Lowlut,

To expand on your point slightly. The Administrative Manual, Section 40, on page 5, has a process which the Delta pilots followed during C2012. We brought our Section 1 proposal to national, conferred with those in the mainline / express system and went to negotiate our contract with ALPA's authority to do so.

The Pinnacle pilots saw no need to comply with the Administrative Manual. They simply did a deal with Delta management.

Ideally, MEC s are required to follow the Constitution and Bylaws and Admin Manual. If they don't the President refuses to sign. If airlines within the mainline / express system want to coordinate for mainline to recover scope, that is a good thing. The rules are set up so that pilots are represented equally and fairly within one powerful union. We can resolve our differences internally and move forward together, in unity, towards a common goal.

The Pinnacle pilots, by their actions, disagree with the intent of the Admin Manual and do not respect the autonomy of the Delta MEC to deal with Delta management.

The inevitable problems with Pinnacle's approach are:

• It violates the Constitution and Bylaws, as well as the Administrative Manual
• It is inevitable that different contracts are going to contradict one another
• It is inevitable that management will use their new found choice to whipsaw pilots
• The different amenable dates on the various contracts will be used by management to preempt each other's bargaining
• The mainline carriers will likely leave ALPA once they figure out their autonomy is threatened. Of course, but then the precedent is already set and the damage already done.