Legend,
You are very passionate about not having a "degree."
It is a competitive world. No degree is required to practice law in many states, any huckster can get a license to act as an investment advisor. For some reason a lawyer from Harvard can start at $500,000 a year while a lawyer from Georgia State (which has a higher bar passage rate) starts at less than a fifth of that amount.
While book learning does play a role, stick and rudder skills are mostly experience and God given ability. Since objectively we are trained to the same standard, it is impossible to differentiate.
But we can measure what are considered "competitive mins." Delta's competitive mins have always been a college degree. It appears some have tried to game the system using pay cuts to get moved to the front of the line. Whether it be Lance Armstrong or pilot who trades pay cuts for special hiring rights, our society reacts with outrage when they perceive an unfair advantage was taken to push to the front of the line.
How would you feel if the next express carrier negotiates an agreement which states "for pay 1% below Pinnacle, our pilots will be hired before Pinnacle preferential interviewees."
Your agreement has begun a new "market." The sale of preferential hiring opportunities. Some see that as a variation on paying for a job. I don't blame your pilots individually. But I do blame our union collectively for getting into this aspect of outsourcing. It has always been my opinion (as well as that of the Founders of our union) that we should only allow Delta pilots perform Delta flying. Applying that to our circumstance:
- The expresss carriers should not have hired thousands while the mainline carriers laid off thousands within a common airline network.
- Today there should not be thousands of express furloughs while the mainline carriers hire
- Airline management fleet decisions should not result in a crisis at one airline and a windfall at another, within the same common airline network.
- Pilots should not lose longevity and seniority as management moves flying to the airline "flavor of the day" within the brand
- The fix for all of these problems is UNITY. Structural unity, meaning only Delta pilots perform Delta flying and those pilots are represented by the Delta MEC to Delta management. No exceptions!
So, my opinion is, you probably have more right to a merger than an interview. However, both your and my representational rights are thwarted by a union which sees value in outsourcing my job to you and your job to the lowest bidder.
UNITY should be the moral cornerstone of our association. Instead the Pinnacle agreement offers a false substitute for unity in exchange for pay cuts. That's abhorrent.