Union Busters

[Spencer]

There at it again. The company union busters are spouting off misinformation like it is coming out of a fire hose. They are saying things like "The uaw can force you to strike."

Article 50 Section one of the UAW constitution REQUIRES a 2/3 majority vote of the members to authorize a strike.

I urge all you to get educated on the UAW constitution. Learn the facts and vote based on the facts not what a Union Buster in a MANDATORY company meeting is telling you.

Here's a link if you want to read it online.
http://www.uawndm.com/library/constitution/

Know the facts!!!!

 

[pilotyip]

Not what he said

Not what I heard, deflection again, he said it is typical during negotiations for the union to ask for a strike vote long before a strike to show the company the union has some muscle during negotiations, The union says, but we won't use it it is only a bargining tool. Then when the strike is called, it can be executed without another vote. But then again maybe you guys are smarter than that and would not give a strike vote. USA Jet is a great place to work and does not need a union. You are selling a lemon and the the pretty paint is only skin deep.

 

[Spencer]

That was not the spin we got from the union buster. He implied that the UAW would make us strike which is not the case. We the pilots, ARE the union. Not the UAW. We negotiate, we vote to strike, this is not an outside entity, it IS the pilot group.

 

[Rick1128]

As pilots we really do not want or need to strike. I have been in the Teamsters. ALPA amd a couple of in-house unions. In an 'airline' situation, as long has you are on the property, you control the airplanes. And when you control the airplanes you have some power. Look what happened at Eastern and Continental. One of the best tools here is working 110% to the rules. And that includes written company policy, company GOM, FARs, AFM, training manual, etc. No shortcuts. You will be surprised how much attention that gets from management. And there is not a darn thing they can do about it.

Striking is the last thing you want to do. Another thing to find out is how much support your union 'brothers' will give you when you walk. When I was in the Teamsters, our 'brothers' told us 'Rots of ruck' . And that was all the support we got.

 

[cfh]

Having attended each of these meetings, I know (and I believe most of our pilots know) what was said by our consultant. He did not misrepresent the facts. He didn't want to and we wouldn't let him do that anyway. Our strategy is to get the facts out and to back up everything we say with documentation and proof. The legal requirements placed upon the company by the National Mediation Board with respect to what we can and can not say are very specific in this respect.
The vast majority of negotiations, after union recognition, begin with the union obtaining pocket strike authority from the membership. The union does that to assure that the management side undersatnds what the union's leverage is. Our consultant explained that and then he made clear that the union has the right to call that strike if it deems it necessary in the future.
In any case, I beleive the majority of the pilot team listened to us and, if they had not already voted, took our position and arguments into proper account; and they will make their decisions with more complete knowledge than they had prior to our meetings.

 

[de727ups]

Pilot YIP

I think it's pretty funny the way you are squealing like a baby over this vote. I love watching management squirm...

 

[falcondriver]

I don't know much about unions but I know a little about cargo operations and how pilots come and go at the smaller cargo operators. I'm curious how effective a union is when the pilots that vote on things don't stay very long (2-4 years)?
Just curious...
FD

 

[LUVTUL]

very good point Falcondriver!!!!
A union at USA Jet will not do a darn thing for those guys---except make them wish that they had not voted in a union at all. Like I have said, I am not anti-union, however in the "On-demand" frieght industry, it is next to impossible and a waste of time to have a union. The pilots at USA Jet dont realize that there will not be a "big raise" or "more days off". The only benefit they may realize will be that management will be more closely watched as far as repercusssions go when dealing with the pilots. That in and off itself would be nice to have, but for any other benefits they will be sadly disappointed.
Also, I hope the Pilots realize that once they sign into the Union, Management will take as long as possible before coming to any agreements----keeping in mind that any benefits you now have will be FROZEN until they get a contract, which by my experience could be a couple of years.
So then all the pilots get pissed off and strike--great then you are all out of jobs--not exactly the best time in the industry to be jobless. Good luck to all.

BTW: Since most of the pilots at USA Jet have never stucki together at all-----it would surprise me how many would ever vote to strike. Hard to do when you have such a diverse difference in money, days off, single, married, kids etc between Falcon drivers and -9 drivers.

 

[Spencer]

This is the same rhetoric they were using at Mesaba. Things like they will all be on the street, bad time to be looking for a job etc... but they still managed to get a TA that they seem to be happy with.

As for the post about things at USA Jet. First look at the date. Second it was there to provoke conversation. Maybe if MGMT spent more time fixing the problems instead of surfing the message boards for messages that over a year old they wouldn't be having a vote in the first place.

Lastly, USA Jet isn't just a on demand freight carrier. The are into schedules passneger charters too. They are becoming an airline not just a fly by night ad- hoc freighter and need to start acting like one.

 

[pilotyip]

Can not compare Mesaba

Mesaba was an economic strike, and with their wages they had nothing to loose, the USA Jet union action is not about pay, when a 1st year DA-20 F/O makes more than a 5th year Mesaba Capt., even with their TA they are not even going to come close to the USA Jet pay scale, do not compare apples with goat milk. As far as scheduled passenger charters, we cannot fly scheduled anything, are you sure you are a pilot, you still did not answer you that know what a 150 day is. or are you a management buster impersonating as pilot? Check the answer to your posts not only from me, but from others you are off base.

 

[TWB]

150 Days

I think management would prefer if we just forgot about those.

 

[pilotyip]

Selective memory

The maximum anyone ever got for 150 days was 5, most pilots got 2 or 3. It was patch work incentive to fly, and needed to be fixed. Part of the 2002 pay plan was to give both airplanes an addtional 13 days off per year and eliminate the inequity of the 150 day system, a majority of the pilots thought it was a good trade off. How come spencer did not answer this?

 

[cruxx@9]

FALCON DRIVER

You are very correct with the statement of the average freight company. Most on demand freight companies are "time builders". Average years of employment is less than 4 years.

This place is different. Granted, there are many here that are only here because the job market is sucketh right now. But there are quite a few that plan on making this their career place. When I came here, I was under the impression that is what USA Jet was. A place to hang out for a while, or a place to hang your hat for the long haul. This is not true for the Falcon obviously, but if given the opportunity to move to the DC9 one could actually be happy working here for many years. If you look at our hiring minimums we are looking for the pilots that are not just time building. We generally look for the pilots that have experience from the competion.

A union contract may benefit those individuals that plan on staying here 5 or 10 years or more. You are correct in your statement that the average young time builder would not overly benefit from a contract, but one has to make a hard decision on what would be benificial for the greater pilot population.

The company has now had thier chance to put thier side of the story out there. Some of it was good, some of it was skeptical. Now we have to make our best decision based on both sides.

Keep 'em in the green

 

[cruxx@9]

Back to the issue...

Back to the "union buster" issue of what this post was really started as. That was the one part of the mandatory meeting that I was really turned off by. When Randy (the union buster) got up there to talk, he made me sick to my stomach. He is such a small person, not on the outside he is actually quite pudgey, but inside he is a small disrespectful person. He made a few statements that shows what he is really all about, such as how much he belittled people that work for a living. Just because someone gets his hands dirty at work does not make him a lessor human being in my eyes, but obviously in his. Just because someone doesn't make $2,000 a day spreading the anti union bullsh*t, he thinks they are less of a person because of his salary. He has no respect for anyone but himself, so how can I respect him. His little talk pushes more to the union side every day. His totally anti union views got old really, really quick. If you want to discuss why a union is good or bad for USA Jet that is one thing and I'll listen with an open mind. But to just slam unions as a whole lost me in the first ten minutes. His anti union stance as a whole I believe distorted his information from the start.

So I suppose I should thank him for helping make my decision.

 

[pilotyip]

Check the facts spencer

Very interesting link at the start of this thread, have you read it?
More info on this on the bulletin board at work.

 

[Spencer]

Yes, I know what a 150 day WAS. You got a free day off for every 150 hours you fly the preceeding year.

I also know what layover pay WAS. An pay incentive for being stuck on the road that increased the longer you were on the road. I also know that you were not able to collect availability pay and layover pay at the same time.

I also know that USA Jet should ask for a refund from their union buster. He, as stated in above postings, was unprofessional, arrogant and rude. He is the best union advocate we have. Everytime he opened his mouth and cut someone off we got more votes. Everytime he referred to us a US Air, or US Air Jets we got more votes. I've talked to guys who were dead set against unions until they went to one of these MANDATORY meetings and were unable to ask a question without this guy cutting them off or totally misunderstanding the question. My impression of the guy was that he used to be muscle for the Teamsters. Money well spent.

 

[Publishers]

What

What you all have to ask yourselves is one simple question, do we have the numbers in terms of people to be a significant addition to the union we are joining.

While everyone has developed all the really cool catch phrases, the fact is that I have rarely seen a union be very productive in a company of this size. In fact, all the complaints about ALPA, which is a pilot union, and the regional membership should serve as an example that it is all about numbers from the unions perspective.