Originally Posted by Check Essential

Did these men get it right?

Lee Moak
Tim O'Malley
Parri Olmstead
Mike Pinho
Rick Dominguez
Roger White
Rich Harwood
Ken Rogers

Let's not kid ourselves. I undoubtedly left a few names off the list but these are the men who wrote this contract. With stunning speed, the whole intricate (and time consuming) "process" was circumvented.

When we cast our vote the question we need to answer is do we trust the judgment of the handful of people who brought us this contract? This is not the contract the pilots wanted and it is not the contract the MEC wanted.
This was done by a very small group of people who decided what they thought was best for Delta Air Lines and the Delta pilots. They largely disregarded the survey, excluded the elected reps and cut a deal. They then used the powerful machinery at their disposal to get it out to membership ratification. The information and communication resources they control are formidable. They overwhelmed our MEC reps with National's lawyers, economists, political types warning about our chances at the NMB, etc. etc. They are doing the same with the pilot group as a whole.

Make no mistake. These are smart guys. Big picture guys. They've been in power a long time. They are not management but they clearly view themselves as managers of the pilot group. They are pilot advocates and they want everything they can get for the pilots but they also see themselves as responsible for the corporation's health. They believe deeply in the philosophy of labor participation in "corporate governance". They place great value on a pilot member of the board of directors. etc. etc.

I haven't seen the survey but it seems obvious that in many areas these people substituted their judgment for the collective wishes of the pilot group and our elected reps.

On the other hand, "Time value of money" is not just a slogan or cliche. It is real. The dysfunctional, anti-labor NMB is also real. These men made a strategic decision to make an end run around the long, torturous, drawn out NMB negotiation and mediation system that has undeniably been broken for the last decade. That may have been a stroke of brilliance and the best thing that ever happened or it may have cost us hundreds of millions. Would the Railway Labor Act have worked for us or slowly smothered us? That's the decision we have to make. Will we really do better by taking that long road?

It's done. Fait accompli. We have a TA. We are going to vote.
We need to decide -- did these men get it right?