Originally Posted by
tsquare
I got no problem with restoration. I just am not interested in going down the APA path of folding arms and waiting for DAL to knuckle under and give it to us (which AMR never did btw). I'll take a bite here and there and eventually we'll get there.
The APA situation was completely different than ours. IMO they had the right idea about defining and stating their objective, but their timing was bad and to some extent their execution wasn't great. Their tone was a little over the top too combative. But the biggest factor was that their airline wasn't experiencing anything even remotely like the kind of success Delta was experiencing at the time or is experiencing today.
With the size "bites" we've been taking, we will not eventually "get there." Not in your or my lifetime. So, again... either your objective is restoration or it is not. Here again I see you paying lip service to it but it sure doesn't sound like you really mean it.
Originally Posted by
tsquare
You wanna fight management, and I get that. I really don't. It's not productive, and I'm not going to live long enough to wast what time I have left with stupidity.
Fire away.
The last thing in the world I want to do is fight anybody, especially management. I want us to work hand in hand with management so that Delta can be the best airline on the planet and we can ALL share in the success. Everybody working TOGETHER is the way success happens.
But for that dynamic to work properly, you have to have a situation where one side is not taking advantage of the other. It has to be a mutually respectful relationship. That's not what we have today. We have the appearances of that. But when you cut through all the window dressing, our airline is arguably more successful than it's ever been, our management is being compensated better than they ever have, the other employees have made significant progress towards restoring their pay, and WE (pilots) are being paid as if the company was still on the verge of bankruptcy.
Because DALPA has spent the past 10 years setting the tone and expectations that we are okay with that, it would be a real shock to our management if suddenly we started talking restoration. Management thought they slayed the pilot cost dragon once and for all. And for good reason (thanks to DALPA).
I hope I'm wrong, but I think they are going to fight tooth and nail against restoring our pay. You can't win a fight if you don't engage in the fight. If management really values a mutually respectful relationship as much as we do, then maybe it wouldn't have to be all that big of a fight. In any case, it's all an academic discussion because DALPA won't press to test. Better to pretend you have proactive engagement and pretend you're not being taken advantage of, I guess.
