Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Gloopy,
I was going to try and not hold this debate here. But, lets look at Robert Priddy's other airline, AirTran.
Should Southwest's pilots have proactively re-written their contract to exclude 717's and allowed management to operate it as a low cost alter-ego?
Our association has sought ways to divide our pilots rather than unify them. Even after thousands of Delta pilots were furloughed and many more stagnated, you and other like minded individuals hold to the arbitrary constructs which divide us.
Understand, ALPA's leaders have made it very difficult to recapture scope (by ALPA, APA, DPA or anyone else). Compass's inclusion in our representative structure provided justification for 76 seat flying to be within the "class and craft" of Delta flying. As a result, Compass was ejected tout de suite.
We have decided whether to be unified with, or compete with, express carriers using the measure of one seat. It is unfair, illogical, harmful to our profession and something we as professionals and good union members should work to resolve. We should want to fix this for Delta pilots.
... and another thing. Delta's had a revolving door of managers, gate agents, GSE people in and out of their express subsidiaries, nearly all of whom have kept their longevity (not seniority). Is it fair that only pilots lose their longevity while being employed from one subsidiary to another? Isn't it fair to treat pilots at least as well as rampers?
As for your point about only pilots losing longevity, I just don't envision a scenario where essentially a preferred class of pilots (former DCI) get to start their careers at DL at the top of the pay scale with 5 weeks of vacation and 240 hours of sick time while every other new hire starts on year one pay with 2 weeks of vacation and 50 hours sick time. Its just not going to happen and we would spark off a civil war among ourselves if we tried to do that.
I agree that we need inclusion and I'm against the outsourcing schemes. I just don't see any type of day one final solution being possible, and even an attempt at such could trigger another PID/seniority grab with at least an attempt to get a bite at binding arbitration where who knows what may happen.
I want all the planes in our system on our list, but its going to have to start by reducing large RJ's and getting those jobs, as new hire positions, on our own mainline. At this point, flows and interviews with a DoH/longevity reset are all any DCI pilot can expect to be possible. The only chance for what you advocate was back in 2001 and, while there is certainlly blame to go around at the mainline level, the regionals drastically and arrogantly over played their hand and subsequently sealed their collective fate. At this point their only hope at preserving DoH/longevity at a mainline is to go IndyAir and defy the astronomical odds against them.