NetJets Strike Passes By 93%

[FamilyGuy]

Family Guy

Whether you like it or not, you did accept a job with a company that had a union long before you came on the property. Maybe you were hired to bust the union, you have failed miserably.

I don't like the fact hat we have a union. I think the last union MEC botched the job completely and that you have cost the company millions in angry owners that won't renew. The reason I say this is because you literally screwed yourselves out of an opportunity by low-balling the last T/A. By doing this you've had worker discontent and angry owners waiting around for contract maintenance to change a cabin light bulb in broad daylight, you've had fatigue calls within 15 mins of a revenue flight and you've had guys that went for years without using sick time using nearly all of it.

Quite frankly, there's only one thing worse than a poorly organised union and that is bad management that can't measure the barometer of the workforce.

For crying out loud, GET 'R DONE!!!

Your basking in the failures of unions past or present while Rome is burning is doing nothing for the security of this company, NOR YOUR OWN JOB SECURITY!

I'm not a union guy, I'm not a family guy, I'm a pragmatist. You're all at fault, and you're all a bunch of idiots!

Well said Hawkered. I couldnt agree more with you. I dont intend to bask in the failures of unions past or present. Its just that I've been in unions before and have come to realize that they dont solve anything. Sorry if the frustration with union dogma comes across too strongly.

I dont know why this contract has taken so long. It is a crime that it took over three years before a TA was presented to the pilot group. I think both sides are to blame for that and they both better wake up and get this thing done and behind us.

Ultimately we are in a service business and the damage we are currently doing to the business will take YEARS to repair, if it can even be fixed.

 

[Ultra Grump]

FamilyGuy:

You can moan all you want about unions in general, but the fact is that the pilots' union at NetJets isn't going anywhere.

I'll answer one of your questions, since I don't have time to get to all of them:

Look at the auto industry - one of the largest manufacturing industries out there. Unions have been wholly unsuccessful in unionizing the transplant facilities that have been built in the US by Honda, Toyota, and others. Why?

Precisely because the workforces at GM, Chrysler, and Ford are unionized. In order to prevent a union drive at their facilities, the Japanese- and Korean- owned factories must at least match what the unionized force is getting. If the UAW went away, I'm sure people would be happy for a while, but soon the wages would start to shrink, the benefits would start to disappear, and quality would begin to suffer from newly-demoralized workers. Then guess what would happen? Union drives. As much as you'd like to see unions go away, unfortunately for you, they're here to stay.

As has been pointed out, aviation is probably the most-unionized industry in the country. Sure, there are non-unionized workforces (ala Skywest), but their wages and workrules are directly derived from other, similar unionized contracts, in an effort to keep a union off-property.

If you think that non-union shops are so great, you might want to take a look at what's happening over at FlOps.

 

[Diesel]

Well hawkered you came here knowing it was a union shop too.

Keep extending at the expense of the pilot force.

 

[Hawkered]

Diesel

Look at the difference between the responses that I just reeceived from yourself and Family Guy, and lets just take a quick look at the differences.

At least Family Guy has prefaced his arguments with humility in so far as he has acknowledged the time delay on both sides has cost us some of our reputation and, yes a bunch of money too.

Diesel, the next time you get called in for The Bridgeway One Arrival, you will no doubt seek union representation to ensure due process. In the meantime you have offered me no due process...

How do you know if I'm divorced and being cleaned out, or that my wife has an illness that leaves me on the verge of bankruptcy paying deductibles, or that my child has just lost her first job and has a over $50k in college loans.

You have afforded me no "due process".

Family Guy

I haven't given up on you yet, and I haven't given up on the union...yet. I will not put up with self proclaimed experts on message boards telling me how and when to fly an aircraft!!

Family Guy, the worst thing you can do right now is start burying your head in the sand and believing everything is gonna be alright, when it simply ain't. You guys are driving this company off the edge of a cliff with your anti-union dogma. The pilots are angry, the aircraft are "broken", the schedulers don't listen to anyone, the owners are leaving, owner services is lying and nobody in management is doing a damn thing to make it better!!

 

[Diesel]

We all got problems.

I mean really go pick up a second job or do contract work. There are a lot of pilots that have problems and i have to give them credit they go on and find other jobs.

If you need to extend to make sure that you pay for medical bills or something like that it's fine with me. You have to do for your family first. This is just a job nothing more. Extending a bunch of times for some bs reason ain't going to cut it. You're just dragging this deal out longer and longer.

The difference between me and familyguy is that i have control over this situation. I have a vote. He's either some numnut up in managment or a poster the company hired. Either way his opinion doesn't mean sh!t. He can't vote and his audience on this board is .00005 percent.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Diesel

Look at the difference between the responses that I just reeceived from yourself and Family Guy, and lets just take a quick look at the differences.

At least Family Guy has prefaced his arguments with humility in so far as he has acknowledged the time delay on both sides has cost us some of our reputation and, yes a bunch of money too.

Diesel, the next time you get called in for The Bridgeway One Arrival, you will no doubt seek union representation to ensure due process. In the meantime you have offered me no due process...

How do you know if I'm divorced and being cleaned out, or that my wife has an illness that leaves me on the verge of bankruptcy paying deductibles, or that my child has just lost her first job and has a over $50k in college loans.

You have afforded me no "due process".

Family Guy

I haven't given up on you yet, and I haven't given up on the union...yet. I will not put up with self proclaimed experts on message boards telling me how and when to fly an aircraft!!

Family Guy, the worst thing you can do right now is start burying your head in the sand and believing everything is gonna be alright, when it simply ain't. You guys are driving this company off the edge of a cliff with your anti-union dogma. The pilots are angry, the aircraft are "broken", the schedulers don't listen to anyone, the owners are leaving, owner services is lying and nobody in management is doing a dang thing to make it better!!

Hawkered - good point. Answering union dogma with anti-union dogma isnt going to bridge the differences between the two groups. I apologize if I've added to the problems instead of trying to help solve them. I just get tired of reading a one-sided company bashfest, particularly when I work for that company and know that most of the allegations are baseless. I personally would like to see this board become a more productive forum to air some of the problems being experienced by both sides and explore ways of solving them instead of just bitching at each other. I also know that the radicals on either side of a dispute rarely win, and when they do it is never a good thing. The solution to this impasse is probably the same as in most disputes - the moderates on both sides will need to come together and forge a compromise that both sides can live with. I just hope its sooner rather than later.

You should know from my previous posts that I support the pilots in negotiating a fair wage and benefits package. I respect the skills of our pilot group - by and large most of them are truly some of the best that I have worked with.

 

[CRAWDADDY]

Best reason to turn down the trip: I can't go because I haven't had a passport for 2 1/2

Got a better one you could use for all trips if you're on the Falcon ($%#@, I should have put in that last bid) Tell them you don't have an Emergency Checklist other than the manufacturer's original in the AFM. Ain't bad for someone like me; but I read FRENCH

 

[Hogprint]

Famguy posted:

If the unions cant deliver any advantages over non-union shops then its just natural that the employees will question the wisdom of giving some of their hard earned dollars to the union.

Our union has delivered on most things, just not pay. The other frax best us only on pay, and it's just a couple of grand more a year.

Don't forget NJ was the frax industry for a long time. They set the bar low, and the other frax have only had to match or slightly better the deal.

Just ask a FOp's or Flex guy about their work rules compared to ours that the union was instrumental in negotiating.

The other frax may be questioning their wisdom of staying non union, especially if we get an industry leading contract.

 

[FLYLOW22]

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Don't even know why you would even try to pass this argument off to people who know better. My pay (non-bargaining employee) more than doubled in less than 6 years with the company - all at the company's choosing.

During the same time frame your union hasn't been able to negotiate any pay raises for it's bargaining employees. The company even tried to raise FO pay outside of negotiations but the union was against it. Again, your union is the problem, not the solution.

Respectfully,

Go back to the page my original post is on with my quote that you detest so.

There you will see a subtitle under which the comments fall. It is called "MACRO" or larger view. Not "MICRO" or your view.

I was commenting on jobs in America on average, per capita.

In the 50's and 60's the middle class flourished and grew by a thousand %. Today that is not the case. Unions drove the bar up for wage and benefits. Today there is less of that force in the marketplace to even maintain the bar (or the job at all). As a result I believe we are seeing several sectors of employment experience less pay and less benefits because we "have to compete with the world". The middle class is on the decline.

As for your job... you too are underpaid. I know several airline dispatchers that, even today, make FAR above that which you make. And they are responsible for less flights and have better equipment to plan with.

 

[FLYLOW22]

You're not just beating a dead horse here, you're digging it out of the grave and wacking at the bones now.

Hmmm. A "Boisturism".

Worth ain't worth that much.