Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

Pretty good letter here.

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Contract 2015 and Decoupling

It is time to reward the pilots who sacrificed their compensation and retirement plans with a contract that truly restores the profession. The leverage our pilot group has today is our ability to realize that our negotiating environment has changed. The horizon is different; growth and attrition are inevitable and it’s time for big increases in total compensation. Notice I didn’t say pay, as in hourly rate, but total compensation. We can achieve huge increases in total compensation; we just have to be smarter about how we do it.

We have to realize that hourly pay and total compensation is not the same thing. We can decouple our hourly pay from total compensation with other forms of compensation. It’s about our W2, not an hourly rate.

We don’t operate in an environment where we will ever receive any sympathy from anyone about our sacrifices or our incomes. The other employees watch what happens in our negotiations and often receive what we negotiate, so decoupling our pay from compensation in ways that are not even possible to offer to other employee groups helps us achieve our goals of full restoration and advancement. Wall Street also watches our costs and negotiating a contract that is not centered on pay rates gives the company some additional control over Wall Street’s spin.

Our contract opener should include the following ideas:

• Change our per diem compensation to the government max unsubstantiated reimbursement amount. (In my category last year this would have been worth almost a 10% pay raise!). Remember, this is tax free disposable income

• Increase retirement contribution to 20% of pay, with excess over 415 limits contributed to 401A

• Pay us for the time we actually work. This is a big concept and one that is fair and easy to justify. “Soft time” or “hard time”, it’s still all work hours that we need to be compensated for.

o Pay for preflight. Every flight segment requires work on our part to make that jet move. We should get a preflight hour for each leg added to our day, pay no credit, that compensates us for our work time during preflight. 90 minutes for long haul international segments. During delays when we have duties and responsibilities and we should be fairly compensated. The FOM has pilot duties for public relations, diverts, etc, etc and we are volunteers! Getting paid for time we are working is fair and we must figure out how to get paid for the “soft” time as well as the “hard” time. Pay from ready to move may be a strategy we could employ

o Full pay for every minute of training we do:
§ Simulator is 6 hours of work, should be 6 hours of pay
§ Distributed learning, 1 for 1 on run time for quarterly and
initial training
• Restore first part (profit of 0-2.5 billion) of profit sharing back to 15% from the current 10%.

• Compensation based on a normal 75 hour month with automatic premiums for extra work. Normal pay rates for all flying up to 75 hours of credit, then 1 1⁄2 pay for hours from 75-85, double pay after 85. Keep current green slips as well

• Accrual of all frequent stay points at layover and training hotels. We should be executive members at all of our hotels enjoying all of the benefits that other frequent travelers enjoy such as upgraded rooms, happy hour buffets, and complimentary stays when not on company business.

• Increases in night pay and international overrides and creation of holiday pay premiums would be huge gains and largely go unnoticed by most other people

• Establish a greater minimum day credit of 6 hours that applies on a calendar day basis so that whether it’s a 40 hour layover or a deadhead only duty day, if your at work, you get paid 6 hours that day

• The 6 hour min day should also apply to our vacation. A week should be worth 42 hours, and we should establish a vacation presell system in PBS

• Increases in company provided flex credits for purchasing our benefits.

• Establish a cleaning and uniform allowance

• Parking allowance of $500/year for all pilots

• Annual increase in hourly pay of 2% or COLA whichever is greater
If you think these ideas have merit, please pass them on to fellow Delta pilots and CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND TELL THEM TO USE THESE STRATEGIES FOR OUR NEGOTIATIONS!

ALPA can be OUR union if we call our representative and give them direction. Thanks for reading and please PASS IT ON!

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Carl