Originally Posted by
KiwiAvi8er
The feds. Didn’t they vote to give themselves a 25% pay cut about a week in to this and once they saw all the work ALPA did to save jobs, with the 14% reduction on a flexi scheme, thought that looks good we’ll take that.
The issue I see is these surplus numbers are for April next year. 100 pilot excess. Let’s say everyone does a flexi scheme and shaves 14% off for 9 months. We get to April and the model is bang on, still 40 pilots in excess (if that’s how many jobs are saved) then how long does the group sacrifice the conditions? Realistically there are going to multiple waves of job cuts here.
Some misinformation there.... The Feds voted for a mandate to allow
up to a maximum of 25% reduction which at the time was in line with the FFA that was available. What it did was remove the need for individual EOI’s for the FFA and instead provide a bulk order. ALPA wanted to stick to the CEA and rightly so as a vote to match would never have got past the top 400 pilots. So the EOI went out and had a favourable enough response that it looked possible a ratification of a flexi deal could work. The Feds worked on their own version of an FFA but with less complications and easier to implement. The end results were the same but for ease of application the AFFA was decided best across the board. The suggestion that the feds decided to jump on the bandwagon and take it is incorrect. There was good cooperation between unions developing this however the furlough section was definitely ALPA driven. And let’s be clear, the Feds had already produced the bulk of their proposal and issued several member updates while ALPA were still floundering and the silence was deafening.
The 25% vote by the Feds showed unity to want to save jobs and to start the momentum towards a pilot wide solution. The exec had not expected that and were not prepared for such a show of support. They were straight into thinking about following the CEA. Once this train started ALPA had to get on board. Imagine the backlash if your union leaders had the chance to try and save your job and said, sorry we will just to stick to the CEA and lose some pilots as our jobs are safe and we don’t need a pay cut thanks. A little simplistic I know but this move was not political, it was moralistic. It was to save jobs of colleagues, real people with families, mortgages etc, which is awesome. The days of us and them should be long gone. Maybe not yet but they will be. I’m certainly not trying to start any union debate here and the unions have worked together probably better than ever on this one it would seem. There are awesome younger guys in both camps that can lead the way forward and leave the past where it is. I do however feel the need to give credit where credit is due and don’t like to see the negative attitudes and misinformed throwaway comments that we see so often.