Virgin question for Spirit pilots

[LoveGun]

The first serious union drive at VA is on. Cards are being sent.

I have a question for Spirit pilots. Did the Spirit IPO help you negotiate your contract? At Virgin, many of us believe that our best chance to quickly come to terms with management is if we organize and begin negotiations pre-IPO. Management won't want to float the IPO until all loose ends are tied. What do you think?

 

[enigma]

Wall street doesn't like unions. Meaning that big money doesn't like unions. Meaning that your investors don't like unions. Meaning that Virgin will fight you tooth and nail no matter when you start the drive. Our MEC choose to ignore the IPO and negotiate the contract they wanted, period. None of us really know if the impending IPO affected the negotiations or not.

The MEC and negotiators actually stated in road shows that they believed the IPO would never happen. Meaning that we probably aren't a good place to gather evidence about how an IPO will affect your drive.

Good Luck!

 

[B6Busdriver]

The first serious union drive at VA is on. Cards are being sent.

I have a question for Spirit pilots. Did the Spirit IPO help you negotiate your contract? At Virgin, many of us believe that our best chance to quickly come to terms with management is if we organize and begin negotiations pre-IPO. Management won't want to float the IPO until all loose ends are tied. What do you think?

Do it now before you end up like JetBlue. The sooner the better!

 

[troll565]

The first serious union drive at VA is on. Cards are being sent.

I have a question for Spirit pilots. Did the Spirit IPO help you negotiate your contract? At Virgin, many of us believe that our best chance to quickly come to terms with management is if we organize and begin negotiations pre-IPO. Management won't want to float the IPO until all loose ends are tied. What do you think?

The NMB forced both sides to settle during Day 4 of our strike. We were still private. Our IPO wasn't announced until months later. Plus, our Stews are still in negotiations, and were during the IPO announcement.

 

[pilotyip]

Been there done that, unions are limited in what they can deliver. Watch out for private companies, the owners ego may cause him to say screw it. One thing they can not deliver is job security. I was ALPA at TransAmerican (L-188/DC-8), 1978-79, owner decided he could make more money selling airplanes than flying them, going backward in seniority, airline ended up in 1982 with C-130's in Angola Africa and New Guinea. Folded in 1984, I bailed to the corp. world in 1979. Handwriting was on the wall and there was nothing a union could do to protect my job. Zantop Teamsters (L-188) in 1996, union got in by one vote, first pay raise on contract due 3-26-1997, owner shut the company down on 3-25-1997. Jimmy Zantop figured why risk my $35M, Nothing a union could do to protect my job. But indirectly, enlightened management knows you have to match industry standards to be competitive in retaining and attracting employees. Therefore employees at those non-union companies benefit from the union company work rules without having to pay dues. BTW Unions are in the business of selling dues. If the Teamsters were as enlightened as many of the higher quality managers, they would understand you just lost your job and needed every nickel to feed yourself and not take that $100 out of your last paycheck, which included credit for earned vacation days.