Go figure......
Spoiler Alert: “Going for Great.”
This is one of the Company’s new advertising slogans.
It begs the questions of what is going to be great?
Our contract? Certainly not.
The corporate culture? No, not that either.
So, what is “great” for pilots?
The company pay offer is little more than moving a pending pay raise forward by a year. Over the long term, their offer could actually be worth less than our MTA because it locks in our pay rates while removing the mid-contract pay adjustment. According to both Delta management and pilots union, they expect to have a new contract in advance of the January 01, 2016, parity date. This will have a significant positive impact on our pay rates going forward.
The offer from management will keep us at or near the bottom of our peers in almost every major area of our contract. This includes our pension because the profit sharing at the other carriers is pensionable. In addition to getting 15% of their W-2 in profit-sharing this year, Delta pilots will have an additional 15% of that put into their pension, raising the value realized by profit-sharing to 17.25% of their W2. Even assuming Delta doesn’t receive a raise in 2016, under the company’s pay proposal, this will leave LUS/LAA pilots more than 10% below our peers at Delta. It must now be something other than that pesky revenue disadvantage.
Conversely, our proposals to management have been about recognizing the irreplaceable value that an engaged and participatory pilot group brings to the enterprise, not perpetuating the one-size-fits-all anti-pilot mantra that has been inculcated into the core of this airline for decades.
We have a chance to make a break for a new direction, but management is much more about perpetuating the failed policies of a failed management, using the record profits for their personal enrichment and disrespectfully dumping on the pilots, the very work group whose leadership, involvement, and advocacy put them in their current position.
The company offer will leave us at or near the bottom of our peers in terms of:
· Profit sharing
· Premium pay
· Sick pay and benefits
· LTD benefits
· Work rules
· Duty Rigs
· Line-holder and reserve guarantee
· Vacation
· Hotels
A quick read of the APA’s Jan. 2014 Contract Comparison will confirm this.
To add insult, the offer extends our industry-bottom contract for another year.
Below are the items management is seeking in their proposal. They cannot be forced on us in arbitration so the company is trying to get them from us now.
· Home Base Time change to FARs: We just concluded the FAR 117 agreement and now they want this concession so they can operate some planned long-haul routes. It is now obviously worth something to them, so they need to pay up.
· Overnight sim sessions: Almost 50 pilots a month currently have landing currency sim sessions during the day. If just 20% of FOs are able to maintain landing currency to avoid 2AM sims, those pilots will be available for 10 more days of flying a month. This basically means a loss of one to three of our highest paying pilot jobs a month for nothing in return. Company proposal = a reduction in jobs
· 2-Hour short call report requirement: This would effectively eliminate the longstanding and mutually beneficial agreement that reserve pilots are to be reasonably available by surface transportation. The company has finally acknowledged this is probably unworkable anywhere other than PHX.
· Elimination of the Intl/Dom fence: This is about preserving and expanding high paying captain positions rather than eliminating them, and maintaining quality of life. This is huge considering all the mixed international/domestic trips we have at LUS on the small bus. By adding this provision there will be a reduction in captain positions, by eliminating this there will be additional captain positions. Company proposal = a reduction in jobs
· Benefits Excise Tax cost shifting: This is a proposal to reimburse pilots for the loss of benefits that management claims would be necessary to avoid the “Cadillac” plan tax under the Affordable Care Act at some time in the future. It is not clear how we would be reimbursed or if we would be fully reimbursed for the loss in health benefits. Our health benefits are bad enough, signing on to vague benefits language is probably not in our best interest.
· Vacancy bid/hold from training: Management wants to adopt quarterly bids rather than the monthly bids that exist in the green book. Moving from the LAA methodology has the same effect as increasing a pilot’s training freeze for several more months and limits a retiring pilot’s ability to bid and be paid for a higher paying position just prior to retirement, not to mention it is a reduction in pilot jobs. Company proposal = a reduction in jobs
· One-year contract extension: This will lock in pay and other contract disparities even longer.
By the company insisting that APA only address their issues (above) and are unwilling to address our issues is never going to get us there. We thought the JCBA was a negotiation as outlined in paragraph 27 of the MOU and not take it or leave it ultimatum. WE do believe however, the company’s “Delta plus” pay proposal is a good start but in order for PHL to endorse any TA, this “Delta plus” concept (among other things) must continue well beyond 2016.
Messrs. Parker and Kirby came to the APA shortly after AMR declared bankruptcy to ask us to back them in a merger. We made it crystal clear that for us to agree to the merger, and for it to succeed, they would have to change the culture at AA.
Messrs. Parker and Kirby committed to changing the culture; we gave them the merger.
We are now approaching the one-year anniversary of the merger and may be near the end of the JCBA talks. Now is the time to change the culture and repair the damage done to our contract in bankruptcy.
If you have not done so, now is the time to send the company a message.
Doug.Parker@aa.com
Scott.Kirby@aa.com
Robert.Isom@aa.com
John.Hale@aa.com
Please CC us on your correspondence.
Ask them why we are being left out of the benefits of the great merger we gave them.
Ask them why they think they should expect great performance with a below average contract.
Tell them how you feel about their sub-standard contract proposal.
We are ready to stand arm and arm with management and make OUR Company truly “great” but it takes more than words from management to achieve greatness. They must not only treat pilots with respect relating to our contract, they must also show it every day in our dealings with them. Wouldn’t it be “great” to actually be proud of our senior management after a decade of fighting them? We think so.
Happy Thanksgiving
Paul DiOrio
Paul Music
PHL-REPS@alliedpilots.org
To view this email on the APA Website, please go here:
https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/Home/APAMemberNews/tabid/842/articleType/CategoryView/categoryId/78/Philadelphia.aspx
