Originally Posted by
tsquare
It is not necessarily that I saw that per se. (but that is a good observation) The questions where you had to choose whether something was absolutely critical, merely critical, critical.. etc (TIC) seemed a bit managing to me. All these issues are absolutely critical IMHO. We have been on a BK contract for 10+ years now!! Almost half of my career. The problem that I see is the DALPA leadership will tout our existing contract as being industry leading in many ways, which it probably is. But that doesn't acknowledge the fact that I just intimated: we have been on a BK contract for 10+ years. Restoration (whatever that means); no, improvements on a galactic scale are absolutely paramount. And I don't know about you, but I cannot realistically rank seven items in a particular order of importance. After number 2, I am just filling it in so I can move on. I have no earthly idea whether something is 6th most important in my mind.. no wait.. it is actually 5th more important... really? I guess in a way, a survey is not really necessary. I mean, does the leadership really need a poll to determine what is/is not important to the pilot group at this point? Fire away ya'll.
tsquare, if ALPA had infinite leverage, and DAL had infinite money, then there would be no need to rank anything. We simply demand EVERYTHING.... and DAL gives it to us. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, regardless of what we think we are worth, or what we used to have, or what is "fair", our leverage is finite, and DAL's ability to give is finite; thus, there will have to be some ranking of what is most important. Even assuming we can get 99 things out of our collective top 100, everyone's top 100 is slightly different, so ALPA needs to know which item is collectively the last priority.... so they can go get the other 99.
I know in forum world we just demand C2K + COLA, plus the pension, plus the work rules, etc. etc. and management gives it to us.... after the ALPA President goes to jail for a few days because "we're all made as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore..."
But the real world is a bit different.