Spirit contract unofficial results?

[GogglesPisano]

this did wonders for UAL in 2000 did it not?, shut'em down lots of other airlines would love to pick up the flying.

It did work wonders for UAL pilots. It led to the best post-dereg contract in the history of the profession.

 

[OrionFE]

Looks like 74 percent of Spirit pilots are a joke! How could they ever vote in a contract without retro pay?

You don't know much about contract negotiations do you!

 

[PCL_128]

You don't know much about contract negotiations do you!

That could be said about almost everyone on Flightinfo.

 

[Dewey Oxberger]

Actually, there are a lot of other options to ensure good faith bargaining. You can build in deadlines into the duration section of the agreement. You can include early openers for groups of sections rather than waiting for the full Section 6 opener. You can include automatic pay bumps every year past the amendable date. The list goes on.

Clinging to the hope of full retro pay is no way to force a company to bargain in good faith, because quite frankly, companies don't have enough cash laying around to pay full retro pay. This isn't 1999 anymore, folks. If you wait around for full retro, you're the only one that's going to get screwed, not the company, because they're never going to end up paying it. Think outside of the box to find ways to force them to bargain in good faith.

Really? Let's say this thing drags on for 2 more years. That's 3.5 years without a contract for CAL, 2.5 for UAL. An average retro check per pilot of $100K per pilot in this case is very reasonable, if not on the low side. Multiply by 11,000 and you come up with $1.1 billion, while our combined company currently has around $8.5 bil in the bank, and hopefully more by the time the JCBA is signed. I would also be in favor of spreading the retro out over a 2-3 year time frame. This would greatly reduce our tax liability, meaning more take home $$$, and would decrease the financial burden on the company, which should be smiled upon by the NMB. Seems affordable to me.

 

[PCL_128]

If you think the NMB is going to "smile on" a demand for over a billion dollars in retro pay, then you don't know much about the NMB. But hey, good luck with that!

 

[pilotyip]

It did work wonders for UAL pilots. It led to the best post-dereg contract in the history of the profession.

For how long and in the long run it was not getting management's attention, it was driving away customers, particularily first class. Who took their money elsewhere after being inconvienced

 

[PCL_128]

yip, I'm generally opposed to this illegal job action BS that the guys around here like to talk about, but you're crazy if you think the Summer of Love at UAL did anything to drive customers away for more than a few weeks. Passengers care about one thing: price. As long as the UAL ticket shows up at the top of the Expedia list, that's what they'll purchase, regardless of how long their taxi to the gate took 10 years ago.

Pilot illegal job actions are generally counter-productive to achieving contracts, but they aren't going to drive away customers for longer than a month or two.

 

[Raoul Duke]

what about having a code that pilots can use to tell if they should wear their hats or not?

 

[jonjuan]

yip, I'm generally opposed to this illegal job action BS that the guys around here like to talk about, but you're crazy if you think the Summer of Love at UAL did anything to drive customers away for more than a few weeks. Passengers care about one thing: price. As long as the UAL ticket shows up at the top of the Expedia list, that's what they'll purchase, regardless of how long their taxi to the gate took 10 years ago.

Pilot illegal job actions are generally counter-productive to achieving contracts, but they aren't going to drive away customers for longer than a month or two.

You're crazy if you don't think the summer of love had long term ramifications on corporate accounts. At the time, my brother was an exec with a fortune 500 company and after the numerous travel headaches they switched much of their flying to AA and DAL, much of which was using international and domestic premium fares. The average customer may only care about the cheapest ticket when flying to see grandma, however, many corporate travel departments care more about getting business done in a timely manner. It's these customers who are the most valuable.

 

[pilotyip]

yip, I'm generally opposed to this illegal job action BS that the guys around here like to talk about, but you're crazy if you think the Summer of Love at UAL did anything to drive customers away for more than a few weeks. Passengers care about one thing: price. As long as the UAL ticket shows up at the top of the Expedia list, that's what they'll purchase, regardless of how long their taxi to the gate took 10 years ago.

Pilot illegal job actions are generally counter-productive to achieving contracts, but they aren't going to drive away customers for longer than a month or two.

Only know what I read in the pubs, I see a touch of reality in your post lately, nice to see

 

[Lear70]

and after all the "No" chatter, 74% yes, that is almost like a land slide

You said it...

I figured it would pass, but was thinking more 60/40.

However, 74% only tells me the NUMBER that voted YES, not WHY they did it. I would hazard a guess that at least 10-20% of those YES votes came from people who were just worn down and didn't WANT to go back on strike or AFRAID to go back on strike for fear or being put on ice, or some other such nonsense.

In the end, it's their contract; they have to deal with it for the next decade or so... The good news? It shows the NMB that strikes DO result in contracts and DO work without killing the company. Hopefully that will equate to more negotiating leverage for all the OTHER carriers moving forward.

 

[Skyboy722]

I agree that you need to make them pay, but full retro is usually impossible once it drags on for more than a couple of years. Full retro here at AirTran would cost something like $150 million. That's a full third of what they have in cash, and a lot of that cash is really debt. Think that's going to happen? Of course not. We'll get something to make them pay, but full retro just isn't going to happen.

150 MILLION?!!?!?! WOW! I don't want to get into public math but unless you guys have about 150,000 pilots that is one hell of a retro check! Where did you come up with this number?!

 

[Lear70]

150 MILLION?!!?!?! WOW! I don't want to get into public math but unless you guys have about 150,000 pilots that is one hell of a retro check! Where did you come up with this number?!

It's not rocket science...

1,700 pilots
$20,000 per year lost in annual COLA raises
5+ years past the amendable date

= $170 Million

Of course, that's just rough math. AirTran's only had 1,700 pilots for 2 of those 5 years, so that reduces that figure somewhat, but SOME seniority levels (especially the F/O's) are looking at a LOT more yearly lost ($30,000 approx difference in current pay scale to proposed pay scale in new T.A. yearly), so it averages that figure back upwards.

I'd say $150 Million is probably accurate, and reflects what I've heard from individual AirTran MEC reps.

Or,,, by your math,,, 150,000 pilots would get a $1,000 retro check? I get $1,000 for 5 years of negotiations and not getting a COLA raise? Yeah,,, ummm,,, not so much, but thanks anyway.

 

[Mike man]

...come up with $1.1 billion...

I think you mean:

...that they have stolen from your wallet...

How many years have they paid the CEO huge bonuses?
How many years has the sonority list been working for concessionary wages?

The second that contract was put in writing as a TA, management knew that the amendable date would come...it is not like it is (or was) a big surprise when the end of the contract would arrive. But management knows they can drag on and on because the NMB will never do anything.

Maybe ALPA's new slogan should be "Let's get it back through illegal job action, because if you do things according to the law the labor group will loose millions and millions of dollars while management drags out the negotiations and the CEO will get a huge bonus while he furloughs the junior pilots because he is too stupid to run an airline (but he has an MBA from Harvard, which qualifies him to be the CEO of any business) and has made horrible business decisions."

 

[relief tube]

that contract is ********************tier than some regionals. What a bar-lowering sunafabitch