Lear70
JAFFO
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2003
- Posts
- 7,487
GCD is right about one thing: nothing at PCL is going to change with the current management in place and the puppeteers in MSP pulling their strings. Those over on Nonconnah purposefully teach the kind of behavior we are on the receiving end of. To be more specific, they are taught and encouraged to bend and/or break the contract if the pilot will allow it and coerscion and threats are part of the game. With that kind of corporate culture at work, it's no wonder the rest of the airline just follows along.
That's one of the reasons I'm not as popular in the SOC as those who "play ball" more than others do. I take a hard-line stance on the contract and regs and call b.s. when scheduling, dispatch, or (very rarely) Mx tries to shortcut the system just to get a flight out. If EVERYONE both here and at other regionals started doing that, along with some other very aggressive behavior (within contractual and legal constraints of course), respect would come with it.
Citation Boy (and others who bash from outside our ranks): for the record, not everyone who works at a regional has PFT'd or attended/worked at one of the "accelerated schools" such as Gulfstream (there's a difference between the two although I'm not a real fan of either of them) but it's not my place to tell someone how they should or should not get a job. I had the invitation to PFT here at Pinnacle (at the time Express I) back in '95 and had the money/credit but turned it down and stayed in the charter world for my own personal reasons. Many pilots at regionals have been in charter, corporate, supplemental Part 121, or ALL THREE, even a major before ending up at a regional for whatever reason they find themselves here, so take care how you lump people into one category...
The size of the aircraft doesn't really matter either as far as respect from corporate is concerned; I interviewed at Transmeridian last month for a direct-entry 727 Captain position but turned it down because the pay was only $4k a year more than PCL with only a few more days off a month and ALL the lines have a little reserve built into them and no security. The pay for all these positions is WAY off, and it'll take some hard-line negotiating to get it back into a reasonable realm, especially in regards to starting F/O pay.
For the original thought of how to gain an reasonable level of respect and cooperation with SOC: it would take a very LARGE effort by ALL the pilots here in STRICT enforcement of the contract, refusal to pick up open time, Will Fly days, denial of Junior Manning assignments, etc (there's no contractual requirement to accept a Junior Assignment nor is there a penalty for it, read closely, a lot of senior guys never accept JM assignments and have yet to be disciplined for it). Once they realize that the pilot group has the solidarity to follow through on these issues, they will start being a lot less belligerent (my .02 cents).
The reality: we don't have the cohesiveness inside our group to organize that kind of response and our Association is prohibited by the RLA from organizing something like that - organizing such a response would be considered an illegal job action (see the APA's penalty for doing something similar a few years ago over at AA). Now would be the perfect time for something like that, given that we are drastically understaffed, have lost several crews lately and are down to barely 11% reserve coverage in DTW and have 5 MORE crews timing out in three weeks, not to mention the 30/7 problems they're created for themselves with these lines... >-) I personally like the quote someone else has on here from "The Patriot": "If your principles dictate war, then war is the only answer; it has come to that."
That's one of the reasons I'm not as popular in the SOC as those who "play ball" more than others do. I take a hard-line stance on the contract and regs and call b.s. when scheduling, dispatch, or (very rarely) Mx tries to shortcut the system just to get a flight out. If EVERYONE both here and at other regionals started doing that, along with some other very aggressive behavior (within contractual and legal constraints of course), respect would come with it.
Citation Boy (and others who bash from outside our ranks): for the record, not everyone who works at a regional has PFT'd or attended/worked at one of the "accelerated schools" such as Gulfstream (there's a difference between the two although I'm not a real fan of either of them) but it's not my place to tell someone how they should or should not get a job. I had the invitation to PFT here at Pinnacle (at the time Express I) back in '95 and had the money/credit but turned it down and stayed in the charter world for my own personal reasons. Many pilots at regionals have been in charter, corporate, supplemental Part 121, or ALL THREE, even a major before ending up at a regional for whatever reason they find themselves here, so take care how you lump people into one category...
The size of the aircraft doesn't really matter either as far as respect from corporate is concerned; I interviewed at Transmeridian last month for a direct-entry 727 Captain position but turned it down because the pay was only $4k a year more than PCL with only a few more days off a month and ALL the lines have a little reserve built into them and no security. The pay for all these positions is WAY off, and it'll take some hard-line negotiating to get it back into a reasonable realm, especially in regards to starting F/O pay.
For the original thought of how to gain an reasonable level of respect and cooperation with SOC: it would take a very LARGE effort by ALL the pilots here in STRICT enforcement of the contract, refusal to pick up open time, Will Fly days, denial of Junior Manning assignments, etc (there's no contractual requirement to accept a Junior Assignment nor is there a penalty for it, read closely, a lot of senior guys never accept JM assignments and have yet to be disciplined for it). Once they realize that the pilot group has the solidarity to follow through on these issues, they will start being a lot less belligerent (my .02 cents).
The reality: we don't have the cohesiveness inside our group to organize that kind of response and our Association is prohibited by the RLA from organizing something like that - organizing such a response would be considered an illegal job action (see the APA's penalty for doing something similar a few years ago over at AA). Now would be the perfect time for something like that, given that we are drastically understaffed, have lost several crews lately and are down to barely 11% reserve coverage in DTW and have 5 MORE crews timing out in three weeks, not to mention the 30/7 problems they're created for themselves with these lines... >-) I personally like the quote someone else has on here from "The Patriot": "If your principles dictate war, then war is the only answer; it has come to that."
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