Please help a fellow union brother not SCAB.

[G4dude]

I also planned on being a corporate pilot. My degree is in business and I was affiliated with a Fortune 500 company during my first career. When I began flying I planned on parlaying my business experience into a corporate Fortune 500 gig. Needless to say that didn't happen. All throughout my flying career I understood that you have to adapt and take flying jobs where they presented themselves. I can only assume you found yourself in a similar position.

You had to understand that you may end up in your current situation. I find it hard to believe that someone with the experience required to attain the job you accepted did not know what they were getting themselves in to. You took the job and seem like you enjoy it. Suck it up and embrace the union or quit if that is too much for you. If you continue down the road you are currently on the job and your fellow employees will become unbearable. You can't change the direction of your current work environment, embrace it or move on if you can't face the alternative.

What you say is reasonable. I just wish unions could do their thing without intimidating those members who disagree sometimes with the leadership.

 

[G4dude]

I don't know anything about your union and who is leading it, so I can't comment on whether they're radicals or not. I do agree with you that far too often, radicals do get control, and it's certainly not a good thing. The only reason we ended getting screwed so badly at AirTran was because a group of radicals got control of the MEC, put people in positions who had no idea what they were doing, and then they got completely steamrolled by a management team that did know what it was doing. So I sympathize if you're dealing with radical know-nothings.

But regardless, a union is a democracy. The "right" side doesn't always win in a democracy. Sometimes the people demand something that isn't in their best interest. And they are entitled to do so. It's their choice. If you happen to wind up on the losing side, you have to suck it up and go along with what the democratic process has dictated. I can't stand the fact that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on military waste, but I can't simply refuse to pay my taxes because of it. I have to go along with what the democratic process has determined, even if I don't like it. Striking is no different. You may disagree with your fellow pilots on the decision that they've made, but they've made it democratically, so it's your duty to accept it and make the best of it. Stabbing everyone else in the back is not an option.

Another reasonable post. It's just the union coercion I dislike. Anyway, I have shot my bolt, said what I came here to say. Thanks to all, truly, for the passionate and often enlightening conversation on this thread. I also received several very nice private messages, thanks for those also.

 

[Diesel]

Another reasonable post. It's just the union coercion I dislike. Anyway, I have shot my bolt, said what I came here to say. Thanks to all, truly, for the passionate and often enlightening conversation on this thread. I also received several very nice private messages, thanks for those also.

We look forward to you getting involved in your own union and have questions answered on that message board too.

Also those free tickets for the picket are still available. Look forward to seeing you there supporting your fellow brothers on the line.

 

[Flopgut]

Nevermind

 

[livin'thesim]

Let him cross. And let him pay the price.

And I would say de-friend him. Because unless he is willing to correct his stubborn and childish thinking, he is the kind of person who will rat out a fellow pilot, or cut side deals with the company (go around the contract, etc.).

He is already lost. Make it socially uncomfortable and he will soften.

 

[G4dude]

Let him cross. And let him pay the price.

And I would say de-friend him. Because unless he is willing to correct his stubborn and childish thinking, he is the kind of person who will rat out a fellow pilot, or cut side deals with the company (go around the contract, etc.).

He is already lost. Make it socially uncomfortable and he will soften.

You need to actually read my posts. I do NOT plan to scab.

 

[Flopgut]

We look forward to you getting involved in your own union and have questions answered on that message board too.

Also those free tickets for the picket are still available. Look forward to seeing you there supporting your fellow brothers on the line.

Who/where are you picketing?

 

[Diesel]

Who/where are you picketing?

Berkshire shareholder meeting.

 

[gutshotdraw]

Who/where are you picketing?

In addition to some short-notice "flash picketing" at certain events (Phoenix last weekend during the Super Bowl), our next MAJOR event is the Berkshire Hathaway stockholders meeting in Omaha the first weekend in May.

I will be there with many other colleagues carrying a sign to raise the awareness of BH stockholders and perhaps Mr. Buffett himself as to the damage being done to the NetJets brand by the poor decision making and failed "leadership" of CEO Jordan Hansell. Because, until he is removed from the equation, the future of our careers and our company is in serious jeopardy.

 

[Flopgut]

I'd picket with you if I was in the area. Wish you all best of luck.

 

[Diesel]

I'd picket with you if I was in the area. Wish you all best of luck.

Thanks we need all the support we can get.

 

[realityman]

I disagree. The company has to negotiate with us, and the clock is running out for them.

This is where your inexperience with unions and how negotiations work really shows.

In a nutshell, you are wrong on this. Your continual reliance on this same belief over and over and over in spite of being told otherwise by people who do have the experience is either willful ignorance on your part or you're just an optimist to a fault.

They do not HAVE to negotiate with us. Look up "surface bargaining". Then look at the history of our management's "negotiations" with our own F/A's as well as our own group and maybe it'll become more clear for you.

They will only negotiate with us seriously when they have INCENTIVE to do so. And no, a negotiating committee sitting across the table with scowls on their faces, arms crossed, demands made, spittal flying, and "vigorously negotiating" as you keep suggesting, is not the incentive that will get anything done. Try asking any of the airline folks here who have been through this just how well "vigorously negotiating" (by the way, would you mind explaining to me exactly what that means to you and how our negotiators should carry that out? I honestly am not sure what that is.) without leverage from the membership works.

Do you WANT to strike? If not, there are ways to get what we want without striking, but it would require the participation of almost everyone. Agree or disagree, a HUGE turnout at the pickets is great leverage. Do the social media tweets your union asks you to. Fly the FAR's, CBA, AFM, FOM, AOM and other controlling documents to the letter. Trust me, following ALL the regs and policies exactly as you're supposed to does not work in the company's favor, and is perfectly legal. If everyone would do this, and I do mean EVERYONE, we would not need a strike AND this would be done quickly.

Instead what we actually get is a bunch of people pontificating about what is "right" and "wrong" in negotiations, how they'll only do things they agree with, or how they think simply paying dues will get it done, or how they "wish" it would go, or it really comes down to the negotiating committee, or how scabs help keep the company afloat during a strike (are you sh****ng me with that one?!). All very intellectual and philosophical. And all guaranteed to drag negotiations out for a very long time, and even work against a positive outcome for the union.

Stop over thinking it. Collectively we aren't the MENSA society. It's a union. If we are to be a SUCCESSFUL union then we need (figurative) baseball bats, not philosophy major textbooks. If you are ever brought in for discipline, do you want a union steward who acts buddy-buddy with the company and who wants meaningful dialogue to reach an amicable conclusion where you get your "fair" comeuppance, or do you want a pit bull with you who has only ONE goal in mind: to keep you out of the frying pan entirely and who will tell the company to go f*** themselves in no uncertain terms if necessary, and who will use every means at his disposal to protect you, even if it means things aren't "amicable" or "reasonable" between the union and company? How do you want your dues used? Why should it be any other way in negotiations?

 

[ghostrider64]

What you say has a lot of merit. I mainly wish unions could operate without intimidation of some of its members.

We could if you and your ilk would get in line immediately when the call to so is made, however your "procrastination/get er done" attitude delays the process for years. YOU are the reason this process will be PROLONGED. Not intimidation, just a simple fact that you don't seem to comprehend.

 

[Sky Captain]

What you say is reasonable. I just wish unions could do their thing without intimidating those members who disagree sometimes with the leadership.

I wish COMPANIES would do the same. Intimidations from management over maintenance issues, fatigue policy, etc. Now we hear FlexJet has FIRED 2 pilots for just try to organize a democratic vote by the pilots to see IF they want to join the a Teamsters or not. What is more intimidating than that?

 

[Flopgut]

I wish COMPANIES would do the same. Intimidations from management over maintenance issues, fatigue policy, etc. Now we hear FlexJet has FIRED 2 pilots for just try to organize a democratic vote by the pilots to see IF they want to join the a Teamsters or not. What is more intimidating than that?

This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

G4dude: when the Union frustrates you, keep this in mind

 

[Crobar]

Great on you guys for trying to convert G4wanttobedude. I tried over and over to make my older brother understand Unions are for the working man... but he was enlisted in air force for 26 years made it up to E8 and he refuses to see that Unions are here to protect the worker. He blocks out everything.. all he sees is managements side.

Maybe he will understand when he scabs and is treated like trash, spit on for the rest of his life. I wish everyone knew who all the scabs were.. that needs to be known. I flew with a scab a few times.. without knowing he was an Eastern scab.. and IOE instructor.. what a POS.

 

[Flycatcher99]

On an completely unrelated-to-Netjets topic, I suspect that I'm not the only member of this board who finds it wildly hilarious that the irony of your comment about "decid[ing] that you'd rather quit" is somehow lost on you, PCL.

Another "mission accomplished"? :blush:

Bubba

I'll second this post.

 

[SharkRider]

We used to have a couple of scabs on our seniority list, one of which went to NJA just in time to get furloughed

 

[ghostrider64]

We used to have a couple of scabs on our seniority list, one of which went to NJA just in time to get furloughed

Sadly our union doesn't have a voice at the interview/hiring table.

 

[G4dude]

Sadly our union doesn't have a voice at the interview/hiring table.

God forbid. What a joke, having a union, which invested NOTHING in the company, having input regarding who gets hired.