And done .....

[ghostrider64]

GDude..

You may not like what in about to say but you should listen.

The sole person with any ties to the G side, just resigned from the negotiating committee. Translation, the union leadership just wrote off your side due to your lack of interest. Good luck with all your"market forces"giving you a raise BS, the men actually negotiating hold that power and they don't give a crap about you, our the rest of your ilk that have done NOTHING to help and more than your fair share to hurt our cause.


Wearing the lanyard means nothing, unless you're willing to abide by it's underlying meaning..."we are netjets" and we are"union strong"!

Nothing worse than someone expecting a past on the back, for doing the right thing, which was required all along. I suspect a lot of teests will suddenly start jumping on the union ship..

You should be thanking us for fighting all along

 

[acaTerry]

Thanks for the YouTube video link. I agreed with all of it. My point was, and maybe I didn't adequately communicate it, is that the pilot shortage will HELP our negotiators. I was not arguing that the union shouldn't negotiate aggressively, or that the union is in any way irrelevant. I was giving you good news, that the shortage will help our union get us a good deal.

Oh G4, you STILL are missing the point. We can NOT wait a single day longer for the "pilot shortage" or any other outside factor to make things happen.
The entire point of that video was that DAL pilot must NOT wait for things to coax or force management to make a good contract happen. That they, the pilots, are responsible for their own destiny in negotiations and so they must get things going NOW. Not later.
As an aside, the profit sharing, as you can see, is not what makes a significant part of their compensation, but rather just a "nice other thing" that happens in good times. That is something we must pay attention to. JH tried to pull the wool over our eyes with that one and happily nobody fell for it.
Additionally, the best way for profit sharing to work from an employee standpoint for most of us, including pilots, is to screw other groups. Ie cheap hotels, cheap airline seats, etc. For the pilots, to fly broken planes, to fly tired or sick et al.
Profit sharing should never be the meat and potatoes of a pay raise, and DAL MEC knows this, which is why they are going full-on with the negotiating early. They know better than to wait. You, G4, really need to accept the fact (and I will say PROVEN fact) that NJA management will never do what is right until forced to do so. The pilot shortage is nothing when it comes to us. NJA would love to go back to the days of SICs making $27,108 and PICs making just over $36,000...that was only 10 years ago. Things didn't go up because of their generosity...they went up because they were forced to. Please, please come to grips with reality, not fantasy and wishful thinking.

 

[Mooneymite]

Unless the company is willing to actually open the books to us -- and I mean all the books, to include the other BRK subsidiaries we do business with -- then the concept is an absolute non-starter for me.

Even if the books are totally open, the ability to "see through the smoke" is limited.

Management controls the books, the auditing, the process.

I don't trust "profit sharing" for a moment.

Just pay me for what I do. Let management figure out what is profit and loss.

I will be very unhappy if any of our hard faught compensation is delivered as "profit sharing".

NO.

That is spelled: EN OH!

 

[CA1900]

I don't trust "profit sharing" for a moment.

I agree completely. I had it at my last company, and saw a grand total of one profit sharing check. All the rest of the quarters, we somehow didn't meet the profit sharing threshold. Meanwhile, I watched the owners of the company fueling up their CJ from the company fuel truck for a weekend in Vegas.

So yeah, let's just go ahead and negotiate my price ahead of time, and if they make extra profit, they can keep it. Works for me.

 

[Mooneymite]

....one profit sharing check.

Lucky you!

I never saw one.

I think the execs used the profits for their bankruptcy proof golden parachutes.

 

[gutshotdraw]

A good portion of Delta's executive team including the CEO came from Northwest. Delta's pilot union clearly seems to be happy with how their profit sharing is structured. So what is different in their current profit sharing plan versus what NWA offered?

The concept has merit and has been proven to work, but you are right, it can't be so convoluted that people cant understand it or the executives can game it.

The "profit sharing" plan at Northwest was conjured up by Doug Steenland and his administration. The same bunch that drove the airline into the ditch with the strike in '98. Steenland was the second-worst aviation CEO I have ever witnessed (following our recently departed dipstick).

Richard Anderson is an entirely different kind of guy. He was well liked at NWA (for a management guy anyway) and has done a great job at Delta IMHO. He actually understands that well-motivated and happy employees results in happy customers and the profits take care of themselves. The current profit sharing plan at Delta is reasonable because it is actually OBTAINABLE.

The caveats and conditions that our dear, departed dipstick included in his proposal were ludicrous.

 

[G4dude]

Oh G4, you STILL are missing the point. We can NOT wait a single day longer for the "pilot shortage" or any other outside factor to make things happen.
The entire point of that video was that DAL pilot must NOT wait for things to coax or force management to make a good contract happen. That they, the pilots, are responsible for their own destiny in negotiations and so they must get things going NOW. Not later.
As an aside, the profit sharing, as you can see, is not what makes a significant part of their compensation, but rather just a "nice other thing" that happens in good times. That is something we must pay attention to. JH tried to pull the wool over our eyes with that one and happily nobody fell for it.
Additionally, the best way for profit sharing to work from an employee standpoint for most of us, including pilots, is to screw other groups. Ie cheap hotels, cheap airline seats, etc. For the pilots, to fly broken planes, to fly tired or sick et al.
Profit sharing should never be the meat and potatoes of a pay raise, and DAL MEC knows this, which is why they are going full-on with the negotiating early. They know better than to wait. You, G4, really need to accept the fact (and I will say PROVEN fact) that NJA management will never do what is right until forced to do so. The pilot shortage is nothing when it comes to us. NJA would love to go back to the days of SICs making $27,108 and PICs making just over $36,000...that was only 10 years ago. Things didn't go up because of their generosity...they went up because they were forced to. Please, please come to grips with reality, not fantasy and wishful thinking.

I agree about what you guys are saying about profit sharing. I want pay. As for NJA wanting to pay us peanuts, you are right. But the marketplace won't allow it because of the shortage. We would lose most of our pilots and the company knows that. Plus, we are represented by the union. But to believe the shortage doesn't affect our negotiations right now is mistaken, in my opinion. We are all going to make a LOT of money until the shortage is resolved. And the reason the shortage will be resolved is because of the higher pay attracting more people to become a pilot, higher pay from companies hating to pay more but having to do so to attract pilots. Everything happens because of events causing certain predictable reactions. Shortage = more pay. Surplus pilots = less pay. NJA will pay us more not because it is right, but because the marketplace requires it. In a few years pay will trend downward once those extra pilot candidates attracted by the high pay enter the professional ranks.

 

[gutshotdraw]

I agree about what you guys are saying about profit sharing. I want pay. As for NJA wanting to pay us peanuts, you are right. But the marketplace won't allow it because of the shortage. We would lose most of our pilots and the company knows that. Plus, we are represented by the union. But to believe the shortage doesn't affect our negotiations right now is mistaken, in my opinion. We are all going to make a LOT of money until the shortage is resolved. And the reason the shortage will be resolved is because of the higher pay attracting more people to become a pilot, higher pay from companies hating to pay more but having to do so to attract pilots. Everything happens because of events causing certain predictable reactions. Shortage = more pay. Surplus pilots = less pay. NJA will pay us more not because it is right, but because the marketplace requires it. In a few years pay will trend downward once those extra pilot candidates attracted by the high pay enter the professional ranks.

The shortage of QUALIFIED pilots that is beginnng to emerge certainly HELPS but it is not the be all and end all to guarantee a good contract.

By the way, I DON'T think NetJets thought they would have to improve our contract in order to keep pilots. I think that He Who Shall Not Be Named and Uncle Warren BOTH truly believed that this is just the greatest job, pays more than enough, and gollygeewillikers, it's a Berkshire Hathaway company so you should feel priviledged to work here! Obviously, a delusional belief that I doubt Billy and AJ share.

Regardless, reduced availability of qualified pilots is a looming issue in the FUTURE. Contract negotiations are happening NOW and the negotiating team must have the credibility (read:leverage) to convince the company to pay up NOW. They must be able to point to IMMEDIATE ramifications if a good deal is not offered.

It is all part of a larger puzzle. You didn't believe me when I told you the picketing, the advertisements, the red lanyards, the interviews, the press releases, and all the rest would COMBINE to sufficiently embarrass Warren to the point where he would remove the lawyer. Well, there is a larger puzzle here with lots of small pieces, not just one big PILOT SHORTAGE piece.

Don't fly tired.
Don't fly sick.
Don't fly broken airplanes.
Don't do any favors.
Don't extend.
Don't encourage anybody to become a pilot

 

[gunfyter]

I wonder if NJA will dust off their ab-initio program.

 

[Mooneymite]

I wonder if NJA will dust off their ab-initio program.

Ha! What "ab initio" program?

They'll just go back to hiring anyone who can fog a mirror like they once did..

Wonder how some of the senior guys got hired in the first place?