Originally Posted by
DAL 88 Driver
Maybe in some politically correct namby-pamby world where everyone gets a trophy for participating.
Would that be the world in which we get what we deserve, or what's right, or what we used to get, for no reason other than our boss can afford it or that he recently gave himself a big raise?
Originally Posted by
DAL 88 Driver
But seriously, I really do think that writing off the value of this profession is an extremely misguided and dumb thing to do. And I would bet that anyone looking at it objectively would say that taking the kinds of cuts we took 10 years ago in an emergency, and then spending the next 10 years acting like that's just the new normal, is writing off a significant portion of the value of this profession. The math is pretty cut and dried.
Agreed. And this brings us back to our original and eternal disagreement.
As strongly as we feel about the value of our profession, that value is set by the market, i.e., what someone is willing to pay us for our services and what we are willing to accept to perform them. Clearly, we want to maximize that value to the greatest extent possible, at least to the buying power we had prior to LOA 46, and management would like to minimize that value to the greatest extent possible, or at least minimize its growth.
What I was talking about is the best strategy for us to employ to maximize our value. There are any number of strategies that have been employed by us and other pilot groups, all of whom are in a similar predicament as us. To date, the strategies employed by our reps have resulted in the biggest gains overall, but we're obviously not there yet.
Is there another strategy that might be employed in the coming negotiation that will have more dramatic results? That is the question, and I do not believe that any of us has a clear cut answer to it. You have your opinion, others disagree, and neither of you has any monopoly on the correctness of your opinion, nor any right to declare the other as being misguided or dumb or deliberately working against our collective best interests.