NJVote 73%Yes 5%No 21% NoVote

[FLYLOW22]

NJAowner - your observations are right on. Unfortunately the nature of negotiations in aviation seem to always come down to this game of chicken.

Not true. Short sighted management teams bent on short term gains and long term losses "play chicken" or rather back employee groups into a corner with threats and surface bargaining rather than engaging in thought provoking, meaningful, progressive bargaining. (But who cares. They won't be here to worry about it once the golden parachute is deployed).

NetJets management is so short sighted when it comes to employee relations. It is sad. Enron with wings.

In the end though, I think unionized employees have more to lose in the game. Their livelihood is tied to a seniority number. If the company fails or they leave then they have to start all over again at the bottom of the ladder.

That's just it. This isn't a game to us. This is whether or not some of us can get off of food stamps. This is where we live, what we drive, where our kids go to school, quality of life we have. That's pretty importsant stuff dude. No games here.

Many of us could care less about a seniority number lost that isn't worth anything today anyway. NJA needs to make those seniority numbers worth something this time with CASH so that they can use that lame threat next time. Cart before the horse boys.

This isn't that great of a job right now. Help us make it one so you can use that threat next time. You were all skipping ahead too many chapters in Ichan's playbook.

In the today's economy managers and non-union employees move around regularly and are not penalized like union employees when they move.

Oh. Where do you have your resumes out too right now?

So while you see a lot of bravado on this board, take it with a grain of salt. None of the pilots, even the most ardent union supporters, relishes the thought of starting out at the bottom of the seniority list again.

It isn't the loss of artificially over-valued NJA seniority that your be a drag. It's all the damned groundschool training involved with another intitial when starting at a new company. The chairs are uncomfortable.

"Welcome to Brand X..."

 

[CMHTroll]

Reality Check!

Not true. Short sighted management teams bent on short term gains and long term losses "play chicken" or rather back employee groups into a corner with threats and surface bargaining rather than engaging in thought provoking, meaningful, progressive bargaining. (But who cares. They won't be here to worry about it once the golden parachute is deployed).

Management isn't the side that got us put in Abeyance.

NetJets management is so short sighted when it comes to employee relations. It is sad. Enron with wings.

It is obvious that your lack of understanding of employee relations, profit and loss make your statement a joke.

That's just it. This isn't a game to us. This is whether or not some of us can get off of food stamps. This is where we live, what we drive, where our kids go to school, quality of life we have. That's pretty importsant stuff dude. No games here.

No games on the non-union side. Games on the Union side, go slow and pi$$ off the customers.

Many of us could care less about a seniority number lost that isn't worth anything today anyway. NJA needs to make those seniority numbers worth something this time with CASH so that they can use that lame threat next time. Cart before the horse boys.

The door is always open for you to leave. You have no chance for advancement except seniority because you are in a Union. That is your loss.

This isn't that great of a job right now. Help us make it one so you can use that threat next time. You were all skipping ahead too many chapters in Ichan's playbook.

The Job is what you make it and it is obvious you don't want it to be a good one. Your actions speack volumes. Why don't you have your Mec bargain in good faith and get out of abeyance?

 

[Diesel]

You keep coming back to this barganing in "bad faith" but you don't look at your own group. You think we should just bend over and take it like you? I don't think so. I have bent over and over and over for this company day in and day out to help out the owners. I see problems coming down the road and i jump in the way to stop them so the owners don't get screwed. Guess what happens. I get told just fly the plane, or don't say xyz to the owner. Screw that I'm totally upfront with the owners I fly. If it's my screwup it's my screwup. I don't cover for the company period. These are smart FRIGGIN people we fly. They know BS when they see it.

CMHtroll comes on here and just keeps spouting the same thing. Does he really know what our job entails probably not. Does he know that we have pilots on leave due to blown out backs from lifting bags? Probably doesn't even know we load bags.

I don't need to explain what I do on my job. That's why i'm the captain and responsible for EVERYTHING involved in my flight. Myself and my partner make an informed decision and if I have that "bad feeling" I take the heat and don't go. I've lost too many friends in this job.

SO the next time you want to run your mouth and say we are "slowing down" or dragging stuff out on the line I say Go F yourself. Rushing is what killed a close friend of mine. I get paid to make sure the plane gets from A to B and sometimes throw in a Z safely.

CMHtroll you don't fly the line, you have no idea what we do. Go F yourself by saying i'm slowing down or my fellow pilots are trying to F the owners. You come on here and spout crap with nothing to back it up.

Oh and if anybody wants his Extension number PM me.

 

[hydrarkt]

CMHTroll is a troll

I have it on good authority that CMHTroll is a company paid propoganda "spinner." Part of his job is to post misinformation to try to stir the pot.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Not true. Short sighted management teams bent on short term gains and long term losses "play chicken" or rather back employee groups into a corner with threats and surface bargaining rather than engaging in thought provoking, meaningful, progressive bargaining. (But who cares. They won't be here to worry about it once the golden parachute is deployed).

NetJets management is so short sighted when it comes to employee relations. It is sad. Enron with wings.

Surface bargaining? From what I understand, the new MEC and the Company have agreed on all articles except pay and scope. That's a lot of articles to agree on in just 9 months...especially since everyone had to start over once the pilots elected new leadership.

Threats? I dont see management on these boards saying STMFD. I dont see management on these boards mocking the union leadership with deliberate mangling of their names. I see management taking the high road and always telling everyone in the company that the vast majority of pilots are excellent and continue to deliver high quality service. I do not see the company publicly airing the actions of the malcontents, even though it would no doubt incense the owners to know the details of some of the games being played at their expense.

Short sighted on employee relations? None of the other 4 companies under the NJ umbrella seem to have these employee relation problems....seems its limited to the union groups. I wonder why? Maybe you should consider dealing with Santulli without a union to muck things up and see how things go.

That's just it. This isn't a game to us. This is whether or not some of us can get off of food stamps. This is where we live, what we drive, where our kids go to school, quality of life we have. That's pretty importsant stuff dude. No games here.

Its already been posted by one of your fellow pilots (boasting is a more accurate description) that 98% of the pilots are getting PIC pay now due to the coordinated actions to deliberately circumvent the spirit of the contract. In addition, union officials were quoted in the Columbus Dispatch saying that the pilots average between $50,000 and $72,000. This doesnt sound like a food stamp issue.

Everyone wants more money. I do, you do, its pretty much universal. The important point to remember is that the company has a proposal on the table that makes the pilots the highest paid in the fractional industry. Again...doesnt sound like a food stamp issue.

Oh. Where do you have your resumes out too right now?

Nowhere. In fact, I havent even looked at my resume since I was hired here. Executive Jet/NetJets has been very good to me and I have no reason to look anywhere else.

 

[Diesel]

Familyguy

Who really cares about YOU?

Last time i checked you didn't make the plane go. We do. Elitist Yup but we've trained, and worked hard to get to the position we are at.

You don't have a leg or a say in this fight. So you're just making yourself feel important.

Sad truth is nobody cares.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Well, let's see. What was on the to do list...

Separate from Local 284.
Form new Local 1108.
Learn how to run Local 1108.
Start several volunteer programs and run said programs.
Start to actually enforce existing CBA.
Represent pilots brought in for bogus reasons.
etc, etc, etc.

Yeah. I can see where it might have been a bit of a busy 9 months of gestation for this baby. I bet the address list is one of the items to be corrected but like many other problems a faulty contact list was just another one inherited by the Fab 5 and Local 284. It takes a while to fill in potholes.

New group. Same problems. WAAAAY better solutions that take time to fully implement.

I see the union spinmeisters are out in force to try and explain why 400 of their own didnt participate in the recent strike vote.

you guys are trying hard but there is still something that doesnt ring true in the latest 'explanation'....

if its the old contact list from local 284 that's to blame for the 'no votes' then why was everyone able to vote in the election for a new MEC?

Everyone was able to cast a vote in the election of a new MEC, yet something happened to the list in the intervening 9 months?

 

[FamilyGuy]

Familyguy

Who really cares about YOU?

Last time i checked you didn't make the plane go. We do. Elitist Yup but we've trained, and worked hard to get to the position we are at.

You don't have a leg or a say in this fight. So you're just making yourself feel important.

Sad truth is nobody cares.

Diesel - if you didnt care you wouldnt respond.

Truth is that you get frustrated when I expose the flaws in the arguments on this board.

As I said over a month ago, you should be grateful....I'm giving you free critiques of your negotiation positions....

 

[Hogprint]

FG said:

I see management taking the high road and always telling everyone in the company that the vast majority of pilots are excellent and continue to deliver high quality service. I do not see the company publicly airing the actions of the malcontents, even though it would no doubt incense the owners to know the details of some of the games being played at their expense.

I see management taking the low road every week.

* Tried to have two brothers fired for allegedly sleeping (plenty more to this story you wont hear from the High Roaders)

* crews needlessly being called into CMH for, horror of horrors, delaying a flight at 0400 because they didn't have food, water or brief sheets. Could have been cleared up with a phone call, but instead $1200 in airline tickets later, two work days wasted, plus whatever it cost to get another crew to the plane.

* after crew confirmed with the Death Star that one airport did not have fuel and diverted to another so mission could be completed, Death Star bozos tried to turn around and hang crew out to dry on the issue. Luckily cooler heads prevailed (ACP was old military buddy), and crew did not do the CMH 1 approach

I could go on and I'm sure every pilot here has some good war stories about the High Roaders beating this pilot group like a rented mule.

Can someone give me specific examples of "games being played at owners expense"? Just one good specific example would do.

 

[El Chupacabra]

why don't the non union pukes that don't like working with union flight crews quit and work somewhere else? Union pilots built this company before you got here...

 

[hydrarkt]

Everyone wants more money. I do, you do, its pretty much universal.

Difference between you and us is that most of us could do any of those management jobs. Many of us have. Hardly any of the casino personnel can do our job. You're easily and cheaply replaced. We are not.

 

[Some Dude]

Family Guy....... please the guy doesn't even have the balls to say what department he works in. He wants us to listen to him. He's like background noise. Nobody really listens or cares. He should come out of the closet.

 

[Heavy Set]

Diesel - if you didnt care you wouldnt respond.

Truth is that you get frustrated when I expose the flaws in the arguments on this board.

As I said over a month ago, you should be grateful....I'm giving you free critiques of your negotiation positions....

Dude, NJA pilots are paid far less than their counterparts in the corporate world (same aircraft types) and yet they fly A LOT more on average. Can you refute that?

Schedule or no-schedule, NJA pilots are basically the primary interfaces with your customers. Surprising (or not) that you would treat your "front line" employees with such acrimony when their service is SO CRITICAL to your customer-service ethic... It doesn't make a lot of sense and it is extremely short-sighted. Do you find this level of acrimony between SWA management and pilots? Nope.

It's clear that NJA management has squandered a lot of its cash on inefficiency and cross-subsidization of other divisions (Netjets Europe, NJME, etc.). It's time to INVEST in your pilot group in order to bolster morale and actually improve customer service.

Otherwise, you'll find Flight Safety doing really well financially as many, many NJA newhires are trained in the coming months to cover for attrition (if the strike doesn't happen - although we all know that it will). Well, at least Warren will be happy with Flight Safety's results...

 

[FamilyGuy]

Dude, NJA pilots are paid far less than their counterparts in the corporate world (same aircraft types) and yet they fly A LOT more on average. Can you refute that?

Heavy - no, I cant refute that. But we all know, and its been beat to death on this board, that there are clear, fundamental differences between the corporate jobs and fractional. Staffing ratios for one, schedules for another....

The same logic that says you shouldnt compare us to the airlines says that you shouldnt compare us to the corporate world. The real question is how will this contract compare against the other fractionals?

Schedule or no-schedule, NJA pilots are basically the primary interfaces with your customers. Surprising (or not) that you would treat your "front line" employees with such acrimony when their service is SO CRITICAL to your customer-service ethic... It doesn't make a lot of sense and it is extremely short-sighted. Do you find this level of acrimony between SWA management and pilots? Nope.

Heavy - you're correct - the pilots are the primary interface with the owners and their service & attitude is critical to the success of the product. I know many of our pilots and personally have a lot of respect for the job they do. 95% of our pilots are top-notch professionals and I support them in asking for an industry leading wage. (Fractional industry) Read my previous posts and you'll see that I've stated this numerous times.

What I do not agree with is the tactics that are being employed to try and achieve some of these goals. I find them heavy handed and malicious. While the fight for fair pay is respectable, it does not give the union, or pilots on this board, license to undermine the product the owners receive, slander Mr. Santulli or his duly appointed executives, and generally trash what is a very good company.

It's clear that NJA management has squandered a lot of its cash on inefficiency and cross-subsidization of other divisions (Netjets Europe, NJME, etc.). It's time to INVEST in your pilot group in order to bolster morale and actually improve customer service.

I will be the first to tell you that there is inefficiency and waste in the system. But guess what - there is waste and inefficiency in every company. I've worked at a fair number of companies over the years and I've seen waste everywhere. Dont think that any company out there is perfect.

To be fair, a good part of the waste that I see here is due in large part to the rapid growth of the company. Things that weren't worth focusing on 3 years ago are now so large that they need to be looked at and fixed. That's a good problem to have.

As for investing in NJE, I think a good company is always looking to expand into new markets. Do you want to be part of a company that isn't expanding? That's how you achieve financial stability and we all continue to get raises.

and again, I do agree that the company needs to invest in the pilots and pay them a fair wage. no argument there. But I dont think it should be to "bolster morale and actually improve customer service". It should given because its the right thing to do and the pilots deserve it. I do my job to the best of my abilities every day, regardless of whether I think I should be paid more. Pilots and all other employees should do the same if they are truly professionals.

 

[El Chupacabra]

I support them in asking for an industry leading wage. (Fractional industry)

​

Are fuel prices lower because the fuel goes into a fractional airplane?

​

Forget the Fractional Industry. We are the fractional Industry. If the fractional Industry can only survive by underpaying pilots compared with the rest of Business Aviation... let it die.


even H2 will support that statement.