It can hardly have come as a surprise that all proposals are rejected and a mediator sought, that was AMC's tactic in the first two contract negotiations. 

Delay, Delay Delay, push back any new contract for as long as possible. Usually 2-3 years or longer if they can. 

Meanwhile the pilot salaries stagnate and more importantly, any increase only reflects what would have been adequate three years earlier, not taking into account any inflation in the intervening years and the value of salaries declines year after year in such a way that by the time, 3 years down the road, a new CBA is ratified, even though several million dollars will have been spent on their lawyers, the company have actually saved money. Additionally by holding up the pilots pay increases they can effectively use that to hold pay raises for the maintenance staff too. Another big saving. 

Whilst it is inappropriate to measure Pilot salaries against increasing management and executive staff pay or even medical personnel as each performs a function with a different value criteria based on education, experience, (Good 'ole boy network) market forces, etc., It is appropriate to examine the manner in whch the union perform their obligations for negotiations on behalf of the pilots.

At every CBA juncture the Union have advised AMC of their intention to renegotiate and thereafter the sequence of events has followed exactly the same pattern. Back and forth, meetings, meetings, meetings, ad nauseum, NMB, meetings, meetings, meetings, month after month, year after year, until finally a CBA. 

What was Einsteins famous comment about doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result?

I would suggest that what the Union is missing is the to need to create a situation PRIOR to the negotiations that make AMC want to negotiate and resolve those negotiations quickly. And the only way that will ever happen is that their financial situation is directly and significantly impacted before negotiations begin, not afterwards with "Let's not do a workover now."

However we are where we are now and SNAFU is in place. Obviously leaving shifts uncovered would be a positive step IF and only IF everyone was on board with that decision but the very fact that AMC see that that does not happen emboldens them to continue the protracted process. Having settled on any CBA previously that they knew three years down the road would probably mean the pilots would be only too willing to carry out workovers to keep abreast of inflation, they had no doubt then that history would repeat itself when the time came for renewal and so it continues.

Wise up pilots, get united and all reading from the same game plan. Its in your interest.

Just my 2c 

I would think the pilots would have a lot of leverage in their negotiations as it is likely the company would be negatively affected (more so than many other companies) by fluctuations in revenue.  Remember, this company was trading at something in excess of $50 a share the year prior to being taken private.  The stock went down to something like $28.  The purchaser then paid something like $43 a share (for a company with a downward trend in share price).  Here's the rub:  they borrowed a bunch of money to buy AMC.  When Aaron Todd was CEO, he publically stated he wanted to keep debt at no less than two times cash flow, no more than 4 times.  It went up to something like 8 times after the sale according to Moody's.  Some of the bonds issued to pay for the company are now trading at $68 and yielding 23 percent.  We used to refer to bonds yielding this amount as "junk".  In my opinion, financial leverage coupled with uncertainty about reimbursement levels under the No Surprises Act creates a situation where the company needs to operate a max capacity.  Here is the data on the bond:

It just goes to show that there are some people on this forum with some valuable information that makes for a good read ,,  thank you for taking the time to post Information that can actually help.

Thank you for the informatitive post. Going to avoid workover shifts mainly because its time to enjoy summer and to keep the pressure up.

Please tell everyone how to create this dier need for amc to negotiate and create leverage as you say "before" going into the negotiating process?

you do realize that is not actually what Einstein said about insanity, don't you? You watch too many movies. It's like this every Few years because that's the process outlined by the NMB and RLA. It's required. Or, you could just not enter negotiations and never get a raise or set yourself further behind by waiting.

Heres how to fix this and resolve it going forward. It benefits the company and the union.

1) standardized pay for amc pilots based on their years as a pilot at amc, flat rate for each year and that's the scale.

2) now if they want to pay for experience, put "x" amount for every year of qualified experience paid as a stipend annually and not part of the annual salary.

1 and 2 standardized pay for amc pilots and makes it so that no new hire or inexperienced pilot actually makes more than a tenured pilot other than stipends that are not calculated for workover, overtime, or benefits.

3) Set a flat rate pay raise annually or say 3% and then have the contract pay that average of the previous 11 months of inflation (COL) on top of that. In other words it may be 8.9% one year becaue of the rate increase but then only 3% per year when those rates aren't as high. This is how they worked the medical costs in the last contract. this helps project flat rates for a longer term and eliminates the need to have to renegotiate a contract every few years, because it always comes down to pay.

these are easy fixes and provide long term relief and projections for both the employee and the employer.

there Nancy.  Company gonna do dat write awayee.

Please.

Problem ref: unity is there are so many bases and geographically disassociated pilots and maintenance people.  Unity?  THAT is the nut that if cracked WILL provide some muscle to the union - have no clue how that is going to be achieved but it is the pivotal point for strength in negotiations.