No I was not saying it was done by AT's doings. The time frame I was refering to was after the first agreement did not get accepted and the nego up to the current agreement. When (I think the ibt was trying to hold out) I was trying to let the AT guys know that if they keep trying to hold hard core at the DOH or even 2.5 yrs then the company will start to play hard ball. Which they did, hence, the removal of 5% on Jan. 1, 2012 and full pay on 3-1-12, plus retro from when agreemnts are voted in back to 3-1-2012. That was the worse TA offered from the company. BTW, none of SWA mech will recieve top out pay from the boost in seniority. A 1 yr mech that moves to 5 yrs is only for bidding and not pay. The only thing that the SWA mechs will recieve is the 401K increase retro, which the company "finally" admitted that we should of had that back in 2011, therefore, they finally gave into the retro. Although, the nego cmte for AMFA had to fight tooth and nail for it, it was not a gimmie. As far as the ibt asking for for more than your nego cmte knew about, well, once again, that's the ibt. They were laughed at by the company and AMFA for what all they were asking for, which is more than likely the main reason why the company switched gears with them on the pay issues.
I will end with this, It is going to be a very hard sell to the AMFA members. If this is voted down again, it's off to arbitration. Which if it plays out like AMFA is thinking it will, and the ibt continues to play thier games, then this will take many, many years to play out. We have just heard that the dispatchers just recieved an arbitration ruling and granted a 4 yr boost in seniority for the SWA dispatchers. So now there is evidence that the arbitrators are indeed looking at the complete package as to what one side is getting and what the other side is not getting. And they are not giving up an LOA like we are. This may not be the end guys, alot of mechs are starting to think that they need more than 4 yrs to give up the LOA, as well as the huge finacial package that the AT guys are going to recieve, will all be viewed and assesed by the arbitrator, and now they have an arbitration ruling to use as an example. The longer this drags out the worse it will get in my opinion. We will find out tomarrow where this will be going, I think we will be voting on the current offer, however, if it is not agreed upon by both sides, it will be desided on by an arbitrator, with more info available to them now, from another arbitrators ruling. Maybe 6-8 yrs for the LOA is more reasonable for the mechanics, just a thought...