J.P.
I'll try again, more slowly this time. I thought I had quite succinctly recognised most of your points, even ascribing some merit to your thoughts.
So;
- I would love to know how to vote against 'nepotism or contract pilots or management job sweeteners' when it can't be proven and AIPA can't force a vote on the company.
- voting 'yes to pay increases below the inflation rate' is never palatable but more believable when your pilot group is demonstably at the 'top of the heap' depending on your perspective. What intrigues me is how a possible pay cut while near the bottom of the remuneration tree (among jet jobs in Oz) can be so tarted up as such a good deal.
- AIPA members (mostly not the ones who imposed it) showed maturity and, at not inconsiderable cost, voted out the domestic 'B scales for their fellow members', so what's your point again?
- Mistakes... AIPA has made so many but why would anyone not wish to learn from that. J* negotiated with the same adversarial consultants as have faced AIPA. Super-resourced, charging around $5000 per day I'm told, and tasked with skillfully convincing pilots that anything other than the offer on the table is unrealistic/unattainable/withdrawable. But a component of whatever they cleverly withhold from well-intentioned-ameteur pilot-negotiators goes into some desk-wallah's bonus! Yes, in my book AIPA have been naive too, but your committee had the benefit of all that and still actively endorsed a typically AIPA outcome for much less money than an established benchmark! Bit of a shame really.
- if 'signing off on an EBA effectively endorses the company’s position' then what has just happened? "Pot to Kettle, over"
- 'we will all be Airbus Captains within 3 years of start-up'. Perhaps, but I'm not sure who's sounding more arrogant now... If that's what you live for you're welcome to it on the conditions you've won. Perhaps that's what the J* majority wanted; so low that it's not worth many others cutting in?
There's a lot of water to go under the bridge before I jump off it. I've probably chosen words poorly because I'm really not anti anyone who can do the job. I'm disappointed but not angry at anyone who's been faced with an intimidating choice. I'm annoyed that IR has come to this though.
I just hope that market forces, common sense and finally some spine will allow all QF pilots, including J*, to progress in reasonable time to a reasonable command on reasonable pay and conditions.
Tell 'im 'e's dreamin'...