Originally Posted by Timbo

OK GJ, why don't you tell us what YOU think is a "Reasonable" pay raise?

I have no idea what your personal background is with regard to Delta South's contract history. Were you working for DL South when we negotiated the 25+% raise in C2K?

For those of you who were not here for that, I'll try to be brief:

How did we achieve that high a pay raise? We were PREPARED! Our MEC did a fantastic job of motivating the pilot group to DEMAND more! We held Family Awareness meetings, we used the press, we pointed out Delta's record profits, we held informational picketing, we took a strike vote, we cleaned out our lockers and marched through the ATL. In short, it took two years of very hard work to get that big raise, but we got it.

Contrast that to what just happened to us a year ago, you know, the 4833 contract. We were woefully UN-prepared. Richard knew Delta would be making more money, soon. He saw an opportunity to lock us into a 4 year deal for miniscule raises, and to cut our profit sharing by 33% to pay for it. He created leverage and used it very effectively.

How? Simple. He caught us with our pants down, he threw up artificial time constraints based on RJ 50/717 swap, (and you must act now, and we'll start hiring as soon as the ink is dry!).

If we had not signed on to that a year ago, we would be negotiating now, while the company is making record profits. We might be having those same family awareness meetings, and marching around the airport, etc. All the stuff we did in 2000.

But we didn't.

So we got what we deserved; 3 pizz poor pay raises, very little increase to our pizz poor retirement funding (1%?!), and now we gave back 33% of our profit sharing too.

Brilliant.

We were rushed, by Richard, into a 6 week section 6 negotiations, then our own NC went behind the backs of the MEC and signed a 'Take it or Leave It' type deal.

Let me clue you into a little secret: When ever the company comes to us, with a "Hey, have we got a Deal for YOU!" it never turns out to be a deal for us, it's for THEM, that's why they came to us to open early in the first place!

The "Big Opportunity" Richard was talking about was not to swap RJ's for 717's, it was an opportunity for HIM, to lock us out of the upcoming record profit years and tie us to two 3% pay raises while they roll in our dough, and to negotiate a quick, small raise, while we were completely unprepared to go to war looking for more.

Now GJ, don't be going all DPA on me. I've never sent in a card, because I don't see where any new bargaining agent is going to do any better. I believe our upcoming battles will be fought in Washington DC, with Congress, with regard to Cabotage, Foreign Ownership laws, etc.

I believe in supporting ALPA's PAC. I've been a supporter for my entire career, and I think that is our best chance to influence Congress. I don't see how DPA is going to get their foot into the doorway of any Congressman.

You can hide behind the RLA and the NMB all you want, but the fact is, we were woefully unprepared to negotiate for more a year ago, and Richard knew it, saw his opportunity, and took it.

If you guys want some REAL RAISES in 2015, we need to start getting prepared NOW! So when/where is the next Family Awareness meeting being held? I've done it before, I'd be happy to host the first one, this Friday night, at my house, there will be Torpedo's, Bushmills, sailboats and fishing. Bring the kids.