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WestJet Pilot contract arbitration


FA@AC

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43 minutes ago, Bonhomme said:

Way to take the high road, stay classy and Merry Christmas

 
“Today’s award provides WestJet the ability to grow, operate a sustainable business and to compete effectively in the current operating environment,” said Ed Sims, WestJet President and CEO. “The conclusion of this first agreement allows us to now turn our attention to the arrival of WestJet’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner and our transition to a global network carrier. I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with our pilots as we deliver on our global future.”

Lighten up Bonhomme and sorry to upset you but I fail to see why your group sees any benefit to posting your contract issues here. 

However, if you were losing your job just before Christmas along with 5000 other airline employees I’d be more compassionate. Instead you’re still working and your next paycheque will be deposited as per usual. And always remember. The flight deck door lock system is controlled from the inside. :)

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3 hours ago, blues deville said:
 
“Today’s award provides WestJet the ability to grow, operate a sustainable business and to compete effectively in the current operating environment,” said Ed Sims, WestJet President and CEO. “The conclusion of this first agreement allows us to now turn our attention to the arrival of WestJet’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner and our transition to a global network carrier. I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with our pilots as we deliver on our global future.”

Lighten up Bonhomme and sorry to upset you but I fail to see why your group sees any benefit to posting your contract issues here. 

However, if you were losing your job just before Christmas along with 5000 other airline employees I’d be more compassionate. Instead you’re still working and your next paycheque will be deposited as per usual. And always remember. The flight deck door lock system is controlled from the inside. :)

I don’t see anyone posting contract details here, I certainly never have. I merely posted a tongue in cheek response to FA@AC’s inquiry.

Yes we all have jobs with paycheque’s but this arbitrated agreement certain puts the brakes on a junior pilot’s career asperations at WJ.

Light as a feather.

BH

 

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1 hour ago, Bonhomme said:

I don’t see anyone posting contract details here, I certainly never have. I merely posted a tongue in cheek response to FA@AC’s inquiry.

Yes we all have jobs with paycheque’s but this arbitrated agreement certain puts the brakes on a junior pilot’s career asperations at WJ.

Light as a feather.

BH

 

Sounds good. ?

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14 hours ago, blues deville said:
 
...However, if you were losing your job just before Christmas along with 5000 other airline employees I’d be more compassionate...

Canada 3000, 11/9/2001!!

Ironically same union, same unrealistic expectations!

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10 hours ago, MD2 said:

Canada 3000, 11/9/2001!!

Ironically same union, same unrealistic expectations!

At that time the ALPA/C3 team were on board with saving the airline and a planned downsizing. It was the CUPE group who couldn’t see the forest for the trees. However, once the airline was gone so was the support from ALPA. No dues coming in, no help going out. 

ALPA represents some of the largest and highest paid pilots in the world with 2% (maybe more now) of their paycheques generating huge amounts of monthly payments. However, at the end of the day it’s your own in-house team doing all the work for little compensation. Not a perfect arrangement or recipe for success. I think any new or pilot veteran at WS will be just fine down the road. The problem is some new guys seem to think they should be promoted ASAP. Be patience. Your time will come.  

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Well, I remember at Canada 3000, ALPA was initially promising pay parity with Air Canada, which after September 11th turned into a pay-cut, lay-off by equipment and out of seniority, shut-down, and two days after, ALPA closing the web site  set-up for furloughed pilots to find jobs, and disappearing! And yes CUPE made its contributions too with supposedly the final nail in the coffin. 

At any rate, this is a familiar pattern of over-promising to sign on the pilots, and then under-delivering once faced with reality of things. WestJet pilots now have to pay their dues for this contract. The question is, are they still happy to keep ALPA?

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Alpa 

Didnt need it, didn’t want it, but I’m sure as hell going to pay for it.

Not a word from any of the hard core unionists who pushed this deception upon our group and now one of the ringleaders is now Alpa Canada president, before we even had a contract so it tells what his motivation was.

These people owe an an apology to the senior pilots at WJ who were once Alpa leader themselves and who Strongly advised against unionization, they ignored them as management lackeys and vigorously pushed and sold a false bill of goods to the discontented and 20/30 somethings that have only known good times in this business. 

As long as the general public feel they should fly on airliners for bus fares, the ULCC  is sadly here to stay, and thus a continued downward pressure on wawcon. 

Merry Christmas to all and keep what is really important in perspective.

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Those are solemn reflections guys to which many can relate I'm sure. The overinflated unrealistic promises by ALPA which then fled the scenes quickly after the demise of Canada 3000 when the dues stopped still fresh in many memories.  The bigger contributor in that process was the combative posture of CUPE which looked for unrealistic and frankly unnecessary pledges at the 11th hour and their negotiator saying that he "didn't care if the airline went bankrupt, his mortgage was paid off!" In like manner to your story, he later became a CUPE executive. At any rate, life goes on.

Many pilots wrongly assume that ALPA, as a big labour organization, is the panacea to all their ills. It most certainly is not, rather a strong cooperative culture. ALPA is a very large, very "rich" pyramid like organization interested in growing and making more money. There has never been a "great" contract won by ALPA in a combative atmosphere, much less in arbitration, rather those have always been won through the hard work of the pilots and management who created a positive mutually beneficial relationship and even then only in good economic times.

It is clear that this long process sadly did not culminate in a positive outcome for WestJet pilots, how do you feel then that the pilot group at the grassroots level intends to recover from this set-back?

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47 minutes ago, MD2 said:

Those are solemn reflections guys to which many can relate I'm sure. The overinflated unrealistic promises by ALPA which then fled the scenes quickly after the demise of Canada 3000 when the dues stopped still fresh in many memories.  The bigger contributor in that process was the combative posture of CUPE which looked for unrealistic and frankly unnecessary pledges at the 11th hour and their negotiator saying that he "didn't care if the airline went bankrupt, his mortgage was paid off!" In like manner to your story, he later became a CUPE executive. At any rate, life goes on.

Many pilots wrongly assume that ALPA, as a big labour organization, is the panacea to all their ills. It most certainly is not, rather a strong cooperative culture. ALPA is a very large, very "rich" pyramid like organization interested in growing and making more money. There has never been a "great" contract won by ALPA in a combative atmosphere, much less in arbitration, rather those have always been won through the hard work of the pilots and management who created a positive mutually beneficial relationship and even then only in good economic times.

It is clear that this long process sadly did not culminate in a positive outcome for WestJet pilots, how do you feel then that the pilot group at the grassroots level intends to recover from this set-back?

At the grassroots level,, I have no doubt  the majority of our crews will do what we’ve always done. Keep our noses to the grindstone and do the best job we can.

Having said that, I can’t really speak to the financial situation of the new generation and how that affects their  attitude but personally I am on the fly til you die retirement program . Fortunately I love and appreciate my job and have respect for the people in charge. Talking flight ops there.

I have had some opportunity to speak to a couple of the latest execs and I certainly cannot speak to their business acumen but they are as enthusiastic about the future as any other from the past, so I am cautiously optimistic.

 

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Nice post.  I’m not a pilot, and I have no connection to Westjet, but I believe you have good reason to be optimistic.  I believe your company is going to grow leaps and bounds, and will provide you the opportunity to continue to earn a nice living for as long as you wish.

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WJA will likely do well and make money for its shareholders; and WestJet will continue to provide a very respectable employment. It's just too bad that its pilots will now have to fork over 1.85% of their salary to Herndon, Virginia to do the same thing they did before; ironic how that is basically the raise they got!  While making some deliberate effort over some time trying to recover from the toxic, divisive and combative environment that was created by ALPA and its supporters. The intended results were not reached.

From what I've seen, WestJet will gradually shrink to 90% as growth happens in its sister companies. Swoop will grow to 30 tails rather quickly, and up to 50 small jets/props of 76 seats (Q400, EMB or RJ) will be added to Encore or another newly created airline or a CPA. The silver-lining is the B787 and its launch will be critical; same as the J.V.  Their successful launch and reception by the public could create some movements at the mainline, otherwise those mentioned above will busy WestJet for some time.

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On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 1:20 PM, DEFCON said:

Rumour says Porter's next to be unionized.

It's easy to make a "rumour", but after the recent ALPA experiment by WestJet, it's unlikely that others will follow suit, much less Porter!

Firstly, two union attempts have failed at Porter and majority of those unionists have left, most to WestJet and likely involved in its union drive? The last attempt was by ALPA itself when hardly anyone showed up to their briefings.

Secondly, Porter pilots have worked hard over the years to build a strong rapport with its management with good results; why risk all that for a WestJet like outcome with a union where they have to pay dues as well?

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