things from contacts I have about them going away a few months ago, I bet him that they were leaving before 1/1/15. He took the bet, saying it wasn't going to happen).

As far as our team goes, what I am saying Southwest management told us is their recollection, too, and if SWAPA knew it was coming, then they were told something we weren't. It's just that simple.

 

[redflyer65]

By detrimential games, do you also mean how your MEC tried hard to 'Run out the Clock'? It took them what, almost a month to vote on the first agreement. That was pretty pathetic as well.

Bottom line, the MEC should have let the members decide. The result is hundreds of thousands in lost wages and a loss of furlough protection. I'm still scratching my head. (not saying anyone gets furloughed, just making a point)

 

[Lear70]

By detrimential games, do you also mean how your MEC tried hard to 'Run out the Clock'? It took them what, almost a month to vote on the first agreement. That was pretty pathetic as well.

I wasn't involved at that point, but the MEC only had 4 days to review the entire agreement and vote on it... it wasn't even back from Dallas with the ink dry on revisions until the Monday before the MEC meeting and the MEC meeting was at the end of the week. The AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE was reached 3 1/2 weeks before the MEC meeting, but it took another 2 1/2 weeks to finish up the specifics, similar to AIP 2 which took a week and a half to work out the specifics after the initial SLI was hammered out, using SIA 1 as a basis, otherwise it probably would have taken almost 3 weeks, too.

Bottom line, the MEC should have let the members decide. The result is hundreds of thousands in lost wages and a loss of furlough protection. I'm still scratching my head. (not saying anyone gets furloughed, just making a point)

In retrospect, you're absolutely right.

If we'd have KNOWN Southwest was going to do an end-run around the Process Agreement and threaten non-integration, I can almost guarantee you it would have gone out for vote. Obviously that letter had its intended effect, so issuing it earlier in the process would have been the best way to ensure SIA 1 went to vote, but GK elected not to do that.

p.s. There's still a no-furlough clause in there but yes, the first furlough protection in SIA 1 was better. In truth, with the 717's going away, there's little left of the SIA except what M/B already gave us, a slightly better place on the list, and furlough protection.

 

[waveflyer]

You're saying Gary Kelly didn't say clearly on multiple occasions that he wanted an agreed on list w/o the pilots, as leaders of all employees, fighting for every scrap to the length of their process agreement?

He expected us as the highest paid group to show leadership.

Then there is the reality that this purchase simply becomes less profitable if groups go fighting tooth and nail in an extended arbi. You'd be hard pressed to say there'd be less animosity given an arbitrated list (aka am west/usair)-

I can show you where he said all these things and they were public and often.

Believe me, I think Swapa members would have done better in arbitration as well and would find it easier to live with- but that's not what Gary asked.
You guys were openly defiant in the face of that - where we understood where he was coming from and so, we're more agreeable to it.

Btw, how is it you say you aren't "rebel rousing" when you're calling our CEO, who for all his faults as a numbers guy, is doing his best to take care of all employees, a flat out liar?

 

[madjack]

It simply flies in the face of everything people believe Southwest to be...

oh brother, it's negotiations