Should the Union take away $70,000 from those who were furloughed to prove a point about making the company sign an LOA? NO. They shouldn't have.
And the serious part that people seem to not comprehend is that a voluntary separation agreement is just that. Voluntary. Separation. You don't get to "come back" when you take a VSP. From anywhere. That is the whole point. You agree to permanently leave, they agree to give you money and help send you on your way, removing the obligation the company had of having to bring you back. The company was willing to buy those seniority numbers and not have the obligation to have to recall those pilots, and those pilots taking it know it and agree to it. But no. The Union is too greedy to let that transpire...
If the Union were to get their way, then the "VSP" would not be a "VSP", it would be an expensive vacation, as all the pilots who would take it would be the senior pilots at the top of the seniority list (because the LOA demanded it be done by seniority) who will take 12 months off and still make over $100K. Great. People move up and upgrade to replace those leaving, right? Insert cost of upgrading people flowing up. What costs? Well guys in the Legacy or any Captain leaving cause vacancies and people may have to get a new type rating, or at a minimum possibly move from or to the Phenom from the Beechjet. And flood the training department with upgrades, IOE, etc. Yes. Those are real costs. But wait. The company is still really reducing, and still has no need for all those guys. But thanks to the LOA, after 12 months, due to the LOA, the company is forced to take those guys back, at the top of the list making over $100k again. Insert recurrent training costs there. And yes, now they may be overstaffed and forced to move those guys who moved up in one fleet to go back down to where they were in the other fleet. More training costs. And the end result to the company is all they did was double their training costs with zero salary savings for that year, and still ended up furloughing.
Yeah, that's right, now they have to furlough again because they still don't need all those extra bodies. End result: Senior guys got 12 months off paid vacation. Bottom guys got a 12 month delay to their eventual pink slip. And the company paid a tremendous amount of training costs they wouldn't have had to if they'd simply furloughed to begin with. And the company still has all those guys at the top of the list still making all that money, and they only got rid of the cheaper bottom of the list guys who are now, finally, furloughed. If the Union had not interfered, all the furloughed pilots would have 12 months of pad to find another job that more than likely will not be but about half what they made at Flight Options, and others, higher up the chain making over $100k would have also had an opportunity to leave and take a severance, saving the company salary money in the long run. And no one got hurt. The furloughs were going to be furloughed anyway, and those who took the VSP who weren't furloughed now feel better off as well. Union dumbasses. No company would ever agree to all that, and the Union knows it. They burned the furloughs for a cause they could never obtain. At a cost they should have never been willing to pay... our overall solidarity and therefore the end result is eventual decertification, and rightfully so. The Union deserves to be decertified after this debacle.
It makes zero sense for the company to give pilots 12 months of paid vacation with an obligation to take them back. What the hell is the point of that? How does that benefit the Company in any way? No company would do that, when what they are trying to do is reduce the work force. The Union screwed it up for those who were furloughed, and those about to be, and anyone with half a brain can see that. All in the name of "they didn't negotiate it with us." Sorry, that does not fly as a valid reason to cost our pilots who would be on the streets anyway, 12 months' pay. The union got greedy, and they took away a large sum of money from the furloughed pilots by demanding something no company, anywhere, would agree to. And the company isn't done furloughing. And the Union played right into Ricci's hands. Idiots.
The Union has lost a lot of respect from a lot of us. All the furloughed pilots, and if you are not in the top 40% of today's existing flight options seniority list, you should be very worried you are the next round of layoffs, and thanks to the Union's stupidity, you could have got a year's severance and now you may not get squat. Unless, hopefully, the Union loses in Court. And I for one never thought I'd be rooting for the Company in a case against the Union. Times change. When I'm furloughed, I'd like my severance. And the Union does not have my back on this. Their agenda is no longer mine.
I'm pissed. For my friends who needlessly lost their VSP if the union wins in court, and for myself, when it's my turn to get that eventual pink slip.