Originally Posted by
Check Essential
Just a quick comment about "openers" being made public.
Doing that is a recent phenomenon that has been brought about by popular demand. The whole exercise is more about public relations than about negotiations.
There's the actual negotiations and then there's the public "openers".
The two things are nearly unrelated these days.
If either side decides to publish something you can be sure it will be a meaningless document. If you're expecting to see detailed negotiating positions you are going to be deeply disappointed.
ie => DALPA will open for "substantial improvements to pay and benefits".
They're not going to publish numbers.
How well did it work for APA to negotiate in public? That deal may pass because binding arbitration is a wild card, but they did not get what they wanted once they went public. Starting out with public negotiations is any oppositions dream.
DAL pilots like their company. Do you think negotiating publicly will be beneficial for more than feel good intangible result? Kind of like, "Yeah we got a lot less than we asked for but at least D-ALPA has some sort of spine." If anything its harder to negotiate in private with doing so publicly gets more pilots off your back, even if it effects the results.