Cal mec response to ual mec

[Scrapdog]

I would be SHOCKED if there was 747/777 banding........

Keep the JCBA and SLI apart......... period.

I guess you should be prepared to be "shocked" then. I saw your same garbage on the other forum. The Cal MEC won't allow blindingly apparent seniority grab to occur for a few hundred guys. Why in the hell wouldn't you want more pay for a larger percentage of the pilot group? That is truly idiotic and makes zero sense.

Get over yourself.

 

[Scrapdog]

Wendy’s spin was nice. But the reality is that it is 180 degrees from the real truth.

I’m writing this as a CAL pilot who has talked to my reps.

We asked the UAL MEC what they wanted for B747 pay. Then we simply requested that the B777 be included in that same pay category, thus providing more pay for everyone. But the UAL MEC wanted the B777 to be paid LESS. Why would the UAL MEC want the B777 paid lower? That is less money for everyone. Simple answer – seniority grab. Yet they try to hide behind some resolution. Give me a break.

For any United pilot that wants to get on here and go on about “concessionary contract pay rate banding BS”… please spare me the crap. Look at the UPS pilot contract. All equipment is paid in the same band. Is that a concessionary contract? http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/cargo/ups.html A UPS First Officer on any equipment makes more than a United B767 Captain. Whether certain equipment is paid the same or not has no bearing on it being concessionary. The actual pay rate has more to do with it.

The ironic thing about this is that Jayson Baron has done more for the furloughed United pilots through the Transition Agreement in agreeing to hire all of the furloughed United pilots, than their own MEC has done for them in the past (selling them out on SCOPE). My understanding is that the UAL MEC sold the furloughed pilots down the river on the LOA that gave up scope further (whiteford?). Don’t get me wrong about hiring the furloughed United pilots - this is the right thing to do. But we could have played hard ball on the Transition Agreement and demanded certain things in return for hiring all of the furloughed United pilots. We did not do that. And for one of the UAL local council reps to come out and trash Jayson Baron in a blast mail is the unthinkable.

One more point worth mentioning. United’s contract had horrible language with regards to merger scope protection. Our contract did have merger scope protection. However, Smisek could have shrunk United way down and/or shifted flying to us. We also played nice on this issue in the Transition Agreement and made sure that United had the same level of protection to prevent whipsawing. If we were after some sort of seniority grab as the UAL MEC insinuates, then we could have played hardball on this issue, as this would have benefited us greatly on the seniority list integration.

Wendy owes the Continental pilots an apology. So does the entire UAL MEC. I trust that this issue will be resolved, but even after it is, I fear that the UAL MEC has created permanent damage in unity over this ridiculous issue. You have to choose your battles. This is certainly not one of them.

Some of you guys should think about emailing your United reps about this.

Best post yet.

 

[ualdriver]

Good post. You are correct. The UAL MEC has several 570's on it including Morse and Kravitt...ironically the 2 most influential. I will email my LEC rep and give him a piece of my mind. I'm with you on the binding. I don't know if it is necessarily a seniority grab (it could be or not) but the fact is they are trying to get higher pay for themselves mostly the 570s (85 strike skygods) and the whitefords (78' hires) who gave up scope and the 170 for a pension (lol). I'm sick and tired of the seniority mindset at the MEC level at UAL and always screwing the narrowbody and furloughed pilots. The narrowbody workrules of the 2003, the TED deal, the bond fund that f'ed the furloughed guys, the 737 parking, the 2000 contract that gave widebody guys a 4 percent greater raise than narrowbody, and of course the current debacle. I'm with the CAL guys for the most part. FIX THE DEAL NOW! Band'em and forget it. The SLI will take care of itself.

Good post?
Are you aware of the standing direction given to our MEC by our pilots BEFORE this merger was even announced concerning banding?
Are you aware of how our Master Chariman receives her direction, whether she is a 570 or not or whether or not you like the 570's?
Do you think banding aircraft in the first place is good for pilots or better for management? (hence the standing direction)
Who exactly gave up 70 seat scope at United initially and when did "they" do that? (hint: it wasn't during bankruptcy nor financial duress)
What exactly are you going to tell your LEC rep when you "give him a piece of your mind?"

I would suggest not an e-mail, but a phone call to your rep to discuss what exactly is going on before you "give him a piece of your mind." Some talking points I would suggest:

• Did the UAL MEC enter initial negotiations agreeing to banding?
• Is banding good for us pilots? Under what circumstances did banding CAL and UAL aircraft even come about in the first place?
• If banding is bad for pilots and better for management, why is banding even being considered if the intent is to pursue an industry leading contract for our pilots?
• Is the intent of the current negotiations to get the best JCBA we can get first then talk about SLI later?
• What statements did Capt. Pierce make to the MEC(s) concerning banding, the JCBA, and the subsequent SLI? Were those statements in contradiction to the bullet point above this one?

The other stuff I'm not going to even go into as you sound angry about things that have nothing to do with what is going on right now. Believe it or not, the MEC has many members who are not 570's nor "senior" and there is not a conspiracy out there to screw over the junior guy. Make the phone call, then get back to us if you insist on debating this in public.

 

[sleeves]

Fact: The Aircraft are banded now, at both company's together.

Fact: The United pilots will gain an advantage if they are split.

Fact: The Neg. Committees have reached an agreement and a proposal is ready to give to MGT. The UAL MEC is holding that proposal up.

 

[Flopgut]

Believe it or not, the MEC has many members who are not 570's nor "senior" and there is not a conspiracy out there to screw over the junior guy.

Conspiracy? No. There are actually junior UAL guys/gals who are actually screwed.

Thank PW for us for the 70 seat jets showing up in CAL bases....

 

[ualdriver]

Conspiracy? No. There are actually junior UAL guys/gals who are actually screwed.

Thank PW for us for the 70 seat jets showing up in CAL bases....

I didn't realize that PW was the guy in charge when 70 seat jets showed up at UAL? But let's not let facts get in the way of a good flightinfo debate!

Of course there are guys on UAL property who are screwed. It sucks to be junior. We all knew that when we took the job, no?

Refresh my memory....are you a UAL guy or a CAL guy? I forgot.

 

[EWR_FO]

Of course there are guys on UAL property who are screwed. It sucks to be junior. We all knew that when we took the job, no?

Why does it have to suck to be junior? I contend it sucks to be junior far, far, worse today than it ever did in the past. That is a DIRECT result of the senior contingent using the junior contingent like Chinese infantry, obviously you don't see anything wrong with that.

 

[Furloughed80]

ualdriver,

Can you or any other UAL guys/gals answer 1 question? Is the UAL side trying to 'unband' by cutting the hourly rate on the 777?

 

[ualdriver]

Why does it have to suck to be junior? I contend it sucks to be junior far, far, worse today than it ever did in the past. That is a DIRECT result of the senior contingent using the junior contingent like Chinese infantry, obviously you don't see anything wrong with that.

It has to suck to be junior because we choose a seniority based employment system. Because of that, if anything "goes wrong" the junior guy gets the boot. In a previous airline life, I was furloughed. I didn't lash out my fellow pilots because my employer ran into hard times. I did not have any expectations of anything from the guys senior to me nor did I feel that they screwed me over because they had their jobs and I didn't have mine.

As to your argument about it being "far far worse today" than it ever did in the past.......well, I don't know about that. Maybe from yours and my perspective, that is true simply because these are the worst economic times that we have ever seen in our adult working years. So yeah, I guess that's true in that regard. However, how about the stagflation and economic times of the late 70's early 80's? Is it "far" worse today? That's a matter of opinion I guess.

As a counterpoint, however, I would say that a furloughee gets taken care of a lot better than furloughees in the previous generation. For example, our furloughees have their health care taken care of along with travel benefits and a right to sit on the sidelines and bypass for many years with no jeopardy of losing their recall rights. Sucks to be furloughed, sure. But I'd rather be a UAL furloughee now than a furloughee when the "senior guys" themselves were furloughed from United, for example.

Your last comment I'll just ignore.

 

[ualdriver]

ualdriver,

Can you or any other UAL guys/gals answer 1 question? Is the UAL side trying to 'unband' by cutting the hourly rate on the 777?

I don't know, but that doesn't make much sense. Our standing direction to our MEC is to UNBAND our aircraft. We wanted to do this before our merger with CAL was announced because we viewed the banding of aircraft as a concession left over from our hard economic times during bankruptcy. It was part of the whole "industry leading contract" thing, among many other things obviously.

If anything, I'm sure they want to unband the 777/747-400 by giving the 777 industry leading rates then increasing the 747-400 rates by some amount over the new, hopefully higher 777 rates since the 747-400 is a more "productive" aircraft.

From what I am hearing from our reps, it sounds like we want to unband and CAL doesn't. So I suspect we're going to compromise somehow and end up with some sort of banding unfortunately. Hopefully we'll gain more in pay by pulling the smaller aircraft in the band "up" then we lose by pulling the larger aircraft "down" in the band. We'll see I guess.

 

[EWR_FO]

It has to suck to be junior because we choose a seniority based employment system. Because of that, if anything "goes wrong" the junior guy gets the boot. In a previous airline life, I was furloughed. I didn't lash out my fellow pilots because my employer ran into hard times. I did not have any expectations of anything from the guys senior to me nor did I feel that they screwed me over because they had their jobs and I didn't have mine.

As to your argument about it being "far far worse today" than it ever did in the past.......well, I don't know about that. Maybe from yours and my perspective, that is true simply because these are the worst economic times that we have ever seen in our adult working years. So yeah, I guess that's true in that regard. However, how about the stagflation and economic times of the late 70's early 80's? Is it "far" worse today? That's a matter of opinion I guess.

As a counterpoint, however, I would say that a furloughee gets taken care of a lot better than furloughees in the previous generation. For example, our furloughees have their health care taken care of along with travel benefits and a right to sit on the sidelines and bypass for many years with no jeopardy of losing their recall rights. Sucks to be furloughed, sure. But I'd rather be a UAL furloughee now than a furloughee when the "senior guys" themselves were furloughed from United, for example.

Your last comment I'll just ignore.

I'm not talking about being furloughed, that has always sucked. I'm talking about working under a subpar contract that is absolutely tilted toward cushioning those on top. I've watched it happen time and time again and I'm sick of it. I watched our NC committee agree to concessions to "save the A plan" (even though no one quite explained what they were saving it from) and screw a large percentage of the junior contingent on the last go around. I will not stand by and watch it happen again, regardless of the section or subject matter being discussed.

 

[Yuppyguppy]

To answer one of your questions...PW gave us the e170 which as you know is the guppy killer. I'll be back to you UALDRIVER when I get some of my questions answered from the reps.

 

[Homer Jay]

I am getting SO SICK of all this union He Said/She Said bs! This job sucks ball$ as it is and our elected reps are making it even worse. Hey Wendy and Jay, quite the bickering, settle your squabbles, and get us an industry leading contract before my job disappears to Skywest and Republic!!!!!

 

[ualdriver]

To answer one of your questions...PW gave us the e170 which as you know is the guppy killer. I'll be back to you UALDRIVER when I get some of my questions answered from the reps.

You'll likely get the same answers I did when I asked. I just figured you would want to hear them from someone who actually knows what's going on rather than some guy on a forum.

Yup, I agree with you about PW's role in the 70 seat RJ mess. He signed a side letter (foolishly) to allow the E170 in the mix. He did not allow the "concept" of 70 seat jets at UAL. We pilots did in the late 1990's. The pilots are to blame, as much as I'd like to blame PW because I don't think he was a good leader for that time.

 

[ualdriver]

I'm not talking about being furloughed, that has always sucked. I'm talking about working under a subpar contract that is absolutely tilted toward cushioning those on top. I've watched it happen time and time again and I'm sick of it. I watched our NC committee agree to concessions to "save the A plan" (even though no one quite explained what they were saving it from) and screw a large percentage of the junior contingent on the last go around. I will not stand by and watch it happen again, regardless of the section or subject matter being discussed.

Sounds good to me.