Pilot Protests

Tarheelpilot said:
Encourage them to get their ratings. I had those conversations when I was driving the sky ambulance as well. I didn’t really let it bother me and I just found ways to change the subject. You’ll never win that conversation. The kind of person that will say crap that is also telling you that having a meaningful conversation is a waste of your time.
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Kind of like nurses complaining about Dr. pay.
 
Velocity173 said:
Obviously we’re well below you all in compensation but for what I do, I’m not at all disappointed.
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Obviously my job is no panacea. I envy your time at home. I average between 6-7 nights per month in a hotel room, which doesn't initially seem like much until you do the math and realize it's almost 80 nights each year I'm not in my own bed. Made even more tough by having a 2 year old at home (although sometimes it *is* nice to have some alone time on the road - don't tell my wife!). :)
 
Piperonca said:
Kind of like nurses complaining about Dr. pay.
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Nurse pay is another issue that’s shaking up the healthcare industry. COVID launched all these travel nurse agencies. So like in my area, a bunch of nurses jumped ship to go contract. You’ve got staff nurses making $40 an hour working next to a travel nurse making well over $200 per hour. People saying that they’re finally getting paid what they’re worth but I gotta wonder, is this sustainable for hospitals. Hospital execs are complaining to Congress that these travel nurses are killing them financially. With the rate of closures these days, I don’t think they’re bluffing.

This is the big story in my area right now. Mark my words, this is only the beginning. Bunch of hospitals are just hanging on with COVID relief money right now. When that dries up, they’ll be scrambling for supplemental funds.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/atlanta-medical-center-downtown-closing
 
Labor negotiations and contracts in the airline industry are governed by the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (RLA). It has been amended in 1934 and 1936. The primary purpose of the RLA is to avoid disruptions in the nations transportation system. It does this through provisions which seek to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes to resolve labor disputes.

Under the RLA, labor is prohibited from striking, and management is prohibited from imposing new work rules or conducting a lock-out, until a lengthy process has run its course and the National Mediation Board has released the parties into self help. Until that time, both parties are required to maintain the status quo.

Informational picketing is one of the few ways that the RLA allows for labor to put pressure on the airline during negotiations.
 
AA does have pretty poor service, have paid for J class and treated with disrespect. Meal service is poor and lacking as well.

Recently flew United Polaris, was impressed with better service, food, lounges, etc. Competing on an international scale.

Filing bankruptcy does nothing, but probably screws the contractors who are owed money by the airline. Wages are likely to be protected.
 
Velocity173 said:
… It might be a joke but I know deep down that they 1) know I make more than them and 2) know my job is far easier than theirs...
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Your med crews aren’t having to put the bird in an LZ on NODs. They also wouldn’t have a job without somebody up front to drive the gold plated ambulance.
 
The two airline career truisms that I’ve learned along the way:

1. You’re only worth what you can negotiate.
2. An airline gets the union it deserves.
 
Things were a little different at my airline during the pandemic. While other airline CEOs went hat in hand to Congress begging for CARES money to stay afloat, mine made billions.

We, as a pilot group, suffered through multi-day room quarantines while on the road, being poked and prodded by foreign medical personnel with the threat of being sent to government quarantine facility if we happen to test positive.
We got a lot of “thanks for your sacrifice” emails over the last 2-1/2 years.

Well, although I appreciate the sentiment, basically it’s down to FUPM at this point.
 
before I retired, at one time part of my job as a manager was salary adminisitration (aka, annual raises).

It was interesting the number of people that paid (no pun) more attention to the percentage raise than the total salary. Someone making $125,000 would be unhappy with a 3% raise and the guy making $55,000 would be ok with a %10 raise.

The guy making $125,000 was at the top end of the salary range for his job and experience.

The guy making $55,000 was in the bottom third of the salary range for his job and experience.
 
luvflyin said:
Whadda the CEO’s of these airlines make?
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7-10 mil a year or so

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...ubled-the-salary-of-incoming-ceo-robert-isom/

previous AAL CEO opted to be compensated entirely in stock in 2015 for a few years, and shocker, AAL started doing a bunch of stock buybacks right until they got bailed out and prohibited from doing it under the conditions of the bailout.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/18/air...buybacks-when-bailout-ban-ends-this-fall.html
 
Our domestic trips are garbage, pay is way overdue, sick leave needs an overhaul, vacation needs work, retirement needs to be better. I’m lucky that I hold all international flying so the flying is really good but the domestic side is horrible. Max duty days followed my min rest and no wiggle room for any delays. We spend all this money buying other airlines and propping up our international partners yet management says they can’t pay us more or give us better QOL items.
 
jordane93 said:
Our domestic trips are garbage, pay is way overdue, sick leave needs an overhaul, vacation needs work, retirement needs to be better. I’m lucky that I hold all international flying so the flying is really good but the domestic side is horrible. Max duty days followed my min rest and no wiggle room for any delays. We spend all this money buying other airlines and propping up our international partners yet management says they can’t pay us more or give us better QOL items.
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It's no big secret that I have trouble resolving the "Great QOL" of 121 life with commentary like this. Part of my QOL throughout my career was related to job stress and working environment. I was not always blessed with super supportive leadership but the apparent adversarial relationship between line pilots and management makes my experience look like a cakewalk.

Nauga,
for whom QOL meant more than pay and schedule
 
Lindberg said:
Because of the union doesn't agitate, how will the members know they need it?
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You look at what you’re making to the industry standard. They don’t need a union to know that. My company doesn’t have a union and they raised pay while other unionized companies were stalled in contract negotiations. We didn’t need to protest and didn’t require a union to get that raise.

All I’m saying is Delta is emerging out of COVID with very tight profit margins. Much worse than pre COVID. I think the timing could be better for making demands in light of their financial situation.

Also, as I was alluding to earlier, based on our “pilot shortage” thread, the picture of the major 121 world that I got was $400K salary, easy schedules and great benefits. That’s been the common theme since I can remember but that sounds like a stark difference to what these DAL and AAL pilots are protesting.
 
Lindberg said:
how will the members know they need it?
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Most pilots can do the math. They know when their last pay raise was, its printed at the top of the pay table in the contract, they can project when their next raise will be after the new contract becomes amendable, and they can compare it to the inflation rate over those years.

When the scheduled increases end, at the end of a contract's term, it is often four or five years of no raises before a new agreement is reached. So, five years since your last raise, three years on the new contract, and five more years before you get another one. A 20% raise over the three year new contract sounds good but it's really 20% over 13 years, or so. It will be reported in the media as the pilot's rejecting a 20% raise over 36 months.
 
the amount of a raise isn't the ultimate measure

the bottomline salary is the measure.
 
Bob Noel said:
the amount of a raise isn't the ultimate measure

the bottomline salary is the measure.
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Normally pay rates aren’t on the top of my list (I think QOL items like sick time, reserve rules, vacation, etc are more important most of the time) but since inflation has been sky rocketing, anything less than 30% would be a no vote for me.
 
jordane93 said:
Normally pay rates aren’t on the top of my list (I think QOL items like sick time, reserve rules, vacation, etc are more important most of the time) but since inflation has been sky rocketing, anything less than 30% would be a no vote for me.
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what if you were already making twice what others were making?
 
AKiss20 said:
7-10 mil a year or so

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...ubled-the-salary-of-incoming-ceo-robert-isom/

previous AAL CEO opted to be compensated entirely in stock in 2015 for a few years, and shocker, AAL started doing a bunch of stock buybacks right until they got bailed out and prohibited from doing it under the conditions of the bailout.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/18/air...buybacks-when-bailout-ban-ends-this-fall.html
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First one was behind a pay wall. Anyway around that?
 
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Damn, I take a nap and miss Night One vul push. :D
 
Velocity173 said:
You look at what you’re making to the industry standard. They don’t need a union to know that. My company doesn’t have a union and they raised pay while other unionized companies were stalled in contract negotiations. We didn’t need to protest and didn’t require a union to get that raise.

All I’m saying is Delta is emerging out of COVID with very tight profit margins. Much worse than pre COVID. I think the timing could be better for making demands in light of their financial situation.

Also, as I was alluding to earlier, based on our “pilot shortage” thread, the picture of the major 121 world that I got was $400K salary, easy schedules and great benefits. That’s been the common theme since I can remember but that sounds like a stark difference to what these DAL and AAL pilots are protesting.
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You might have misunderstood my point, or, probably, I didn't use enough words. The union's continued health depends on it's making unreasonable demands that will never be met and convincing it's members that everything that's bad is management's fault.

OTOH, your shop is a perfect example of why I will never again willingly be subject to collective bargaining. Collective bargaining guarantees that exceptional employees will never be compensated any better than the mediocre or marginally competent employees. It can, perforce, only benefit the below average. Likely your shop is small enough that you have little or no dead weight.
 
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Lindberg said:
Collective bargaining guarantees that exceptional employees will never be compensated any better than the mediocre or marginally competent employees. It can, perforce, only benefit the below average.
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Interesting way to frame the argument. I never considered this angle.
 
Lindberg said:
You might have misunderstood my point, or, probably, I didn't use enough words. The union's continued health depends on it's making unreasonable demands that will never be met and convincing it's members that everything that's bad is management's fault.

OTOH, your shop is a perfect example of why I will never again willingly be subject to collective bargaining. Collective bargaining guarantees that exceptional employees will never be compensated any better than the mediocre or marginally competent employees. It can, perforce, only benefit the below average. Likely your shop is small enough that you have little or no dead weight.
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It runs in cycles. We’re on the way back up with Unions. A brief timeline.
Robber Barons
Sherman Antitrust Act
Wagner Act
Taft Hartley Act
1981
Unions tend to abuse power when they are at their height.
Employers tend to abuse power when unions are at their low.
While the Controllers Strike was an illegal one, the bosses smelled blood and the political climate was ripe for a systematic dismantling of unions over the coming years. The bosses abuses have reached a point where unions are starting to make a come back.
Rinse and repeat.
 
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luvflyin said:
Yeah. Just painting an overall picture. I edited in 'tend to' in front of abuse in my post.
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I don't think it's overall at all, I think it's a fairly narrow segment of employers in the US; one that, good or bad, draws a lot of attention.

Nauga,
representin'
 
TCABM said:
A union has a self preservation interest at stake, otherwise it cannot justify dues. Interestingly, only 24% of ALPA revenues went to the General Fund according to their 990.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521131735
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Not sure what I'm supposed to make of that tax filing but it does seem odd that revenues aren't steady from year to year. Pretty wide variations. It would be interesting to see the revenue per member number. Do pilots have variable dues rates?
 
luvflyin said:
It runs in cycles. We’re on the way back up with Unions. A brief timeline.
Robber Barons
Sherman Antitrust Act
Wagner Act
Taft Hartley Act
1981
Unions tend to abuse power when they are at their height.
Employers tend to abuse power when unions are at their low.
While the Controllers Strike was an illegal one, the bosses smelled blood and the political climate was ripe for a systematic dismantling of unions over the coming years. The bosses abuses have reached a point where unions are starting to make a come back.
Rinse and repeat.
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There's never been a better time in American history to be "labor." And yet union employees are dissatisfied. Strange. A pilot shortage and union pilots can't negotiate to get paid "what they're worth." Strange. People both in management and labor make dumb decisions.
 
TCABM said:
A union has a self preservation interest at stake, otherwise it cannot justify dues. Interestingly, only 24% of ALPA revenues went to the General Fund according to their 990.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521131735
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Something smells fishy here. According to that there is $0 Executive and Other salaries and wages expenses. Where're they hiding it and why?

https://paddockpost.com/2022/01/01/executive-compensation-at-the-air-line-pilots-association-alpa/
 
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