Pinnacle gets TA

[dondk]

Whatever. Along with TSA, XJet, Comair, ASA, etc. Cry me a river.

You were the one challenging someone about raising the bar. With what I've heard (rumor only) your MEC may have set a new low. It doesn't take much to raise the bar when your group is looking to lower the standard.

For what it is worth, I never challenged anyone about raising the bar. I've been on the compliance side of the 9E contract for years. I know well where it currently is and the most it can go. There is no way they could raise the bar, none, nada. Perhaps in a section or two, maybe on a good day 3-4. Overall, the 9E contract is to far below ALL the others, the best case could only be average.

 

[dondk]

The company has no motivation because you have not given them any. Why would they care about giving you anything that makes your life better? You PCL pilots keep doing all that you can do for a company that doesn't care about you, but reaps the rewards from your efforts. Every day that they don't have to deal with a new contract is a day that they save money. XJT was the last group to really get retro pay. ASA shouldn't have settled for the "signing bonus" that they did, but I'd bet it was better than what PCL is looking at.

You are preaching to the choir on "doing all you can do". I agree 100%.
To counter though, in 04-06 the motivation of the pilot group was to do the time and get out (much like prison). Bunch of growth, jets, upgrades and many could look beyond the inadequacies. It was not a "bad" place, just not a great place, we knew where we stood in the regional world. No one had the dream of retiring from the place!

When it all came to an end, then people started to get serious, the company also became serious. It is the only place I know where negative reinforcement is the mantra. There is no relief via the contract, there is no relief any other way other than quitting. With no one hiring, what choice is left? A lousy job is still a job!

Finally as a contract carrier, when the mgmt goes and gets the bottom basement deal, there is nothing the pilot group can get because the mgmt has nothing to bargain with. You cannot get better pass bennies when mgmt gave them all away. You can only bargain for what is available, that is the dilemna this pilot group has. DCI cuts the flying, they lose bargaining power.

 

[PCL_128]

I wonder who brought forward the resolution to recall WG.

DTW FO rep, from what I'm hearing.

 

[Tarzan]

For what it is worth, I never challenged anyone about raising the bar.

My apologies on that one. Manfred made the quip, not you.

 

[WildBlue]

From what I heard the DTW FO rep and MSP FO rep did the motion. I also heard that one of the reps (I think the ATL FO) said that WG talked to them like they were children so he voted to recall. (Heard that from one of the CA reps.)

Bottom line, WG has been out of the top job for two years. This is SE's MEC, and if they didn't like what the NC was doing, they had years to fix it. WG is a sacrifice to the 300 hour JetU constituency. For him, it is a blessing....I'm not sure about the rest of us. He did a lot of good work and will be missed.

 

[redflyer65]

I've heard that..

1. During WG's MEC tenure, there was NO communication.

2. At the start of SE's reign there was continuous communcation.

3. When WG became Vice Chair, it went back to number one.


For what it's worth......

make your own opinion.

 

[manfred33]

My apologies on that one. Manfred made the quip, not you.

Actually, it was Rockit85s sarcastic-@ss remark about us raising the bar that caused me to ask the question. The bar that we are trying to raise is for our own pilots, #1, and then, if possible, for the regionals in general. But, as some others have already posted, much of our TA was negotiated a few years ago, and there's no going back to renegotiate those sections without being accused of bargaining in bad faith, etc... And of course there is the fact that our contract was so miserably horrible to begin with, that we are really trying to improve things on our property before we worry about tryng to "raise the bar" for every other crappy regional out there. I shouldn't really be repeating any of this crap, because it has already been said by others, more eloquently. Just get annoyed when some punk feels that Pinnacle hasn't "raised the bar" enough for the rest of the poor slobs out there. We'll worry about our own people first and then if we can, try to get something close to industry leading... Freaking TA hasn't even been voted on yet by our MEC, and people are worried about whether or not we have an 'INDUSTRY-LEADING" contract yet. Christ, most of the pilot group hasn't even seen it yet, so just shut yer yaps..

 

[dondk]

I've heard that..

1. During WG's MEC tenure, there was NO communication.

2. At the start of SE's reign there was continuous communcation.

3. When WG became Vice Chair, it went back to number one.


For what it's worth......

make your own opinion.

I am not going to defend either party, but I will say that I would not be surprised if some of this is smoke and mirrors.

WG groomed SE for the chair, it was well known within certain circles that WG was stepping down and SE stepping up. I will say I was floored when WG took the 2nd position ( I did not see that coming).

WG in the early years had lousy communication, when BB was around though we had pretty good communication. If anything WG kept some things too close, but there was always climb and maintain and in the later years PDH.

SE took over and communication waned a bit, lets be honest how many notices of "we will tell you what happened in a few days" that became vapor? SE keeps things close too, I never knew WG to sell of grievances for FPL, SE does which is no different from some of the comments that WG didn't give a hoot about anyone junior to him.

Regardless, neither are innocent, neither are "lily white", what happens now and going forward is SE legacy. Time will tell...


For the NC committee and "fixing it"... C'mon, they are on the 3rd iteration of the NC committee. If they really wanted it "fixed" they would have disbanded them years ago, instead as each team flew the coop for SWA, JB or DAL they back filled. Not that the current team is bad, but the current team really never had a chance. It is either they did not want to fix it, or they couldn't. I'd lean towards that they couldn't, and if this TA goes nowhere this is the opportunity to fix it.

 

[WildBlue]

Some good points. I disagree that comm was "lousy" in the early years. WG was doing everything....new hires, representations, grievances. His Vice Chair never did any work. You are right about BB. He put together a network that has just gone down hill. Comm is run by MSP FO Rep and he has let the whole thing wither away to nothing. PDHs with no info at all. That is the comm network.

Say what you want about WG, but at least he didn't hide in his office. Remember him coming to up here to DTW and taking questions for hours. We have never seen SE. All we have are Dr. No and Minnie-me.

IMO, the ox is really in the ditch. The talent pool is zero. No volunteers who actually do any work and a bunch of names on a volunteer roster who only want to get their cell phones paid for or run tabs at the nearest bar at MEC meetings. pathetic.

 

[dondk]

Some good points. I disagree that comm was "lousy" in the early years. WG was doing everything....new hires, representations, grievances. His Vice Chair never did any work. You are right about BB. He put together a network that has just gone down hill. Comm is run by MSP FO Rep and he has let the whole thing wither away to nothing. PDHs with no info at all. That is the comm network.

Say what you want about WG, but at least he didn't hide in his office. Remember him coming to up here to DTW and taking questions for hours. We have never seen SE. All we have are Dr. No and Minnie-me.

IMO, the ox is really in the ditch. The talent pool is zero. No volunteers who actually do any work and a bunch of names on a volunteer roster who only want to get their cell phones paid for or run tabs at the nearest bar at MEC meetings. pathetic.

I will give you that about WG in the early years. I remember him at my new hire presentation, but I cannot speak a bad word about GT who was VC until he retired. The communication though was not the best, I am talking the real early days before those 2 northern bases came to their own. The time period when DTW had that smelly trailer not to far from the golf course.

PDH these days are odd, you have to realize that the PDH is not always accurate, it is what they want you to hear. That's the big difference from WG period. That is why I mentioned smoke and mirror, it is not all what it appears to be.

There are some GOOD volunteers that do work and don't milk the ALPA gravy train, there have always been people just being placeholders on some committee. If we were not losing the MSP office, I guarantee you the MEC would have been moved to MSP. You have a chair that is in it for the $$$$, just ask DD the DTW BM about the many months of less than 30 block with 130+ credit months back a few years ago. It was DTW's own DM (ABM) that found that oddity.

Regardless, I am sure there were excesses under WG, so neither are innocent. The one difference though, under WG is someone stepped out of line, it was not a public smack down. When JH went slightly over it was done discretely for him to move aside. Recently, you have public petitions, very public recalls and a smack down of a former union leader who is well respected. We never had that under WG, it was always done with discretion.