If I can add to Doug Moore's post above, a little history should help you keep things in their right place. First off, you write that today's generation will never see what these guys had. I sure hope that you are right because it was very far from rosy. As one example of this and the following is not just an isolated case, when I finally held a captaincy position, after eighteen years at AC, you worked very often untill you droped. That first Xmas period, I was assingned a pairing starting Dec 22 at 07:00 and ending Dec 26. On the 26 in the afternoon, CS got a hold of me and added an other 7 days at the end of the first part so that brought me back home on Jan 02 late in the evening. No matter what I said or how loud I protested, that was it. What saved the day on the 30 was that I came across the same Captain I had met in FP on the 23 and after a brief conversation, he looked at what I was doing and mentionned that I could get out from under that flying because I was going thru YWG, that was a crew base and they had to replace me with a captain from there.Jaques Strappe wrote:The me myself and I generation, as you put it, are the ones at the top who have enjoyed a 30 plus year career in an era of aviation history that will never be repeated, ie: no lay offs, high pay and fantastic working benefits. Today's generation will never see what these guys had.duranium wrote:From the information feed to me, the underlying feeling from the exchanges is that the junior part of the barganing unit is trying, who is now in the majority, numbers wise, by any way possible, to pay back those that have been on the premises for more than a few years by taking away part of their hard earned advantages. It seems that what the AC MEC is trying to accomplish by presenting this contract to the folks, is buying the favours of the junior part so as to be able, down the road, to ram down one's ei:(senior)throat some very unpalatable changes in the contract. As someone once wrote here, this is a prime example of shooting one's self in both feet, or as otherwise expressed, the me, myself and I generation in it's prime.
As for all those Christmas holidays you are dreaming about, my logbook says I was home for 5 of those (Dec 24 and 25) out of a total of 34 and I only bid bottom position once in those 34 years so it not because I was very junior but more because the block builders at the time took requests from their friends and built them special blocks for the holidays as we did not have for many of those years computer blocking as you have now.
You mention layoffs. Well, we at AC had them also, but not as numerous as at Doug's airline, during it's existence. Fantastic pay, you write. Did you ever have your pay cut by a law of Parliament or did you ever take a pay cut to save other pilots jobs ? we did. You do also remeber CCAA do you. I took a 29% haircut on that one.
We also did not have those ex CS people, your contract experts, now working for ACPA that resolve assignment conflicts between you and CS. We had to do it then grieve it so CS could and did try anything under the sun, often with great success. Also no telephone conversation recording for future reference. All and all, great working conditions n'est-ce pas.
What I am saying is go behind '' the scenes '' and have a hard look. It was far from that rose coloured hue you seem to believe existed. What it seems Duranium is saying is you are about to be sold a bill of rights that you will regret for the rest of your career of agreeing to. You are looking, by signing on to that TA, at very short term gain for very long term pain and there will be no coming back once the ink is dry.