Lufthansa: tentative agreement
 

- rise of base hrs from 73 to 75: reduction (!!) 96.9% compared to before:

- payrise in 2001: 11.0% on average (0.969 * 2% then *3% then *9% on average)

- payrise in 2002: 5.8% for all
(2.8% + average industry raise in Germany assumed: 3%)

- payrise in 2003: 3% for all
(average industry raise in Germany assumed: 3%)


gives a sum of ca. 20.9% over duration of contract (39 months starting 2.01)

plus:

- effective 5% raise of overtime pay (has to be multiplied with raise)
- 2 monthly May 2001 salaries in 2001
- 0 to 2 monthly Dec 2001 salaries in 2002 (dep. on profits: 1 salary per 1 billion DM profit!)
- 0 to 2 monthly Dec 2002 salaries in 2003 (dep. on profits: 1 salary per 1 billion DM profit!)


- improvements in augmentation and resttime rules
- some other positive fineprint

THE CATCHes:

- no strike about pay until after 05.1.2004
- no strike about working rules until after 1.1.2003
- if one side has a problem with the "average industry raise" an arbitrator will make a FINAL decision

Now DLH-VC-members will have to vote...





[This message has been edited by wonderbusdriver (edited 09 June 2001).]

How's the initial reaction among LH-pilots?

Don't cave in yet Lufty pilots!!! You are so close to an historic victory for European pilots.

20% over 39 months! What an insult. I hope that it gets the thumbs down that it deserves.

So it will take 39 months to claw back the pay cut that you previously took. And where will your pay stand in comparison with the US majors?

Don't stop now!!! You've done ok so far.........keep pushing and yu'll get where you want to be! :)

If not, you're all back to square one!

Well done all of you. You have shown guts and determination. I hope the offer is rejected and that you continue your fight for a just settlement. Don't give in just now as a decent victory is just around the corner.

B.A. watch with great interest.


Regards
Exeng

reactions:

- VERY mixed, but no one is celebrating
- waiting, screaming for all the detais to make a good assessment

pay compared to US majors:

- 50% of their gross pre raise... you figure it out
- working rules are nowhere as good either, but they made some improvements in the proposal

"caving in":

- Maybe (!!) some people in the commitee did so.
But we elected them as our representatives!
We said we´d support them, and I believe we have to now, even if only to keep the position we have finally achieved in this country as "partner" to be taken serious.
VC has a rather limited budget and resources (with VERY few people actually running the show), but have managed to pull of some rather effective and disciplined actions.

After a few years in close combat on smaller battlefields in DLH, I can only guess on how big the pressure was on some of the negotiators.
Most of them are/were "amateurs" (not meant in a demeaning way) up against company pros with a "limitless" budget, resources and training, as well as big union guns blasting away at them, while they were trying to "overthrow the government".

I hope we can analyze/scrutinize the whole affair, without falling apart, and continue building up VC for the future.

It´s all so f@cking political and union politics are so dirty.

Standby for more info and explanations once I´ve seen all the fine-print.


[This message has been edited by wonderbusdriver (edited 08 June 2001).]

Others need the VC too, WBdriver, otherwise Your results will be swallowed by the competion guys, if they don´t follow.

I think You made the goal by now with adding up some 30 % (!) this year. You won´t find this figure in the press ! ("f@cking political and union politics are so dirty.")

Michael & the TK - crew made a great, strategic well organised job. Press comments and harmed faces of LH Management is worth to look at.

Congratulations

Richthofen - what secret 30%? Please explain.

Write up in today's FT suggesting the deal is not as bad as it could have been for Lufthansa management. Also warns that other unions are likely to follow suit.

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pag...id=ZZZHJ52NA0C

If you don´t factor in the change of base hours from 73 to 75, you get an average scale rise of ca. 14,5% (use 100% instead of 96,9% in my calculation).

Add to that two May 2001 monthly salaries (1/12 equals ca. 8,3%), you get another 16,6% in 2001.
BUT: this is only assured in 2001, since they made 1 billion Euros profit in 2000.
We get 1 monthly salary for every 500 mill. Euro profit in the year preceding, or certain fractions of that, in the future.
Max. can be 2 salaries, min. is 0 (zero) depending on company profits.
So this year it´s assured, but ?? loom ahead.
These payments are being called "performance-dependant-variable-parts of pay".

To answer your question about the "30%", add the 14,5% and 16,6%...

DLH was doing this in the media all along, and we were complaining about it.
Now VC is doing it... and many members are rather annoyed.
But a friend just told me, that these are accepted (by whom?)"rules" in "selling" these agreements. - Judge for yourself.

[This message has been edited by wonderbusdriver (edited 09 June 2001).]

Wonderbusdriver - many thanks.

I'm sure that the management here at BA will try to "hide" any pay rise which we may get in this years pay round. However, many of us do not care about upsetting other employee groups. Lets be honest, even if we did the job for free, people would still hate pilots because we get too much time off, have a sun tan or some other jealous reason.

I strongly believe that a large and transparent increase in pensionable pay is the only way to go. Anything else is just saving face for our managers and why should I care about that?

That´s politics , man.
BALPA might have to "hide" it to the public too, but you people should be able to understand it.(A TV-reporter was standing next to my buddy at the press-conference yesterday and asked:"Well how much is it now?!")
"Selling" this stuff to other parties can be the hardest part of the whole thing, even when both sides have agreed on something.

Better get used to it, since it might be part of the deal, if you´re negotiating these kinds of numbers.

As much as I may love money I don't think Lufthansa Pilots would be well advised to vote down this tentative agreement.

They got a lot of what they asked for, and it seems they also asked for performance-based pay based on a "managerial" system.

Voting down the TA would give them a _tremendously_ bad press as even the current agreement has drawn massive criticism in a news arena that doesn't understand and/or value seniority but sees it as a cause of the events at LH. "Frankfurter Allgemeine", "Sueddeutsche" and "Neue Zuercher Zeitung" have all been rather critical and they're probably nowhere near "Bild" :-)

I don't advocate listening to the media, but it isn't easy to strike against an even more adverse public opinion. The TA moderated by Genscher leaves both parties a honorable way out. I don't think it's a good idea to go on until your company lies on the ground panting, just because you can....

Today we got the fineprint of the agreement. An it is actually rather good, but you only see the beauty of it at 2nd sight.

Remember: This agreement is a total revolution in Germany.

I like it, I will vote for it. And there is alway a next contract coming up ...

New agreement seems to include some unwanted status change for LH pilots from "general staff member" to "management staff" ("Führungskräfte"). This would not only exclude them from two (routine) anual extra salaries ("Urlaubsgeld" and "Weihnachtsgeld") but would make their income dependent on future company profits. And it might open up the ranks to foreign entrants. Any more info on that please?

The two "annual salaries" you´re refering to are factored in.

"Urlaubsgeld" and "Weihnachtsgeld" were 1 monthly salary paid in 50% lumps in May an November- so we had "13" salaries.

Basis for the new numbers are the annual salary (consisting of 13 before):
We now get 13/12 of the (previous) annual salary each month multiplied by the raises, which has some advantages for us, when we look at the taxman, sickpay etc.
Overtime is a fraction of the monthly salary so that is raised somewhat also.

The two EXTRA monthly salaries we get this year are "profit-sharing" - the years before we got ca. 0.3 (!!) monthly salaries for that.

"Foreigners"?:
If you have the right to work in Germany, a German ATPL, can speak German, have a max age etc. and pass the LH-DLR-test, they´ve been offering (albeit junior-FO)-contracts to anyone.
LH-Cargo has a para in the ta about possible "short-term" basings outside of FRA, notably CGN (Cologne) or possibly (!!) two other of the cargo-hubs. This will still have to be specified between the company and the pilots´reps, though.
Don´t expect them to recruit other "foreigners", than the ones being able to join DLH now.

The fineprint (resttime regs, augmentation regs - still rather laughable for major US-operators) is rather company specific and hard to follow for "outsiders", but I´ve mentioned most of it already.

Let´s see how the vote goes!

Hot wings - I totally agree ewith your post!