Originally Posted by
Carl Spackler
I'm a bad example for you to use, because I have almost no DC and will not til around 2015 if memory serves. We did that at NWA so junior guys would have their retirements boosted by money from senior guys that I theoretically don't need as much since I have a frozen DB retirement.
But my point about this TA being cost neutral is that if you're going to crow about these pay raises (which are really little more than a COLA), you MUST look in the rest of the contract where that is being "funded." Loss of profit sharing, concessions on work rules to name a few. That's only fair to point out. Especially in the light that this TA is indeed cost neutral to Delta. We waited 10+ years and gave DALPA what they pleaded for...the opportunity to show us what they could do in the first Section 6 in a decade. DALPA was further bolstered by negotiating during a time of our airline's record profits. What did they bring us? A cost neutral TA.
That's a fact. Everyone must obviously use their own judgment on how to vote, but you're voting on a cost neutral TA.
Carl
Look, I too would love to be paid much more, I really think that each day of training should be 5:15 (since we are on duty it should be an avg duty day), vacation should be at least 5!5 (a days worth of work), etc but to say that this raise is cola to me is mind boggling. It is a three year deal and it would be a ~19% raise. That is more than cola. What if we did the deal of 6.5 Jan 1, 2013, 6.5% 2014 and 6.5% 2015. It would be about the same % but is that just cola? Guys are fixated on the last two years and quite frankly, I would much rather have a larger bump now than equal over the term.
One more question: lets say that we vote this TA down and the company does in fact decide to do the overhauls on the 50 seaters. Then the company comes back to us with the same deal. It is no longer cost neutral to the company, is it now a good deal since it cost the company money?
Believe me, I really feel that we are being slighted by the fact that we get to realize the benefit of the re-fleeting of the regionals and yet the company is not throwing in a few more $$ to our group for successfully completing a merger without any glitches from flight ops side (as it relates to passengers) and taking major setbacks to get the company out of bk and become profitable again. It really does not sit well that we aren't given at least a little token amount since every other group is. Why should our gains have to only come from the benefits of getting out of 50 seat rj leases. What are the other labor and office groups giving up in order to get their raises? All I am saying is that I don't necessarily think that just because it is cost neutral, that is the reason to vote it down.
Either the TA meets your minimum threshold or it doesn't (as it pertains to wages and work rules).
This is just my thoughts and I am no where near coming to a decision as to how I will vote. I do know that I will for sure vote no, no matter what, if the company/union does not inform us that pilots are not coming with the 717's (sorry for the numerous use of negatives in the sentence for all you grammerians).