It's official!

[Be Careful What You Wish For.]

Interesting article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-finger/more-labor-troubles-at-am_b_6248310.html

Looks like labor unrest has made the nationl media.
 
F/As vote down their contract. Pilots arbitration delayed.
 
Looks like a rocky road for the new AAirlines.
 
Not a good start.
 
 
Who is Tom?

 

[WorldTraveler]

Uh, who has ever said that profit sharing makes no sense?

Seems to me it's the one thing everyone here is in agreement over.

Recognizing it's a good thing and recognizing it's off the table for negotiations are mutually exclusive.
 

Yep. This dufus surfaced last year writing hack pieces about AA management pre-merger, and from the way he writes, he's probably related to or in a relationship with an AA employee. But, bloggers don't need to disclose things like that.

uh.... there are literally hundreds of posts regarding statements by both Parker and co. and AA union leaders who have tried to justify why getting rid of profit sharing was a good thing and how AA employees would end up with as much compensation as employees at other airlines.

you seriously cannot argue that everyone is in agreement on the issue of profit sharing.

a whole lot of AA employees are justifiably not the least bit convinced that eliminating profit sharing is a good thing.

AA employees simply will not get anywhere near the amount of total compensation without profit sharing as their peers will at other airlines that have it.

The author got it right that the fundamentals of the industry have dramatically changed and it would take a major screw up of epic proportions for AA not to be profitable.

Parker doesn't want to pay profit sharing for one reason and one reason only - because it is an added cost which he doesn't want to bear. He was able to talk circles around AA union leaders and keep their total compensation below levels at other carriers.

to try to argue that the same person who kept US employees at the bottom of the industry in terms of pay suddenly is interested in ensuring the best compensation in the industry is naivety at its absolute worst.

AA union leaders have once again been played by union leaders who are way too close to mgmt. and who cannot and do not represent the interests of their members.

 

[boston]

"Who's Tom", In October at the Miami road show during Q&A, a FA thought they had big scoop and was going to expose Laura G. " Is it true
your cousin is the Treasure of AA"?? Laura answered yes, he worked for so and so, then Boeing then hired at AA. Laura continued to say that during the BK they did not talk, then proceeded  to say "what am I supposed to de friend my cousin" 

 

[eolesen]

uh.... there are literally hundreds of posts regarding statements by both Parker and co. and AA union leaders who have tried to justify why getting rid of profit sharing was a good thing and how AA employees would end up with as much compensation as employees at other airlines.

you seriously cannot argue that everyone is in agreement on the issue of profit sharing.

Learn to read, jackass. I said everyone here.

Last time I checked, Parker and the union leaders aren't posting here.

 

[WorldTraveler]

and you are still wrong.

there is far from agreement about profit sharing even on this board.

glad you are AA's water boy on airline forums... but you are SERIOUSLY detached from the way the people who actually run the airline think.

 

[commavia]

Well if anybody would know about being a particular carrier's "water boy" ...

 

[swamt]

Simply pay me as much as the highest FSC in the industry and give me profit sharing as well.
(and of course restore my vc, sick bank, holidays, shift differential...)

HERE-HERE!!!
Someone who knows what they deserve.  Why should you have to give up PS.  Restore contract, bring back everything that was givin up and then some.  AA is making Never seen before record profits because of what the employees sacrificed and gave up, time to get that back in my opinion.  Never agree to give up PS for pay that is just retarded...

 

[NYer]

Pretty good and spot on about profit sharing and the new reality where four carriers control 90% of the market, but one error is the FAs did not have strike as an option, these are not Section Six negotiations. The weapon they have is denying AA millions in synergies. 
 
With four big carriers controlling 90% of the traffic, they are an oligopoly, so fare wars and upstart competition will not be as much of a factor as they used to be, the big three are so big they can wipe out any upstart they want to by flying head to head at lower fares and jacking up fares where they don't have competition. 
 
Thats why we will never see a strike at the big three, so the best strategy when times are good is to get to impasse as quick as possible and get to a PEB. When times are bad, kick the can down the road. Workers should push for automatic Cola increases that are annual, no end date, so if you get bogged down you still get raises, like they do in the Rails.

 
Your strategy of good times and bad times are the same. In good times, we spend years trying to get to a PEB while the good times roll away. then during the bad times, we make outrageous demands that won't be met in order to wait for the good times. Brilliant.

 

[NYer]

 
Strike was never on the table as these were not sect 6, that he had wrong, and so did you. Absent the NPA the company could have sat it out till 2018. But they would have to keep two separate operations. 
 
Five more years and No Profit sharing? I would have voted no as well. Where were you in the 90s? You are still worried about the sky falling, you obviously have zero tolerance for risk, and you are in the wrong industry. --The you'd be in arbitration losing pay AND profit sharing. Hey, but at least you showed them by voting no, right. You sent them a clear message. Good for you. =/
 
Sometimes the two in the bush is worth taking a shot at, especially with some of the points he did get right such as four carriers having 90% of the market, and its a huge market.
 
AA could soon be a $50 billion year company with less employees earning lower wages than when it was a $20 billion a year company. I think we should expect more, and not add years to what they were able to steal in Bankruptcy. At the very least we should get Profit Sharing. --Let's vote no on whatever, so we can go get the profit sharing, (which by the way you wailed against during the pre-BK debates because the airlines was obviously hiding money to prevent paying it out profit sharing from 2003 to 2012).

 

[Bob Owens]

 

 
Strike was never on the table as these were not sect 6, that he had wrong, and so did you. Absent the NPA the company could have sat it out till 2018. But they would have to keep two separate operations. 
 
Five more years and No Profit sharing? I would have voted no as well. Where were you in the 90s? You are still worried about the sky falling, you obviously have zero tolerance for risk, and you are in the wrong industry. --The you'd be in arbitration losing pay AND profit sharing. Hey, but at least you showed them by voting no, right. You sent them a clear message. Good for you. =/
 
Sometimes the two in the bush is worth taking a shot at, especially with some of the points he did get right such as four carriers having 90% of the market, and its a huge market.
 
AA could soon be a $50 billion year company with less employees earning lower wages than when it was a $20 billion a year company. I think we should expect more, and not add years to what they were able to steal in Bankruptcy. At the very least we should get Profit Sharing. --Let's vote no on whatever, so we can go get the profit sharing, (which by the way you wailed against during the pre-BK debates because the airlines was obviously hiding money to prevent paying it out profit sharing from 2003 to 2012).

 

You just can't resist supporting any concessionary deal can you? Like I said, adjust my pay in real terms to what it was and they can keep the profit sharing, but don't cut my pay, with the promise of profit sharing, then say I don't need it. Crawl back in your hole. 
 
I'm not a big fan of Profit sharing but under the conditions we now face, thanks to people like you, it does give us an opportunity to get some of what we gave up back, even if its not compounded. Once again you are on the side of management as they try to whipsaw the workers, first people like you help them get concessions with the promise that when things get better employees can get back some of what they gave up, then once you have lowered compensation in real terms by 50% and are poised to make substantial profits tell them they are better off accepting wage adjustments that are more than offset by increased medical costs and overall inflation and shouldn't get any of the profits, a portion of which is funded by their concessions.

 

[NYer]

You just can't resist supporting any concessionary deal can you? Like I said, adjust my pay in real terms to what it was and they can keep the profit sharing, but don't cut my pay, with the promise of profit sharing, then say I don't need it. Crawl back in your hole. 
 
I'm not a big fan of Profit sharing but under the conditions we now face, thanks to people like you, it does give us an opportunity to get some of what we gave up back, even if its not compounded. Once again you are on the side of management as they try to whipsaw the workers, first people like you help them get concessions with the promise that when things get better employees can get back some of what they gave up, then once you have lowered compensation in real terms by 50% and are poised to make substantial profits tell them they are better off accepting wage adjustments that are more than offset by increased medical costs and overall inflation and shouldn't get any of the profits, a portion of which is funded by their concessions.

 
So you're looking for what you were earning in 2001 compounded annually in order to get your "fair" compensation today?

 

[WorldTraveler]

HERE-HERE!!!
Someone who knows what they deserve.  Why should you have to give up PS.  Restore contract, bring back everything that was givin up and then some.  AA is making Never seen before record profits because of what the employees sacrificed and gave up, time to get that back in my opinion.  Never agree to give up PS for pay that is just retarded...

quite simply you should not have to give up profit sharing.... and AA employees cannot be compensated comparably to the rest of the industry without including profit sharing. AA mgmt. simply will not increase fixed salaries to the levels of profit sharing that other carriers are getting.

AA FAs clearly saw the error of APFA's calculations when they tried to say they were getting equivalency to DL's profit sharing... they were getting at best a fraction.

 

[Black Magic]

So you're looking for what you were earning in 2001 compounded annually in order to get your "fair" compensation today?

Don't forget the fact that cost of living was much cheaper in 2001 compared to today food, gas, housing, ect. The days of unions telling airline employees "its the best ur gonna get" are over.

 

[usfliboi]

...we will not get profit sharing...we will never go back to the days of the sweet high paying contracts...some folks really are disconnected from reality. We had the opportunity to vote yea or nay..nays won...I do not blame the company....I blame the union for messing this up...life goes forward otherwise find a job that will pay you what you feel you're worth... It isnt fair to those who feel they are worth more to stay in a job they feel under paid...

 

[Overspeed]

Bob,
Using the SSA's COLAs since 2001 and applying it to the A&P top rate that would make today's top rate if we had taken no pay cuts to be ~$51 an hour today for a CC. You believe that's possible without profit sharing?