What did Mesa agree to??

[skybuda]

DruDown

Nice post, you are the first in two day to think before laying eveything that has gone wrong in the last two years on Mesa. Many are saying that there were no gains, yes it look as if there were no gains, but that is compared to other contracts. When looked at Mesa first contract, and yes this is only the second contract in Mesa's history, there are some gains. There could have been nice pay raised for the jet guys at mesa but that would have came form a B scale for all the prop guys, and yes that is what Mgmt wanted a B scale for the prop guys, so they had to go get the best for they whole group. What else did they get: all CCAir guys are back to work after being off for a year, in this day and age bring them back was also not a easy thing. Evey one out there rips Mesa on the 70 hour bid and 8/10 days off but remember that they are on a 13 bid a year system not 12 so those also have to be adjusted 75.83 per bid 104 day off on resurve no 96 or a average of 8.6 and 130 off for a line holder not 120 or 10.8. Still not that good by any mesure but better than they look on the outside. Pay rates would also have to be look at the same way. If company B has a 75 hour bid then you would have to readjust Mesa's 50,60,70,80 pay rate to 50.50,60.60,70.70,80.80. Yes I know that there are no trip and duty rigs, ect, but eveyone out there is screaming up and down on the payrates and days off. ASA, ACO, CMR, ARW, and some of EGL rate are higher be a few bucks, but the rest are within a dime or two.

I know this contract SUCK from front to back, that is why I am one of the 160+ that voted it down, but I had to try to find a dim of light some where.

 

[CitationLover]

bobbysamd,

i would imagine mesa (i don't know though) is incorporated in Delaware due to corporate tax laws being favorable there.

would the fact that this is collectively bargained create any loopholes within the laws? (kinda like the loophole congress enjoys - not having to follow its own laws) i know that with pensions, collective bargaining supersedes nondiscrimination laws, etc.

 

[bobbysamd]

Broncos

On a side note, Broncos in '03-'04? I miss John and Terrell!

With all due respect to Mr. Beurlein, Jake is better than what they've had at quarterback, but he'll really need to cut his turnovers to make a difference. They also need to tighten up the O-line. In all fairness, after Nalen went out the line had something like three new starters and one position change.

Defense? I dunno yet about the D-line and secondary. Gardener will help but they need a real RDE - Chike Okeafor would fill the bill nicely if they sign him from the 49ers. If Deltha would play up to his potential the pass defense would be better.

They might have a chance if all pieces fall in place. The Raiders won't be as good, especially after Chuckie figured out their passing attack. Other teams will emulate his game plan. San Diego and the Chiefs might be better.

I still think the jury duty thing at Mesa is unlawful.

 

[Publishers]

stance

Those were some of the best posts that I have seen here.

What gets me is that the people who whine and bitch about holding the bar and all this stuff are usually not involved in the situation.

Times have changed. Everyone is going to be effected. These are businesses and they only remain in business to make money for the owners be it individuals or corporate.

The bar is coming down--- way down. Eventually it will go back up. Get tough stances are going to create more Eastern's than SWA's.

 

[DruDown]

Re: Re: Let's Get Real Now!

You mesa guys sound like a bunch of scared little girls,
oh no we cant strike,I'm scared, we have to sign it or
our jobs go to freedumb because thats what J.O. said
and I better do it.

Regardless of what the Mesa guys "sound like," the fact is the TA has been ratified by the pilot group at Mesa - the focus should now be to prevent similar happenings at other companies. If we want to be unified, we should be working with CHQ and helping them not get into the same situation, and the group at Mesaba. Those guys are in a similar situation with "alter-ego" crap and shifting assets.

Let's look at where the Mesa group could have made some changes to negotiate (not fight, not strike, not whine, not point fingers, but professionally, in an adult and mature manner negotiate) for a better deal. Instead of pointing fingers, let's use this as a learning tool.

All too often we pilots get so wound up over what the other group did that we loose sight of what we are trying to do at our own company - let's NOT let that happen this time. If your group signs a substandard contract, it's not Mesa's fault - it's your own pilot group's fault. The last time I checked no other MEC's are sitting at the table with you, jsut your own. Let's not point the finger at ALPA National, point it at your own MEC - we all elect our own MEC, and we need to hold those members accountable, not another airline and not Nationals.

And, if the TA did not pass, what would have stopped JO from transferring all the assets to Freedumb? And if he did, from what would the Mesa pilots be striking from - there would be no more company and no legal precedent to return the assets to the current group. Yes, the Mesa guys would have stood up to JO, but he still would have won and succeeded in putting over a thousand pilots out of work - that doesn't sound like a success for ALPA or the pilot group!

 

[Beantown]

Drudown, Your the man! (or woman) Not for your position but for you intelligent, thought-out posts. Keep um coming. People like you are what this board is missing. -Bean

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

I too really enjoyed DruDown's post. Many, many good points. The aviation industry is a little bit different however in regards to just trying a different company since seniority plays such a major issue in someone's overall lifestyle and there are far fewer choices for employers. Alot of choices yes, but comparitively, it's miniscule.

I thought the jury issue was a problem as well but I think that it may actually be that jury duty time can of course be taken however to be reimbursed for it, sick or vaca time must be used. Not good policy but probably within the law.

I was curious as to whether the 2% for 401k was vested after 24 months or couldn't be used until 24 months on the property. That's a big difference. Also, why raises only come after every 18 months? I know why from a management point of view, saves $$$, but is that common across all regional contracts?? Any help here??

Lastly, although the minimum days off is quite low compared to other companies, how often would it be that only 10 days off is common for a lineholder? It would seem that the company would design the schedules for maximum efficiency with a pilot flying 16 days, 5.5 hours a day for 85 hours a month instead of 20 days, 4.25 hours a day for 85 hours. Doesn't that make sense??


BobbySam,


I think Denver isn't going to be that happy with the Snake. Maybe personality wise, but Griese is the better pure QB. And that O-Line is the dirtiest in football. It's going to take another team rolling up on one of their guy's legs to teach them a lesson. Real shame. Great new RB though.

Watch how much better the Pats do come draft day!!!


Mr. I.

 

[RJPilott]

Re: Re: Re: Let's Get Real Now!

All too often we pilots get so wound up over what the other group did that we loose sight of what we are trying to do at our own company - let's NOT let that happen this time. If your group signs a substandard contract, it's not Mesa's fault -

Dru, i'll second that. Your posts are nice, intelligent, well thought out, but COMPLETELY off base.

What do we do at OUR company when our management/MEC comes to us asking for concessions cause Mesa has underbid us on a big UAL deal? What do we do when they tell us "its furlough's or concessions" while Mesa grows working for less than most FA's make and having less days off while not getting paid for cancellations? What will they say when we tell our company that DruDown on Flightinfo.com said Mesa's contract has nothing to do with how we operate or who we operate for? Try thinking a bit harder the next time you post regarding competition in a free market with unions involved.

 

[CRJ Driver]

Re: Re: Re: Let's Get Real Now!

And, if the TA did not pass, what would have stopped JO from transferring all the assets to Freedumb? And if he did, from what would the Mesa pilots be striking from - there would be no more company and no legal precedent to return the assets to the current group. Yes, the Mesa guys would have stood up to JO, but he still would have won and succeeded in putting over a thousand pilots out of work - that doesn't sound like a success for ALPA or the pilot group!

DruDown, grow a pair of balls, you must not be a MAN.
The America West guys voted there $hit TA down, get a clue. J.O. is laughing all the way to the bank. Do you swallow too?

 

[bustinmins]

behind the scenes with the Mesa TA

First off, no one at Mesa is happy with this contract in its present
form. However looking at the overall picture of the economy, the
fiscal strength of our codeshare partners and the fact that each of our five codeshare partners(HP/US/ME/F9/UAL) have taken the Fed Money to stay in operation and the fact that JO was just stalling for time to build Freedom - our negotiating committee felt it was the best we could get in this environment. Two of our codeshare partners have filed CH 11 and we're concerned they are going to file CH 7. So looking at the big picture, I have to agree with them. Currently we have 5-10 year contract extensions with HP/US that give us route protection even if they continue in or file CH. 11.

The offer was also put on the table by mistake by our CEO. He never had intended to put anything real on the table. He hadn't really put anythin on the table up to this point. But on this day, he put up a hypothetical offer and felt that it wouldn't be accepted by the NMB rep. as an offer...he was wrong - we went to caucus. He had never once put scope on the table. He gave us an outrageous offer in the heat of anger that he thought we'd turn down. In fact, after he said what he said, his attorney just put his face in his hands. He hadn't any intentions of doing that. He wanted to put a hypothetical offer on the table and use the notes/sound bites from the negotiations to take it to the pilots and show them that their union had an offer on the table but turned it down and that is the reason Freedom was growing and the fact that mesa was shrinking. He had serious intentions of furloughing 200 at the end of that day of negotiations. Our negotiating committee had several dealings with JO over the past years. They felt that he wasn't bluffing this time - other times they could tell he was but this time was different and they knew it. We were very close to going into a 30-day cooling off period when we had our accident in CLT. That was played and maximized to the company's benefit in stalling negotiations and thus enabling them more time to grow Freedom. They asked for a six month reprieve from negotiations - they were only awarded 30 days. Either way, that delay, the pending middle east conflict and the rise of Freedom really hurt us in leverage. We would have a hard time getting any sympathy with a strike in the middle of a war. We didn't feel that the White House would work fairly with us because JO had already been in contact with them. The fact that our codeshare partners had Fed Money means to me that Bush wasn't going to let us walk the line that easily. If we had turned the TA down we would have had to reelect and train a negotiating committee(6-8 mos). By that time, our Freedom wing would have had over 500-600 pilots. When we signed this TA - Freedom had 56 guys on-line with another 40 in training and another 40 coming for training. Mesa is currently spooling up with two concurrent ground schools montly to fill the vacancies that we have on the Freedom side. 0600-1500 and 1500-2400 are the ground school times with 30 in each class. That is 60 pilots per month. By June, they would have had well over 300 pilots and Mesa would have begun to take the flying from Mesa and give it to Freedom. Then we would have lost what little leverage we had remaining. Had we not had that accident we would have gone out for 30 days around the time this TA was signed(a month and a half ago) when we would have had more leverage because Freedom was so small at that time, the war talk was nothing more than sabre rattling and Mesa was taking large aircraft deliveries.

It's important that you know that we didn't negotiate this secton or for that matter seven other sections. We had spoken to US Alpa and knew that the deadline for the J4J agreement was the following morning at 0800. We didn't share that knowledge with him of course. JO put the offer up on the table went something like this:

JO: (beginning of negotiations) "We have to have a deal today by 1700 or furlough notices go out for 200 tomorrow morning"
ALPA: Negotiates for four hours to no avail. Then at 1615 hours the following round of discussions occur.

JO: (yelling at ALPA) "Why won't you take the f'ing deal?
ALPA: (ALPA Calmly)"Simple, there's no scope."
JO: (in extreme anger)Your F'ing scope, the agreed upon sections and the rest of my offer?
ALPApauses to think - this is the only time he has ever offered anything - chats with his partner) "We'd like to go to caucus on that."
JO: "What?, that wasn't an offer - it was a hypothetical!"
ALPA and JO look at the NMB Deputy Chief of Staff who was mediating the negotiations
NMB: "Sounded like an offer to me".
MESA ATTORNEY: puts face in hands and shakes head
ALPA Retreats to caucus because we had to have an answer to him in 45 minutes or the deal is off and furloughs begin.
ALPA returns and accepts the offer
JO: "I'll have to think about it?"
NMB:"You have to think about your own offer?" NMB looks rather
sternly at JO.....
JO: "We accept".

Had JO not accepted it - we would have requested a 30 day cooling off period immediately. I'm pretty sure we would have gotten it.

What we did win was scope protection. This was our single biggest victory. This captured Freedom airlines under our ALPA contract. It also prevents JO from whipsawing us in the same manner that he has in the past. ie with CC Air and Freedom. He can't just start up an alter-ego airline again - if he does, its under our agreement. We're not happy with the QOL issues or $$$ but we can wait for another day to fight that particular battle This was part of the JO's "my offer" that was on the table. Had we tried to discuss or change any section of the contractual offer - he could have revoked his offer and then furloughed guys and put us all on the street within 18 months. NO DOUBTS

All CRJ crews are going to be trained on the 200/700/900. What you make will depend what they put on your route for operational flexibility due to load capacity needed. We'll operate each 200/700/900's out of our PHX base.

Anyone that gives Mesa guys any crap for not towing the line in
negotiations doesn't know the full story. We did what we could to
capture Freedom in scope which was our primary goal. We set a prescedent in regards to that. We just lost our leverage due to our unfortunate accident in CLT. It's quite shameful that our management would use that tragic accident as leverage in their pursuits - but they did. Just shows you the character of the men we were dealing with at that time.

Now to add insult to injury I see some of you guys threatning - promising - not to offer the courtesy of a jumpseat rider from Mesa. This is unfortunate. I hope that the majority of the pilots don't feel that way. We did what we had to do in this battle but the war is far from over.

JD

 

[DruDown]

RJ

"What do we do when they tell us "its furlough's or concessions" while Mesa grows working for less than most FA's make and having less days off while not getting paid for cancellations?"

Try providing your management with a plan that outlines how to cut costs elsewhere, improve efficiency, and allow for wage increases or better work rules. Don't just tell them what you want, offer justification and a plan, be a little more proactive in the negotiations. If you can outline a solid plan with reasonable requests and good justification, then you have a powerful tool. But, keep in mind, they are running a company who's sole purpose is to make money.

CRJ

"DruDown, grow a pair of balls, you must not be a MAN.
The America West guys voted there $hit TA down, get a clue. J.O. is laughing all the way to the bank. Do you swallow too?"

Glad to see you're an adult and a professional!

America West did vote down their TA, and that's a great thing! But, did management over there already another operation up and running with the ability to transferr everything over there in the relatively near future? NO! Did management over there have multiple pilot groups to pit against each other? NO! A couple major differences in the two situations, making this a comparison of apples to oranges.

Again, everyone, take responsibility at your own company, hold your own MEC accountable, and if you feel this strongly, get involved - join a committee, become a pilot-to-pilot volunteer (volunteer means no pay, if you can deal with working for nothing), work on the negotiating committee, apply for a job at Nationals, but DO NOT hold any individual pilot or pilot group responsible for what goes on at your company.

It's time to modernize the way we all do things in this industry and accept the fact that things will not be anything like they were for a long time. We must also accept the fact that all of the regional airline managements are going to everything they can to compete with each other - it's called business. You think at these Regional Airline Partnership meetings they only discuss the status of the industry? Hell no! These guys get togehter and together find ways to cut costs, make labor more effective and efficient, get more contracts, etc.

If we want to be effective in our negotiations with them, we have to be able to think like them. If pilots have 12 days off a month, then it takes almost twice as many pilots to keep the airline operating each month - that does not make good business sense, it is inefficeint and a waste of resources. If pilots are getting cancellation pay, then essentially they are getting paid to do nothing. Again, inefficeint and a waste of resources. (remember, trying to think like management.)

Now, with good justification and a solid plan for finding and re-routing resources, then we might be able to gain leverage with management and get what we feel we deserve. But, this takes a lot of work. If you're willing to do the work and offer up the man-hours to do so, then you will have the upper hand in the negotiation. But, if you aren't, you're going to have to settle for what's offered.

In the end, YOU, YOUR MEC, YOUR management are the ones to point fingers at, not any other company, pilot or pilot group.

 

[Beantown]

The America West guys voted there $hit TA down

Lets all get something straight here involving America West and Mesa. Mesa makes about 2%-5% less then the industry average for the aircraft flown. That works out to a buck or two an hour or a couple thousand a year.

America West is paid anywhere from 50% to 100% LESS then there piers flying the same aircraft. That's somewhere between 50 to 100,000+ less a year. They truly deserve a LARGE pay raise. The reason they rejected this TA has to do with retirement not pay rates.

The funny thing is you won't find the Mainline pilots crying like 2 year olds about it like the regional guys. FACT: during Mesa's negotiations, the MEC was asking for CRJ 900 rates that were HIGHER then what a 757 CA makes at America West! B/C Mesa is on a Fee for departure contract all rates have to be approved by AW. You think there was anyway that AW was going to approve these rates while they were in section six? Hell no. These are things that Mesa has to deal with that a lot of other regional's not aligned with a bunch of bankrupt airlines don't. It's to bad people never look a the whole picture before they make assumptions and accusations. If you work at ASA or COEX an your Mgmt throws the Mesa contract in your face don't forget to mention to the company that Mesa works for a company that pays there pilots just higher then Comair. Delta and Continental don't. -Bean

 

[bobbysamd]

Jury duty and Bronco quarterbacking

Someone raised the point that Mesa might be incorporated in Delaware. Perhaps - I don't know - but it would have to register as a foreign corporation (term of art) in Arizona and thus be subject to its laws, including jury duty.

I know that the jury duty issue is a small point compared to the major issues, but I cannot stand it when companies nickel-and-dime workers. I appreciate DruDown's comments, especially his observation about the pilots signing the contract to avert work being sent to Freedom. His observation that unions came about to keep management in line, i.e. ensure fair treatment of employees, is especially cogent.

I think Denver isn't going to be that happy with the Snake. Maybe personality wise, but Griese is the better pure QB. And that O-Line is the dirtiest in football. It's going to take another team rolling up on one of their guy's legs to teach them a lesson. Real shame. Great new RB though.

I disagree about Mr. Griese's abilities. No question about his intelligence and understanding of the offense. Some questions about his athletic ability. Many more questions about his decision-making ability, e.g. his penchant for throwing INTs in critical situations.

Every team cut-blocks. It seems that people are gunning for the Broncos because of their success.

 

[RJPilott]

RJ

Try providing your management with a plan that outlines how to cut costs elsewhere, improve efficiency, and allow for wage increases or better work rules. Don't just tell them what you want, offer justification and a plan, be a little more proactive in the negotiations.

Dru...

This is ACA, not Mesa. Unlike Mesa, ACA management has a pretty good working relationship with its union. Cost cutting measures have been in effect since 9/11. Every single loophole in our contract (and some made up) have been exploited to conserve costs. If you read some of my other posts you will see some quotes i have posted regarding the brilliance of our management working with a pro-active MEC to cut costs and conserve cash. However, what do we do when there is no other measure to take and they start furloughing (ie. 86 ACA pilots furloughed by May 03). Then they ask for more concessions and/or furloughs cause Mesa has underbid us? Dont get me wrong, we are still trying to squeeze every ounce of water from a rock over here to prevent furloughs, but there is only so much water a rock can hold before the rock has to crumble. We just have to face the stark reality that some will do anything to fly an airplane and wear a pilot uniform, even if it compromises safety.

My point,

What one carrier does has a direct effect on other carriers. I wouldnt mind it so much if Mesa accepted a TA that was at least worth a decent life after so much training and hard work to get where they are. But it seems they just threw in the towel on something (scope) that could have been a bluff to begin with to get such a sub-standard contract.. Tunnel vision on scope is not the way to go. Ask any mainline pilot.

 

[bladeusa]

the bar wasnt just lowered.. it was dropped on the floor.. thanks for nothing..