JO and pilots wages

[mckpickle]

Re: McPickel

OK,

Now that we've both insulted each other, let's have a reasonable and healthy debate on the finer points. No rhetoric please.

It's easy to toss stones, but look at Stillaboo's earlier post. He paints an acurate picture.

We raced to get "released" by the NMB, but AMW5481 put a halt to all negotiations (appropriatly I might add).

With no end in sight, Airways putting the pressure on, and a bipolar Boss who in my opinion would sell his soul for a buck, what would you do differently?

And let me inform you, NO ONE at Mesa is happy with our contract. So if you want to take your ire out on someone, do it to the Freedom Guys (the original guys before the TA). In my opinion, JO (Lorenzo) and THOSE guys enabled this situation to arise.

What do you do?

The Plebe

I accept your challenge.

First off I think you should have been in touch with the other regional. I know for a fact that your negotiating committee did not accept all the offers for assistance that were offered. Not that they turned down tangible help but more liked they panicked and turned a deaf ear.

2, The thing that really upsets me is that you fell for JO's crap. Just because he shut down CC air didn't mean he could do it to the whole company. Lets face it, JO cut off an arm to try to "save" the body. More like try to scare everyone else. But he wasn't going to shoot himself in the head while only his @ss(freedom) was to survive. Point is Mesa is a publicly traded company. JO is responsible to shareholders and a Board of Directors. Just because he has some airplanes and 87 mother-less SOB's SCABS go to freedom did not constitute and airline. He would not have been able to salvage the entity and transfer it to Freedom. I liked his voice message while all this was going on. He made it sound as if the Freedom guys were "saving the airline". Tell ya what, ask a couple hundred CAL guys how they tried to "save the airline" in 83. I hope the Freedom guys are regarded with the same respect.

What needed to be done was simple. Call his bluff. Thats it. You might not have been able to strike. I understand your mediator was a morron and probably played slap and tickle with JO. But how much would it have taken to work a slowdown? Granted not legal but pretty godd@mn effective. But you didn't even let it get to that. Had your guys gotten to a slowdown JO's next move would have been to take a few hostages. Fire a couple people for stupid things. And if you guys caved before a fight than there is no way you would have had the backbones to make it through that!

Now Im not mad about what my w2 says. Im mad for two reasons.

1. My future and job security is less secure because Mesa threatens the flying that I currently do. Maybe not now, maybe not next year. But when Mesa is twice the size they will.

And on a side note the regional industry is going to be in trouble in 5-7 years. Heres why. In the late 90's early 2000. All the airlines were putting larger planes on routes, getting rid of props for jets and trying to make the airspace more efficient due to airspace congestion. So in a few years when it starts all over there will still be all these regional around only now there will be LESS demand for them. Ie why take an arrival/departure slot with a 50 seat RJ when you can do it with a 120 seat 73? So there will be less flying for us because of less yield. That will cause us to FURTHER COMPETE! How are we supposed to move forward in work rules and pay when a 1500-2000 pilot
airline will work for nothing.

2. Safety. I like working 4 legs a day. 6 legs and I am TIRED. I make mistakes. 3 days of 6 legs and I'm REALLY tired. because of your work rules and wages the rest of us will have to compete on the basis of productivity. I don't think this is safe.

So I hope that answered your question. Bottom line I would have remained strong and stead fast. And when it seemed it wasn't working it was time for new negotiaters. If our negotiaters came to us with that TA They would be embarrassed to return to work. But now they might have to in order to compete with you.

 

[maddog805]

its closer to 9. compare apples to apples. PLus this is only reserve pilots. line holders get 10, which is closer to 11 per month. not far off from AIRWIS who gets 12 days off per month. WOW a whole 12 more days off per year.

WHAT?!?!?!

Is this the norm for the regional carriers?

I'm looking at a SkyWest bid package for June and the LEAST number of days off is 13, The most is 21 and the average is 15.1. How do you guys do it? That is depressing. I feel for you, seriously......oh wait; no I don't.

 

[SanJuanPlebe]

McPickle

Well,

I can't argue with your insight. I can't argue with your logic. And I don't think you are really that far off.

It's a lot easier to look back and armchair this thing and woulda coulda shoulda it to death.

Bottom line, I don't think we had the unity within the pilot group to do some of the things you suggested. I know in PHX, where we were seeing our flying going away day by day as the Freedom jets passed our planes and they called on the radio "Cisco" as their call sign, the pilots where plenty pissed and would have stuck together.

As for the east coast flying, where they aren't seeing Freedom directly, I'm not so sure our unity would have stood the muster.

So in effect, your ideas require a pissed off, unified and strong pilot group. All of the qualities which we had, just not so sure it would have come together at the right time. It was sort of fragmented and disjointed if you will. Nothing like Comair.

Our MEC put out massive PR campaign, joint picketed with America West, set up strike centers, family awareness events, etc all the educate the pilot group. However, even doing all of that, I question if we could have successfully done some of the things you were looking at.

As for how we got into this whole mess, it's been suggested that because our Negotiating Committee was asking for jet rates on the 700/900 that were unreasonable. Not unreasonable when considered next to Comair and Air Whiskey, but unreasonable because they were higher than the senior most captain on a 757 at America West, who as you know with our code-share arrangement, is paying our bills. Do we get pissed off at America West?

In short, it just wasn't gonna fly.

We got enhancements. Not much, but enhancements. I just get pissed off when we get blamed for the industry's problems. Sure, we didn't keep raising the standards that were set by Comair and Air Wisconsin, but given the negotiating environment, and the fact concessions are now a fact of life, I don't think we could have no matter what we tried. Those gravy contracts were negotiated in better times. And our management's philosophy is for leaner returns (6-9% profit margins) in exchange for duration. And that's what they did the pilots too.

It doesn't matter now if we did the right or wrong thing. It's done. Let's just work together to try to keep what we have, and improve it along the way, whether we do it property by property or through ALPA, or another venue.

We're all pilots. We all need to stick together. We all need to help each other, even if you're pissed off about our contract. I just hate to see folks threatening jumpseats, etc. No one wins but the company at that point. They've pit us against each other and made the competition in the cockpit, rather than in the open market.

Thanks for a reasonable debate, but since I agree with much of what you are saying, I think I'll leave it at that.

The Plebe