NJA Uniform Change

[727C47]

flying freight in a DC9,you better believe i'm wearing a leather jacket,started wearing one when i flew the 3,its a tie in to our ancient,and honorable round engined past,not just open cockpit,and if you are overcoming gravity,and drag for a living you are not a poseur,you are one of the brothers and sisters who are 1/2 crazy enough to put it on the line day in and day out for this profession when they could be warm,safe,but not quite alive in some cubicle, if you are a CFI, or a 10k hour ATP, you rate it. IMHO.

 

[hunkerdown]

Here are your new uniform shirts. Glad I bailed after 10 years. No more monkey suits for me.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...a=X&ei=jYirTJLoHYKC8gbj5YicCA&ved=0CDwQ9QEwBw

 

[Dassault]

As a 495er (okay..technically now a 'former' employee, as my current employer forced a resignation), I'd like to interject some financial prudence to the situation. New uniforms are all well and good (perhaps even worthy of 5 pages of discussion on FI) in a healthy, stable economy with abundant employment rates, IMO.

When I hear 'new leather jackets' at NJA, my thoughts immediately run to $$cost$$ (and how many jobs that may represent). When I was one of the last NJA new-hires (not too long ago), I was told that the company paid $1000 apiece for the 'Loro Piana' jackets alone. Not sure if true, but staggering if so.
Let's just assume for a moment that it is and that a leather jacket is of comparable per-unit cost:

2322 active NJA pilots* X $1000 = $2,322,000
-- this figure doesn't include NJI (as far as I know)..OR the 495 who, if all come back eventually, MGMT will have to

This might be a good point if it weren't for the fact that each pilot has a $400 per year uniform allowance. The jacket is "bought" using the annual allowance.

 

[Xcorporate]

It's absurd that this was even up for discussion. Until the furloughed are recalled the only topic of conversation should be how to be more efficient and how to get guys back on the line. Period. I don't care who is paying for your stupid jacket. Of course this will be met with the attack dogs defending all things netjets.

 

[gutshotdraw]

Sigh.

 

[jtf]

It's absurd that this was even up for discussion. Until the furloughed are recalled the only topic of conversation should be how to be more efficient and how to get guys back on the line. Period. I don't care who is paying for your stupid jacket. Of course this will be met with the attack dogs defending all things netjets.

The more efficient we are, the longer the furloughs will be gone since we are so efficient they won't be needed. Now deliver my cool new leather jacket ASAP.

 

[OPECJet]

The more efficient we are, the longer the furloughs will be gone since we are so efficient they won't be needed. Now deliver my cool new leather jacket ASAP.

Same could be said about 18 day schedules.

 

[realityman]

It's absurd that this was even up for discussion. Until the furloughed are recalled the only topic of conversation should be how to be more efficient and how to get guys back on the line. Period. I don't care who is paying for your stupid jacket. Of course this will be met with the attack dogs defending all things netjets.

This is absolutely stupid. All we can do to bring the furloughed folks back is to do our jobs to the best of our ability. Keep our clients happy, and hope for more business.

Sorry, X, but not everything I talk about centers around the furloughed folks. And judging by the talk amongst most of our pilots, they feel the same. That doesn't in any way mean we've forgotten about them, but really, you expect our ONLY topic of conversation ANYTIME we speak to each other about business should be about the furloughed pilots?!

"Hey pilot X! You hear that the furloughed folks are still furloughed?"
"Yes, pilot Y, I did hear that."
"Shame."
"Yeah, it is."
"Are you giving great service so we can grow the company?"
"Yep. You?"
"Yes. Hopefully we'll get em back as quick as possible."
"So, what should we discuss on our 5-hour transcon?"
"We could discuss the shenanigans the company is pulling right now. Or safety issues that currently affect us. Or about our families."
"Yeah. I suppose we could. But there's a guy on FI who says we shouldn't be concerned about anything else until the furloughed folks are back at work."
"Ummmm, okay. Sooooooo, did you hear that the furloughed folks are still furloughed?"
"Yeah, I did. Shame really."
"yeah, it is."
(Repeat the last three exchanges ad nauseum for the next five hours of flying.)

No, you're absolutely right X, we shouldn't talk about ANYTHING else until those folks are back. (idiot!)

PS- Just FYI, we (the union) have been pointing out to the company for many years how to run things more efficiently. I repeat, MANY YEARS! It was only in RTS's last year or so with us that they listened to anything we had to say. And this new management team? Forget about it! They don't care to hear from us about ANYTHING. So I'd really love to hear what it is you think we should do about it. Your assumption is plain wrong that just because we can discuss other developments in our professional lives means we haven't pursued as many options as possible for our furloughed folks, or that they've vanished form our collective memories. In fact, they're talked about almost every day on our own union board. I'm not sure why we can't discuss other things here or elsewhere.

 

[DAS at 10/250]

Same could be said about 18 day schedules.

Illegal job action! Illegal job action! Illegal job action!

 

[OPECJet]

Illegal job action! Illegal job action! Illegal job action!

Sue me.

I've caught some heat for my little comment in other places, so here's my disclaimer and explanation of comment.

I fully agree with the union enforcing and upholding the CBA to include the option of pilots working the 18 day schedule. I also have no problem with guys who choose to work it.

My only point, and it's informational purposes only, is that there are "X" amount of available pilot hours required to fly the schedule. The more pilots on the 18 day increases the amount of available pilot hours while decreasing the amount of pilots needed to achieve those hours (if that makes any sense). I'm interested to see if the union forces the 18 day staffing down to the contractual mins on the next bid cycle.