Originally Posted by
Scoop
Gloopy,
Referencing what I made red above - I am saying lets improve our section 1overall. I guess you are not counting the Alaska code-share and JV's as "domestic lift outsourced" - I do. Other than that I'm with you, I guess I am a little more pessimistic.
The plan you lay out above that I bolded above sounds a lot like the APA plan of the last 8 years - how did that work out? The dig your heels in and fight it out sounds great, hell I am ready for a strike as I have a second job and some decent savings but I don't think it is in the cards. More importantly looking at all the constraints that we as a pilot group are under - I don't think it would work. I think the threat of a job action could be valuable and while we might win a few battles I don't see us winning the war so to speak. And while winning a Pyrrhic victory might feel good, I think there are better ways to go.
My most important requirement for this contract is to hold the Scope line at 76 seats. Relaxing this would essentially start the doomsday clock for this occupation - because if we can't hold Scope under our current conditions we never will. I would love to reduce 76 seaters but I just don't see it happening.
As far as production balance, yeah the 50 seaters going away may help with the production balance but as George referenced we are already getting clobbered in LAX by Alaska. Hell george was even displaced to SLC.
To me the best metric of our section 1 is how many of the passengers who buy a DAL ticket are flown by DAL pilots. If we can keep this number increasing at all times it would be great for all the DAL Pilots, especially the junior guys.
Scoop
When I read this from you Scoop, it gets me worried because I know you really get this stuff. Take a look at this from a very big picture view. Why does plugging all the holes in our top end scope require concessions on bottom end scope? Who the hell made that rule? Why can't our scope be nothing but gains on the top, middle and bottom? Our largest and profitable competitor has it, thus the NMB couldn't call our request to begin the process of
moving toward SWAPA scope unreasonable.
I understand your logic, but in my view the premise is based on having our expectations completely managed regarding scope. The NMB could NOT call us unreasonable. If it came down to a public battle before a strike,
the public would be completely behind us fighting to reverse outsourcing. Outsourcing hits every working American right in their spinal chord...it's everyone's vulnerability. All it would require is our union to portray it that way, and therein lies the rub. Have you noticed that not one single union document refers to our outsourcing as outsourcing? They call it DCI, JV's, code share...but NEVER outsourcing. Why is that? I know the answer but it doesn't matter. It only matters whether we members will allow our expectations to be badly managed and accept the utterly false premise that a gain in one section of scope requires a loss in another part of scope. This is Bu!!$h!t. Everything is on our side on this...the NMB and public opinion. If we don't fight for this with everything going our way, we won't fight for anything.
Where am I wrong here man...what am I missing?
Carl