As I have been trying to explain to the "Just vote NO!" crowd for the last five months on this blog, things are not as rosey as they appear. How many times have I had to listen to the blubbering idiots say "Let's wait and see what American gets/They're up for a 30% raise/No WAY will they give up their retirement!" etc etc etc.
Well guess what. They'll take a 50% hit, get 20cents on the dollar for their old age, and watch as 25% of their staff gets cut and they shrink, shrink, shrink.
Stop. Don't gloat. This is bad new for us in several ways.
1. Our management looks at the lack of success of American pilots in obtaining "an industry leading contract" as inspiration for dealing hardline with us. Don't expect our management to waiver from now on.
2. American will flood the market with cheap seats. There goes our yield in competition markets ($99 to Chicago anybody?). Management will use this as a reason that a more expensive contract for us cannot be allowed.
3. There will, very soon, be many unemployed American pilots who will not blink at taking a seat at United (all you potential strikers take note)
As I have been trying to educate you: Things are getting worse. Had we accepted binding arbitration this would not have bothered us. Had we negotiated in good faith on management's opening offer, instead of dismissing it out of hand, we could have had a contract by now, significantly better than the contract you work under at this moment.. But instead, we shoot for the moon and watch, as the the inexorable flow of bad economic news flows toward us, undermining our future. It is not over. It WILL continue.
You, the pilot majority, the representatives, if you read this: You are digging your own grave with this procrastination.
It is IMPERATIVE that WE GET THIS CONTRACT DONE.....NOW!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Stock prices: Just the facts please
A popular myth is that United stock has underperformed the industry. Let's just look at the facts, please.
Since the merger I did a comparison of all major, and low cost passenger airline stock price changes in the US. Starting from the the week ending May 10th 2010, and to the present day. Here are the results:
UAL -15.8%
JBLU-31.8%
LUV -38.7%
LCC -40.5%
DAL -45.5%
AMR-77.5%
This is not an opinion. These are public records. These are the facts.
Since the merger I did a comparison of all major, and low cost passenger airline stock price changes in the US. Starting from the the week ending May 10th 2010, and to the present day. Here are the results:
UAL -15.8%
JBLU-31.8%
LUV -38.7%
LCC -40.5%
DAL -45.5%
AMR-77.5%
This is not an opinion. These are public records. These are the facts.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Stockholm syndrome and the white paper
As we are all aware, is an emotional attachment to one's captors in a hostage situation. It exists here at United. Our past managements and their culture of prioritizing asset trading over operations has led to a desperate air of gloom when we try to see a future. Our reponse, understandably, has been to react with ferocity and acrimony when dealing with our management.
We are faced with a paradigm shift we fail to recognize, and that is that the new management actually wants to run an airline. Our response to this is to continue what we know how to do, what we are comfortable with, which is fight, deny, obstruct and generally anything we can effect to maintain the status quo. It's the "devil-you-know-is-better-than-the-devil-you-don't-know" syndrome. We are comfortable with this state of affairs. We do not believe anything else is possible due to years of conditioning.
Your ALPA repesentatives are conditioned to respond to this mindset, and indeed thrive on it, as a proletariat that is angry is controllable, and so their power over you is assured.
In terms of reasonableness, our behaviour, in my view, has been shocking. We have discounted an offer out of hand that had merits worth discussing, refused an offer of binding arbitration which we could have positively influenced, aligned ourselves with the whining fringe occupying Wall Street, demonstrated simply to hear our own voices and now we obstruct progress in the hope that we can "bring management to heel" by denying that our integration process is acceptable.
To wit: The white paper. Now I confess that as an Airbus pilot my view is substantially different, and the process for me easier, than say, a 757-767 pilot. Our changes have been minimal. So I wanted to see what was the difficulties arising from the presentaion of changes. I went to the white paper. This is, after all, what we were presenting to Congress in order to make our case. Surprise, surprise, there was no detailed information contained! Long on the rhetoric, politics, philosophy and anger...short on facts. I saw as one of the contents, letters of resignation signed by two LCAs. Hah! Must be facts here I thought. But in reading the letters of the anonymous resignees I found that their main objection was to a performance procedure designed to reduce the V1 speeds. Now this happens to be something I have ardently advocated ever since being at United and being subjected to its stupid policy of delaying the V1 call as long as possible, thereby setting oneself up for an RTO overrun. Statistically airplanes do a whole lot better when they take off with an engine out than they do trying to stop after blowing one at high speed. Just check the facts. Don't take my word for it.
Their case it at best, debatable, and at worst, a political manouever designed to reflect their anger.
This is what it will appear to the objective eye. And yet here we are, still believing that this policy of obfuscation will give us what we want.
The treatment for the Stockholm syndrome is to remove the injured party from the environment and then allow them to develop individual, logical conclusions to the effects of the conditions at hand, without the pervasive threat of the controlling party. Obviously we cannot physically do this, but we CAN and MUST mentally detatch ourselves from the failing mindset that is creating an enemy out of an adversary.
Or we can stay on the insane party train which leads to striketown. We ARE pushing and management IS digging in their heels.
We are faced with a paradigm shift we fail to recognize, and that is that the new management actually wants to run an airline. Our response to this is to continue what we know how to do, what we are comfortable with, which is fight, deny, obstruct and generally anything we can effect to maintain the status quo. It's the "devil-you-know-is-better-than-the-devil-you-don't-know" syndrome. We are comfortable with this state of affairs. We do not believe anything else is possible due to years of conditioning.
Your ALPA repesentatives are conditioned to respond to this mindset, and indeed thrive on it, as a proletariat that is angry is controllable, and so their power over you is assured.
In terms of reasonableness, our behaviour, in my view, has been shocking. We have discounted an offer out of hand that had merits worth discussing, refused an offer of binding arbitration which we could have positively influenced, aligned ourselves with the whining fringe occupying Wall Street, demonstrated simply to hear our own voices and now we obstruct progress in the hope that we can "bring management to heel" by denying that our integration process is acceptable.
To wit: The white paper. Now I confess that as an Airbus pilot my view is substantially different, and the process for me easier, than say, a 757-767 pilot. Our changes have been minimal. So I wanted to see what was the difficulties arising from the presentaion of changes. I went to the white paper. This is, after all, what we were presenting to Congress in order to make our case. Surprise, surprise, there was no detailed information contained! Long on the rhetoric, politics, philosophy and anger...short on facts. I saw as one of the contents, letters of resignation signed by two LCAs. Hah! Must be facts here I thought. But in reading the letters of the anonymous resignees I found that their main objection was to a performance procedure designed to reduce the V1 speeds. Now this happens to be something I have ardently advocated ever since being at United and being subjected to its stupid policy of delaying the V1 call as long as possible, thereby setting oneself up for an RTO overrun. Statistically airplanes do a whole lot better when they take off with an engine out than they do trying to stop after blowing one at high speed. Just check the facts. Don't take my word for it.
Their case it at best, debatable, and at worst, a political manouever designed to reflect their anger.
This is what it will appear to the objective eye. And yet here we are, still believing that this policy of obfuscation will give us what we want.
The treatment for the Stockholm syndrome is to remove the injured party from the environment and then allow them to develop individual, logical conclusions to the effects of the conditions at hand, without the pervasive threat of the controlling party. Obviously we cannot physically do this, but we CAN and MUST mentally detatch ourselves from the failing mindset that is creating an enemy out of an adversary.
Or we can stay on the insane party train which leads to striketown. We ARE pushing and management IS digging in their heels.
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