I agree with almost everything you said above, with one minor exception: I know reserve sucks. I did it for a long time-back when it sucked a lot more. I remember when I was hired, the scheduling dept manager told us during our first day on property that we would get fired for not answering the phone at any time-including any of our days off. He said we could sit by the phone or sit in the unemployment office. I know it sucks-we used to be in the suck as well. You have my sympathy on the reserve issue, but the big picture is that life is supposed to eventually get better-and it will. Reserve blows-and it always will. It is just an unfortunate part of airline life.
As far as our reps: I have less than zero confidence that they will do the right thing with the JCBA. They are scary these days. It is almost as if they are working for SH and CT directly. It is scary the amount of stuff you hear coming directly from mgmt. and also from our reps verbatim. Bottom line is: we are screwed with these guys at the helm. They are way too cozy with mgmt. I have never seen it anything like this.
XJET will hopefully bring a more balanced philosophy to the table. I don't like the hardcore approach like Comair used to have either, but we have to have some kind of fight. When we pay 2%, we really need to be represented on some level. I am sick and tired of the feeling that our local ALPA office as simply an extension of our G.O.
It seems that every issue we have, from red arrow days to reserve to staffing to this ACARS mess is simply another excuse for our reps to stick up for the company, for them to explain that our contract doesn't say what they told us it said when we went to a roadshow, and to demonstrate more clearly that we were sold a complete bill off goods-by our own freaking union!
-They have had their time to fight. They had their time to fix things in arbitration, to draw some lines in the sand. They squandered each and every opportunity. We need new representation, and hopefully XJET guys will make better decisions in choosing reps than we have. Our current guys are just plain pathetic. Paying 6 hours per day for this kind of horsecrap is an insult. It feels like we are paying 2% for a little shoe-shine job straight from CT himself.
